Never stop believing

Today, I will steal a sentence from a friend's blog: “Don’t stop believing”. I´ll explain the meaning of this sentence with a personal experience I had in a triathlon.

I traveled to Tarragona to participate in a Double Olympic Triathlon (3 km swim, 90km bike and 20 run). It was a long distance triathlon. The mind is very important to keep going hard during the entire race.

The race started. I ran to jump into the sea to start swimming. I started very fast because I had a good possibility to win the race in my category, to be the champion of Catalonia in the category under-23 in this kind of race.   

Unfortunately, I had two big problems in the water. My swimming glasses where a little broken and the saltwater was damaging my eyes. Also I forgot to put on Vaseline under my neoprene (swimming suit). The vaseline is important to prevent wounds at the armpits. Usually, with just one kilometer there is an important wound.

                                                 Arriving to the bike-boxes april-2012

 

I completed the three kilometers badly. I was the last one of my category. For me, the race was over. I had two bloody wounds on my back because of the neoprene. The salt of the sea helped the painful to be more aggressive. One of my eyes was completely closed. I couldn’t open it.  The race's assitants ask me to leave.

                                                      Getting out from the wáter. April 2012

Ok, It’s done. I can’t ride a bike with blood in my body and just one eye.

I don’t know why but two seconds I would have left the race, my brave part said to me:

“it’s not over, go and get what you deserve. Too much training for nothing? I don’t think so dude. DON’T’ STOP BELIEVING¡”

 I took my bike and ignoring the advice of the people I started cycling. It was incredibly difficult. The pain in to my body didn’t permit to go as fast as I could. The other competitors passed me without difficulty. (We are talking about the last positions).

I can’t answer why, but suddenly, at 10^th kilometer's, the pain disappeared, my eye opened, and I started to go harder on the two wheels. It was incredible. I was going so fast, my muscles where shouting in anger. A good anger, necessary. I overtook a lot of places. Each kilometer was better than the other.

At kilometer 60 I was IN the 3^th position of my category. I passed the others like a missile and           they couldn’t follow me.

On the bike. April 2012

When I arrived to the third part, I leave my bike very quickly. I started to run very fast, as fast as ever. My legs were working perfectly. I didn’t understand it.

5 kilometers before the final line I was in second position, I was tired, but I believed that I could take the first place. Gritting my teeth I started running more and more.

0.5 kilometers before the end of the race, I saw my last competitor in front of me. He was my friend.

 

Let me do a parenthesis. Before the race, we had been speaking about who was going to win and I said to him: “If we met at the last straight, you don’t have anything to do”. He was in agreement.

I stayed near to him and with breathing problems I said:

All in 100 meters. Like we said.
 

Last 100 meters. April 2012

After this I started running with everything I had. I crossed the line in the first position, and I understood better than ever one thing. NEVER STOP BELIEVING.

1st postion. April 2012

Finish what you start. The only way to be somebody.

I have had much time to think during the race, so no detail is missing: At 8:20 I take out my bike of the car, I check it and I go to the square of viladecavalls.

 30 minutes before the start of the race I start to warm up and prepare mentally on the race. "This is yours, you can win in your category".

The whistle sounds, the race begins , I go like an arrow and I take the first place, even I run away from other contestants, there are a lot of distance between me and the second.

 

I just do not understand very well, this is a really important race, it is plenty of professional athletes. It was a matter of time understanding why this leisurely rhythm of the other competitors. At km three begins what many people would think it is climbing, small mountains of three meters with slopes between 60% and 70%, logs and boulders to jump, rivers to cross… it is pure mountain. In those three miles I lose about 20 positions. I arrive to the bike transition pretty tired and with stiff legs; as usual I take the transition with calm.

In the first km of mountain bike, I brake my shift-bike, I can’t continue the race, my bike is broken.

I reach the first checkpoint and I reviewed the bike with some cyclists who did not belong to the race. I cannot do anything to fix the bike, I'd better leave.

 "! What rage I wake early in the morning, I drive 40 minutes to see this shit of village "

 I take out courage of my hart and I decided to continue the next 20 km running with the bike next to me. Assistants of the checkpoint remind me I'm not quite right of my mind.

"Tu no estàs molt bé del cap nanu" (Catalan- “You are mad boy”)

"Well, I'll be last"

The important thing is not to participate, this is a story that told to the kids who do not never win. The important thing is to finish. If you do not finish, you have not participated. (Each one adapts the story to like him better come to it).

Kilometer 7. With apologies, but fuck up all the forest viladecavalls, not excluding even a single tree or a stone. My legs are very stiff, the 5.5 kilometers were roads that would slide a goat and a cow would not pass. A lot of cyclists scream to me because of being too slow (of course I’m going slowly, I’m running with a bike in my back).

I realize that I left my camel back in the transition box, I'm dehydrated and I have no water. This is being so difficult.

Kilometer 10. I begin to see people leaving, usually punctures and ramps in their twins. But there was some joker who put the typical excuse.

"Buah dude, I’m waiting to a friend"

"What’s going on?, I’m injured"

I want to highlight a comment:

“What’s up¡, yesterday I smoke too much”

The gates of heaven open and appear two angels with trumpets, a cyclist have dropped the can of liquid, I drink entirely in 10 seconds, big mistake, then I return the water to the mountain, but with some add more.

 Kilometer 12. Attendees of the race should be telecommunications engineers, I say this because when asked "How long to the third part of the race?", I received the following answers:

Assistant 1: 4 kilometers

Assistant 3 (3 meters from other ): There are 10.

Assistant 4 (500 meters of the others): It depends on how fast you go (this is from NASA)

Assistant 5 (3 meters 4): gogogo you are almost there (this is a liar).

 Kilometer 18. I start dizzying, vomiting, keys and foot injuries, dehydration, muscle completely stiff, very angry... just two kilometers to the last part, I have to do it. It is important to say that I’m the last of the race.

 Kilometer 20. I reach the second part, I have just three kilometers running without the bike.

I left the bike without the helmet, which upsets a assistant (as according to the rules you cannot have unbuckled helmet bike while you're touching your bike).

" Lady please, I am the last, who cares? "

 "Do it what I said now "

 "ouu, because some stone can fall to my head?" I said ironically

 "What a fuck do you thing do you are ? where is your dorsal ? "     (I broke it by the way)

"It must be in your p..."

I start runnin and I ignore what she is shouting. She couldn’t disqualify me because she didn’t have my dorsal number.

 I run the last 3 km with many problems. I pick up my bike and I go home.

 It was a hell, I was the last classified. But nobody would have done what I did; 20 km running with a bike plus 10 without bike just for finish what I started. That’s the only way to be the best.

 

The challeges start, be ready

This is my third blog. Like the others the base is the sports, but now we will see the sports from other point of view: The incredible power of our mind in the sports.

Through the blog we are going to learn how sports teach us how to overcome any difficulty. The things that we learn from the sports are the keys of some of the problems we see every day.

The pain, the desperation and the impotence are just simple misunderstandings of our mind created by complaints from our body.

When all seems to be done, there is our mind to keep us going harder and achieve our objectives, to reach the top.

 

Nothing is easy. The objectives always are difficult to reach them. There is going to be blood, sweat and tears, but this is the only way to be as we really are… YOU MUST BE THE BEST. Can you handle it?

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit however, it lasts forever”