I Got in the Water Anyway

My sons have a thousand reasons why today isn’t the day. They’re tired. They’re not ready. They’ll do it tomorrow. I hear it every single day.

Five years ago, at 43, weighing 237 pounds, I decided to do a triathlon. I learned how to clip into bike pedals one week before the race. My son was in crisis. We were in the middle of a pandemic. I had every rational reason not to do it.

I did it anyway.

Let’s be clear. I had no business being there.

I used to be an athlete. A swimmer in college. A volleyball player. I was a firefighter. I had two sons and still kept my body. Then my back gave out. Surgery. And every time I tried to work out after that, I’d be laid up in bed for a week. So I stopped trying, I worked, mothered, and showed up for everyone else. There was no room left for me in my own life. And when you stop existing for yourself, you stop paying attention. The weight came on slowly, the way it does when you’ve left your own body and haven’t noticed you’re gone. It took a photograph someone else took of me to see what had happened. I didn’t recognize myself. Not in the dramatic, made-for-TV way. In the quiet, nauseating way where you realize you’ve been missing for years and nobody told you because they were too kind or too scared.

I trained for four months, which in triathlon terms is like showing up to med school having watched a few episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. I was only 5 pounds off my highest weight at the end of the training. My back was held together with hope and weekly interventions. The world was falling apart, and the largest size triathlon suit they made barely fit me.

I stood at that starting line next to a woman who looked like she’d been training her whole life. Lean, tan, not an ounce of fat on her. She looked like the person I used to be. And the voice in my head was already going: You don’t belong here. You’re fat. You’re ugly. You don’t deserve to be standing next to her.

My own disdain for myself was greater than anyone else’s could have been. My husband never once called me fat. Never once made me feel unattractive. He loved my body no matter what it looked like. The cruelty was only ever mine.

I got in the water anyway.

The waves were huge, slapping me in the face with every stroke. I couldn’t see the landmarks. I couldn’t see anything. Just water and more water, and the voice in my head screaming: You idiot. Why are you doing this?

I swam off course, added an extra half mile. Got on the bike and my legs ached climbing the hills of San Francisco, praying I didn’t fall off, lungs feeling like they would explode. Missed a turn on the run and tacked on an extra mile because reading signs while oxygen-deprived is hard. My body was screaming. Everything hurt.

I kept going.

Not because I’m some superhuman athlete. Not because I have exceptional willpower. But because I’d made a decision before the race started. Quitting wasn’t an option.

I didn’t decide that at mile three when I was tired. I didn’t decide it on the hill when my legs went dead. I decided it before the gun went off. When quitting isn’t on the table, you stop debating whether to continue. You just figure out how.

I broke it down. You can do anything for 5 minutes. That’s it. Five minutes. Then another five. Then another.

Near the end, climbing a steep sandy hill with two miles left, a woman fell into step beside me. We walked together for a few beats. Then she said it.

“I can’t. I tried.”

I said, “Just five more minutes. You can do anything for five minutes.”

She stopped. Stepped off the course. Walked away.

I watched her go. And for a second, maybe longer than a second, I wanted to follow her. My legs were jello. My back was screaming. Every rational part of my brain was making a very persuasive case for quitting.

But something deeper wouldn’t let me. The same part of me that hated how I looked in that suit was also the part that refused to give up on myself. I would have crawled across that finish line before I quit.

That’s the only difference between us. Not fitness. Not talent. Not weight. She waited until she was on the hill to decide. I decided before I started.

I was one of the last people to cross before they shut it down. Dead last would’ve been more poetic, but second-to-last will do.

I crossed that line red-faced, smelling more disgusting than I have in my entire life. One of my husband’s best friends, equally smelly, had done the race with me. My husband met us for tacos afterward, clean and fresh after a leisurely morning, laughing at the two of us while we demolished margaritas like they were water. Terrible idea when you’re exhausted and dehydrated. But we didn’t care. We’d done it. We were invincible.

And somewhere underneath the sunburn and the margarita haze and the legs that wouldn’t work, something shifted.

Not the big dramatic movie moment you’d expect. Just a quiet thing. I am worthy, and I belong here. Not because I looked like those athletes. Not because I placed well. But because I showed up, hated every second, judged myself the entire time, and still refused to quit.

Then reality hit.

This wasn’t a finish line. This was mile one of a very long race.

That was five years ago. I’m 48 now. The weight loss didn’t start until three years ago. I’ve lost 67 pounds since then. Not through some dramatic transformation. Not through a 12-week program or a miracle supplement. Five minutes at a time. For three years. That’s the actual work. The triathlon was the loud, public version of something I now do quietly every single day.

My sons still make excuses. So do I. So does everyone.

That’s not weakness. That’s human. We are wired to justify our inaction, to build an airtight case for why today isn’t the day. The voice that told me I didn’t belong at that starting line is the same voice that tells all of us we’re the exception. That our situation is different, that the rules don’t apply here.

It’s lying. It’s always lying.

I know because I believed it for 43 years. I believed it at the starting line. I believed it in the water and on the bike and on that hill. And I crossed the finish line anyway, and the voice didn’t stop. It just got quieter. The voice still shows up. I just don’t let it drive anymore.

So I keep saying it. To my sons. To myself on the days the voice is loud.

Do it today so you don’t have to think about it tomorrow.

Not because you’re ready. You won’t be. Nobody ever is.

Because you do it anyway. And that’s enough. That was always enough.