Training allows you to handle challenges

There are so many parallels between endurance training and life. We all face challenges. Successful people aren’t successful because they avoid challenge. They are successful because they can overcome challenges. They can turn challenges into growth and become a better, stronger person because of the challenges.

The key is to train yourself to be able to handle those challenges.

To have faith is to trust yourself in the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do, you will sink and drown. Instead, you relax, and float.” – Alan Watts.

This quote above is another example of this concept of dealing with challenges.

Alan Watts is not an endurance athlete, yet he masterfully draws the parallel between swimming and facing life’s challenges.

To bring this back to endurance sport… we are voluntarily seeking a challenge. For some, that challenge is losing weight. For others it is completing an Ironman. But no matter the challenge, our objective is to train, practice, and get our body and mind ready to face the challenge. To lose that weight. To finish that Ironman.

As we progress through our Iron Lent journey, let us embrace the fact that we have the luxury to voluntarily face challenges. And be grateful that you are able to prepare yourself to overcome those challenges.

The challenges your voluntarily prepare for will equip you with the skills to overcome the challenges you don’t see coming.