So, today is my first ’triathlon’. In quotes bc it’s an indoor triathlon, based on time, not distance. Wtf am I doing? I’m a far girl, I’m not an athlete! Swimming makes me nauseous! What if I’m too sick to bike and run? My heart is pounding, I’m nauseous already. What if I’m late? What if I’m riding the bike soaked? What if I can’t run, and end up walking the whole last part? And my friends, my lovely, sporty, thin friends… killing it while I’m barely moving forward. What if I injure something?

And I survived! A grueling play by play: swimming, I made it 100 meters freestyle before flipping to backstroke. But by alternating between the two, I kept moving the whole time, I didn’t get nauseous, and I didn’t drown. There was a period in the middle doing backstroke where I got a good sinus rinse and thought I was going down, but I tilted my head up for a minute and kept going.

And then the cycling. I barely made it to the bike, even with just a light toweling off and throwing shorts on over my swimsuit. My clothes were immediately soaked, and my body was already slightly fatigued from the swim. In practice I can take as long as I need to before I go on to the next thing. Here it was five minutes, which was much trickier. My legs felt like lead, the bike was set at 12 resistance, and halfway through I wasn’t sure how this was going to go. But I kept telling myself, just keep moving forward.

By the time I got to the running I thought, this is not happening. I started out walking. But then my mind started messing with me, my body recovered, and I thought, let’s try to run a bit. I ended up half running/half walking and finished shakey but feeling great. I felt naseous and exhilarated and empowered. And I wanted to do it again.