You Were Never Meant to Do This Alone

Originally published in Crow's Feet: Life As We Age on Medium.

How community makes bigger things possible

It took me years to get to the starting line of something I once thought wasn’t for me.

It had more to do with where I was in life than what I was capable of.

It turns out it takes longer than you expect for something out of reach to start feeling possible.

And more often than not, someone is part of that.

Maybe it’s one person who believes in you, a partner who lightens the load so you can focus, or maybe it’s even smaller than that. A book. A podcast. Something someone said in passing that stuck.

After my race this weekend, I’ve been thinking about how I got here. Not just the race, but my path to the finish line.

The beginning

My journey started many years ago in a mucky enclave off the South River in Maryland.

I showed up with a heavy trail bike. It was the second time I had swum in open water. Probably the dirtiest water I’ve ever been in. I wasn’t even sure I liked it.

But something happened that day.

I met two women who have become friends. We kept showing up.

Eventually we moved up to Olympic distance. Our first was a local race with the not-so-friendly jellyfish, and then another in Lake George, New York, that offered a clear and refreshing change of scenery.

At the time, I had no idea I was building anything.

The effort

I watched others train for longer races. The 70.3 Ironman consisting of a 1.2-mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 mile run and the 140.6 Ironman, double the distance.

I saw how much time and effort training required. I tracked them on race day for hours. I remember being amazed at what they were doing, but also holding it at a distance. That was something they did.

I didn’t think of it as something I would do.

Life

Life moves quickly.

The kids got older. Things changed. Some of it in ways I never would have chosen or expected.

And somewhere in that stretch, I met my partner who is also my training partner. He told me, over and over, that I could do a 70.3 Ironman until I finally believed him.

We started training about 18 months ago and haven’t looked back. And truly, I am not sure I would’ve started this earlier. I wasn’t ready the way I am now. In midlife, my relationship with effort, time, and what matters has changed. I think more about how the decisions I make today shape what comes next.

Unexpected spectator

Last month I was at Georgetown University, sitting on a coaching panel at the School of Continuing Studies.

The director asked how training was going. She told me she’d be in Puerto Rico because her husband was racing. She said she would be there cheering, with a very large cowbell.

And she was.

If you’ve never experienced that kind of support deep into something hard, it’s difficult to explain how much it matters but at mile 65, let me tell you, it matters.

Authors photo. Post race support and celebration.

Community

There were also all the smaller moments that stayed with me:

A woman who had completed races all over the world, including twelve full Ironman distances. You wouldn’t have picked her out of a crowd. That’s what struck me.

A basketball coach we met in the laundry room who said he would have called an Uber after the swim.

A man packing up his gear, talking about rearranging his race schedule so he could compete in the inaugural Ironman in Egypt, where he was born.

First-timers who were visibly proud of their achievement.

A spectator who told us he’s racing next year.

And so many others.

The point of it all

The point isn’t the race. It’s that none of this happened in isolation.

At every stage, there were people. Some close. Some brief. Some who probably don’t even realize the role they played.

I’m sharing this to give you a nudge.

If there is something you keep coming back to, whether it feels big or just unfamiliar, start by finding the people who are already doing it. It’s never too late to begin something new, even if it feels out of reach today.

Fight the urge to compare. Just take in the energy.

Proximity changes things. You start to see what’s actually involved and it’s real.

You don’t have to commit to the whole thing.

Just take the first step.

You don’t have to do it on your own.

That’s what matters most.