I: Iron Girl Women's Triathlon

4/11/11

I: Iron Girl Women's Triathlon

I'm also late posting this.

You know the days when you feel tired, run down, stretched thin? Today was one of those, where even a short blog seemed like one more item on my too-long to-do list. I don't remember feeling this way ten years ago. I felt like I could do anything ten years ago.

That might go away when people hit their early twenties. Or at least, that's what I was thinking today until I realized that it's not 100% true. One of the last times I felt like I could do anything? Well, that was when I finished my first Iron Girl.

For serious.

Iron Girl is a sprint triathlon - 0.62 mile swim, 17.5 mile bike, 3.3 mile run - held each August in Columbia. It's a huge event, 2200+ women, many of which are first time triathletes. The race sells out in hours, and brings tons of attention and interest to HoCo. And HoCo does (IMO) a good job of dealing with the people traffic.

So why did Iron Girl affect me so much? I mean, there are other events I could have attempted... maybe... not.

Well, a few reasons.

The biggest? It was a significant "I want to do this... I can do this!" moment.

The event is just so supportive and awesome. Everyone smiles. Women cheer each other along on the course. This was an excellent introduction to the tri community.

There are many inspirational stories out there.

I knew so many people doing the race, it was cool to share that with them.

When I finished, I felt good. I felt happy. I felt like I wanted to do more. Oh yeah, and I wanted to eat a whole cheese pizza.

And even though I was feeling kind of down and out today, thinking of the years I've done Iron Girl, and how good it felt to type "I AM AN IRONGIRL" as my status a few years ago... I got a little bit of that back. I remembered the experience, I took a breath, I found some perspective.

That's a powerful thing, and a cool one, when an experience stays with you for so long. And it's why events like Iron Girl are so important, because they challenge people to push their comfort zone and change their lifestyle in a way that brings them into a community. In a way that makes them feel welcome.

So this post is for Iron Girl. It's also for I can do it. So can you.