The First Buoy
That’s me in the middle there (spot the watch and farmer tan), less than two minutes away from That Moment
Sunday, December 13, 2020
_______________________________
First Leg:
The wave sets had been forecast for one-and-a-half foot swells. Instead, they were over five feet, like rolling walls of water that would prevent anything from getting past them.
But past them was exactly where I had to go.
“Well…shit,” the contestant next to me said with a wry grin as he pulled his goggles down over his swim cap and tugged at his wetsuit one more time. “This is going to suck way more than I thought.” Then he laughed.
I did not.
What he’d said was exactly what I did NOT want to hear just before I was to compete in my first triathlon.
I was already scared enough.
Not of the numbers involved in the Olympic distance race – a one-mile ocean swim, twenty-five mile bike ride, and a 10k run – but of actually finishing it. It wasn’t that I was out of shape – I was actually in the best shape of my life, because I had trained for a year for this very moment. No, the fear was of my history of not finishing things I’d started because they got difficult, or boring, or because I lacked the courage to push myself to new levels. I’d often cut corners when things got tough, or pretend I’d done all I could to prepare.
Pick any part of my life at the time or prior – any – and I could name a dozen specific examples.
Granted, there were exceptions, but in the summer of 2011, I was coming off quite the string of failures in every part of my life, the result of years of self-destructive behavior. I was desperate to get it under control, but even more desperate to keep it hidden from everyone who cared about me out of shame, regret, and fear that I would lose even more if I talked about it. I was a wounded, sick tiger attacking its own tail.
So for some reason, despite doing everything I’d needed to do to prepare for the race, I feared deep down that I didn’t have the toughness or the confidence to keep going once my body began to hurt and begged me to stop.
So, standing there on the beach at Oxnard, California, at 7:15 in the morning getting ready to dive into an angry ocean that intimidated me to say the least, the last thing I needed to hear was experienced triathletes say it was going be hard for them.
I might’ve given up right then had not my friend Ingrid, the person responsible for challenging me to do this nutso thing in the first place, come up and whacked me on the shoulder — she was competing in the race herself in a heat leaving ahead of mine.
“Hey,” she said with that gigantic playful grin of hers, “Remember that no one fakes their way to the starting line. You worked your ass off to get here. For an entire year. Go have fun, and I’ll see you at the end. Let’s go!”
I didn’t fake my way here.
She was right - I hadn’t. That felt good, and also quite novel. I was used to always feeling like I was faking it – happiness, expertise, integrity, moral clarity, temperance, self-control, you name it. So the fact that I had spent a year channeling my energy – once spent mostly on self-destruction – into training was itself a victory, no matter what happened once I hit the water.
But still, I wasn’t excited about the possibility of not finishing the race; in fact, I was more worried about that than I was excited. And that fact bothered me.
Staring out at the surf, watching each successive heat group break into a run at the sound of the go-horn, I wondered what to do with the bundle of nerves and emotions packed inside of me. My own heat was about to start, and I needed to do something about how I was feeling or give it up altogether.
I decided to split the difference. I figured it might help to vocalize what I was feeling, so I spoke aloud for myself as much as to God. This was a new thing I had started a few months before, and it helped in times of stress – which were constant. On that beach north of Los Angeles, it came out this way:
“I know myself well enough to know that, at some point in this race, I am going to want to quit when it gets too hard. Please help me see that moment when it arrives, and give me what I need to push through it.”
I had about five seconds to reflect on those words before my own go-horn sounded. I ran downhill through the wet sand towards the waterline, hoping the fatigue I knew was coming wouldn’t cloud my ability to see That Moment.
I had no idea it would arrive ninety seconds later.
*************
Second Leg:
Training for a triathlon is a process of daily discipline to push oneself beyond previous limits, and regular acceptance that some days you just can’t get past them. It’s paradoxical, and thus a lot like life that way, I learned during my year of training. Most of the 350 days between when I took the challenge to train and when I hit the water off Oxnard, I did some combination of swimming, biking, and running. In the Pennsylvania winter months, those were all done indoors in lap pools, on spinning bikes, and on treadmills. It wasn’t ideal for a triathlon taking place on a southern California beach, but it was certainly better than nothing.
And, that year at least, I needed to focus on something to keep me out of trouble, to help me heal from my catastrophically self-destructive behavior – some of which I was still struggling to admit to others and give up. The details aren’t really important – there is a big boundary between transparency and privacy, after all – but it’s enough to say that I had, for a long time, known what I was doing to harm myself but couldn’t explain why I kept doing it. I was out of control and, after years of hiding, things were starting to come apart. And it scared me to death – I didn’t want to lose all I had, which was a lot.
For a shell of a man desperate to change but far more concerned with saving face than with saving his own ass, training for a triathlon seemed like a great way to channel all the negative energy into something positive, into something that would help me instead of poison me.
The year before I hit the water at Oxnard, I was spending about a month of my 2010 summer in Long Beach, CA, taking refuge with my close friend, Seth, and his family after what had been an awful year. I’d lost relationships and my home due to my own insanity, and I “white-knuckled” through each day, trying to not do the self-destructive things that had become bad habits with even worse consequences. At that point, I lost that fight more days than I won it, and I kept all of it secret anyways. So escaping to a place where I felt safe and didn’t do those hurtful things to myself and others was ideal.
Ingrid was a close friend of Seth’s wife, Jill, and was living with them at the time. She told me about the triathlons she was training for in the wake of the death of her beloved nephew, Nolan, to cancer earlier that year - just two days before his sixth birthday. It had crushed her, and it continued to tear her wide open – she couldn’t talk about him without falling apart – even in front of a relative stranger like me. And yet, she was channeling that grief and frustration into doing something positive for herself; she wasn’t wallowing or self-destructing like I was. That mystified me, but also inspired me. I wanted to know what it was like to let myself be Known and Seen like that while doing something good for myself. So when she mentioned that training for a triathlon might help me cope and carve out a better path going forward, I jumped right in. I wanted to do something new, and I knew it needed to be difficult and outside anything I’d considered before.
So as soon as I left California, I began training. I threw myself into it. After the first couple of weeks, I began to actually enjoy it. The endorphins it gave me helped me stay grounded and reduced my life anxiety; it gave me something to focus on when times felt really tough, when my loneliness and morbid self-reflection and regrets threatened to overwhelm me. And I loved how it felt to add miles to my practice log – a mile swim here, a burst of 40 miles on the bike there. By the time I’d finished my year of training, I’d swum over 150 miles, ridden over 3000, and run over 300. So physically, I was beyond ready – though I still did not know the degree to which I would be able to push myself on race day. That could only be found out one way, in one place – on race day on the beach.
When summer arrived, I shipped all my gear to California, including my racing bike. Triathlon is an expensive sport in terms of equipment, apparel, and costs of races, so it had been a planned-for investment all year. I flew out to California a couple of weeks before the race and did some last minute training there, including a few swims in Long Beach harbor to (sorta) get used to the cold and to confront my irrational fear of being attacked by something (read: Jaws) in the water.
When race weekend arrived, my fear of not finishing steadily took me over. I’d invested so much, and didn’t want to quit when things got tough. I shared my misgivings with Ingrid – actually, I kinda barfed them all over her metaphorical shoes. She reassured me that what I was feeling was valid and mixed with First-Ever-Triathlon-Jitters, but also shrugged and repeated what had been Nolan’s go-to phrase at play, which had by then become her own mantra – “Let’s go!”
I tried to keep her words in mind when I woke bright and early on race day – 4:30 AM – and on the drive to the beach, and while I set up my stuff in the transition area. But by the time I was standing at the starting line – despite not faking my way there – I had lost connection again with everything except my fear. I offered up my desperate prayer, the last idea I had left.
The go-horn blared, and I ran straight towards my fear. It was all I could do, really.
Let’s go, indeed.
******************
Third Leg:
Things went sideways immediately. After a year of doing laps in covered pools, I was unprepared for the power of the waves, current, and freezing cold of Pacific seawater. It numbed my arms and legs within seconds, making it feel like I was trying to swim and kick through icy sludge. My breathing shallowed from the cold as I tried to do my training strokes over the breaking waves. Each one threw me backward, washing me with another blast of cold and filling my nose and mouth with water. Coughing followed, compounding my difficulties breathing, which only unnerved me further.
As did the swarm of people around me, another big difference from mere lap swim training. Though I knew to expect it, I wasn’t prepared at all for the times I got accidentally kicked, hit, run into, battered and bruised by my fellow competitors.
Within seconds, my year of pool training went out the window. Everything I’d worked on for hours – my technique, my calm, my plan – failed me when reality hit. That realization brought me to the verge of panic.
I was freezing up and shutting down. I couldn’t catch my breath. I was crowded by so many other people. And I was making no headway towards my goal – the giant yellow buoy about one-hundred yards offshore that marked the first turn on the course. I had to get there, then turn right and swim parallel to the beach for nearly a mile between more buoys before again turning back to the beach.
But that First Buoy just wasn’t getting any closer.
And I wasn’t getting any calmer. The very thing I most feared – giving up, failure, the horrible self-talk that I’d been hearing and believing since I was a kid that told me I was weak and cowardly – all assaulted me in that churning surf. What ended up attacking me in the water was me.
In little over a minute, it all became too much. Panic began in the base of my spine and rose up to seize my chest. I bobbed in the water, unable to go forward but unwilling to go back.
And I wasn’t the only one who noticed. About fifty feet ahead of me off to the side of the course sat one of the dozens of lifeguards on duty in the water that morning. She sat astride her paddleboard, ready to jump into the swimming lanes to help anyone who called for attention or was in crisis.
And she was looking only at me.
I could tell from her expression that she was about to intervene, and I loathed myself that my internal distress was so externally evident. The idea of being rescued, and thus disqualified just seconds into a race I’d trained a year for, filled me with horror.
After all that time training.
After hours in pools, on bikes, and learning to run without being chased.
After the worst years of my life.
After making this the ONE thing I would accomplish to help me feel good about myself again, even for just a day.
After all that, it would be for nothing? Wiped out in less than two minutes?
I’m going to fail again?
And then it happened. What I’d asked for. The answer I’d always wanted to hear but hadn’t, and wouldn’t have believed anyways. Not until right then.
No, I will not quit.
I saw That Moment arrive – I wanted to quit before I was rescued. To stave off the shame that things had not gone according to plan and I didn’t know how to cope.
Except that I suddenly did know, maybe for the first time in my life.
I knew what NOT to do – quit – and also what TO do.
Improvise. Go one step at a time. It doesn’t have to look pretty or go according to plan.
The realization hit me so hard that I laughed as I spit out a mouthful of ocean. And then, to my surprise and everlasting delight, something else happened.
I got mad. Furious.
Not at myself, but at The Moment. The fear. The predictability. The years of practice I’d given myself in quitting or cutting corners. The habit of self-defeat.
And it coalesced in less time than it takes to read this sentence.
It gave me what I needed – a prayer answered from inside of myself, from a depth of strength I’d always had but had never accessed.
It came out of me as an out-loud declaration which signaled the lifeguard that I did not need saving:
“I’m not fucking failing before I reach the first fucking buoy. I can fucking drown when I fucking get there if I want, but not fucking before.”
For the first time ever, I mattered to myself - enough to shout multiple F-bombs in my own defense.
It was like being charged with electrical current, or like Popeye after downing canned spinach.
I knew what to do, and unlike the waters around me, it was clear. Calm. Focused.
And Ready.
I dove under the waves.
If the surface waves are brutal and full of people, get under all of it and swim forward.
Like I’d done countless times as a kid living in Hawaii, I swam forwards underwater, seeing how long I could hold my breath before I came up for air.
More improvisation followed.
When you come up for air, you might run into a swimmer, so turn on your back just before you surface so you can see above you.
I did that cycle several times, breaching the surface long enough for a gulp of air and a quick glimpse forward towards the buoy to keep myself oriented. The entire time, my new mantra repeated on a loop in my head.
Not before the first fucking buoy. Not before the first fucking buoy.
I’d thrown all technique away for the moment, but doing so helped me engage the strength and determination I’d built over the previous year. And that made all the difference.
Each time I surfaced, the First Buoy was closer. Each time I saw it, the mantra grew louder and my angry smile grew wider. I had my goal, but I was making up how to get there from moment to moment.
Then, suddenly, I was there. I reached out and slapped the thing with a shout of triumph. And another shout followed from not-so-far-away; it was the lifeguard, whooping and clapping her hands above her head, and shouting “Now keep going!”
Let’s go!
I’d reached the First Buoy, and I knew I wasn’t going to drown there. Or quit.
The Moment had Come and Gone. I’d moved past it.
What was ahead of me as I turned right past the First Buoy? The Second Buoy marking part of the course parallel to the beach. Beyond that? The Third Buoy, then the Fourth.
One at a time. Like you just did.
I plunged forward. Spacing between swimmers had opened up, so I returned to my surface freestyle stroke, reconnecting with my training. The wave swells were still brutal, but I adjusted to the fact that if I turned my face oceanward for air I’d swallow water, so I turned my head to the right to face the beach.
It helped orient me.
Other realizations followed. You’re in a buoyant wetsuit – it won’t let you sink. Keep the beach to your right, the Second Buoy ahead. Take your time. If you need to stop and rest, then do it. It doesn’t have to be pretty.
I also knew that the hardest part of the race was over for me. The start…the rest I’d go after with whatever I had. I’d eventually get to the end.
By the time I was halfway to the Third Buoy, I was having the time of my life. I was excited and motivated and focused. I knew I was well behind the leaders, but my goal had never been to win. Or even to do “well.”
It was to finish. That’s all. Just finish. But it had taken That Moment and all that led up to it to remind me of that. Once I saw my purpose again, the fear took a seat so far behind me it might as well have been in the trunk or left on the side of the highway.
I ended up with a decent time on the swim leg, and as I ran towards the transition area to get my bike – my strongest leg of the three – I knew I was back in business. I made up some ground on the ride through the strawberry and onion fields of Oxnard, cars driving and honking horns in support alongside the shouts from onlookers camped along the course. I’d never felt more supported on anything in my life.
The transition from the ride to the run was brutal, as my legs seemed to forget how to move forward after just pumping up and down for an hour in the bike saddle. My arms ached from the swim and from the leverage on the handlebars during the ride, so within a mile or so of the run every part of me was feeling it. The morning chill had long since faded, and the sun was bright and beyond warm; midway through the 10k, it was sweltering. My legs loosened up in time for my body to sap energy out onto the pavement, and I rehydrated at every stop along the course, walking when my mild jog got too difficult.
And I honestly didn’t care. Each pedal push on the bike, each step I took on the run, got me closer to finishing. And I didn’t want to finish to stop the torture; I wanted to finish because I wanted to complete the race, to do what I’d trained to do, to accomplish what I’d prepared for and hoped for.
My last push approached with about a mile remaining. I was walking, sweating profusely, tired beyond belief. Ahead of me, most of the contestants were well into their post-race celebrations. Even the onlookers along the course were packing up. I waved to a few as I walked for a stretch, preparing myself for that final run to the finish, when I’d hear my name get called out for people to cheer as I crossed the finish line, where I’d get a race medal put around my neck.
But wow, was I tired. I was tentative in pushing myself beyond a certain point, not wanting to “bonk” out and not be able to finish. So I played it conservatively. I wasn’t excited about that, but I wanted to make sure I’d finish.
I moved past a gigantic man sitting in a beach chair alongside the course, a tall boy of Miller Lite clasped in one giant paw (it was only 9:30 am) and several empties at his side. We made eye contact and he hoisted his beer in salute.
“I’m bringing up the rear, I think,” I said to him. He shrugged and laughed and gave me the reply I needed:
“You’re doing a hell of a lot more right now than I, or most everyone else around here, will do all day, buddy.”
What a perfect coda to my race, and what would become an even more important reminder in the days to come. Thanks, Early Morning Tall Boy For Breakfast Guy.
I ran the last mile in, head up and smiling. I crossed the finish line not caring about my overall time (still don’t remember it), nor about the fact that I finished 390th out of 400 participants. Everyone cheered as they announced my name as I crossed, and Ingrid was there waiting for me, whooping like a crazy person. While downing half a dozen bottles of coconut water, I laughed and cried and kept looking at the small medal around my neck. I had no words, and I didn’t really need them.
While I was finally packing up, I talked with a couple who’d finished the race long before me. They were both Ironman coaches, so this race had been a relative walk in the park for them (just for contrast, an Ironman race is a 2.4 mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a marathon at the end – 26.2 miles). They congratulated me on finishing my first race, and when they heard that my second race was just two weeks away up in Sonoma, CA, an “aquabike” race where I’d do a 1.2 mile swim and a 56 mile bike ride through hilly wine country, they both looked at me wide-eyed, somehow…impressed? I didn’t get it. Then the guy said,
“So let me get this straight – you did an Olympic distance race as your first triathlon, in five foot swells that crush even seasoned racers, finished it in 90 degree heat after training in pools and gyms on the other side of the country, and your next race is in two weeks at the half-ironman aquabike level?”
I nodded, still confused. He shook his head and clapped me on the shoulder.
“No one does that when they start doing triathlons. No one. That makes you a Beast, my friend. A Beast.”
A Beast?
It remains one of the greatest compliments of my life.
*******************
The Next Race:
If the story ended there, it would be a nice little tie off. But that isn’t the case.
Little did I know on that beach in Oxnard how much disaster was on my horizon. Six months later, the consequences of my past actions – my self-destructiveness and the secrecy – all finally came together to strip away my remaining façades. My entire life completely crashed down around me. Had it happened before race day, I might not have survived it. I’m serious. But because of that race, I knew differently despite all the shame and pain.
What I really faced was not the end of my life, but a new First Buoy.
Which meant I knew what to do.
I experienced a new That Moment – one that told me it was time to stop hiding and to get help, to not drown before I got to the First Fucking Buoy. I shipped the remnants of my wrecked life to Seattle, where my parents and the help I’d long needed awaited me. I ran into the cold and pounding surf of rehab and long-term therapy and recovery, knowing it didn’t have to be pretty to be effective. Knowing that, at times, I’d just have to do what I had to do to reach the First Buoy.
Then, when I’d done that, I’d move on to the Second. And so on.
As I’d experienced on race day, I knew I could do One Buoy At A Time. It didn’t matter what “place” I came in, because what really mattered was that I was competing. I was doing it. The point wasn’t to win, or place, or even (in this case), “finish.” It was simply to do the race.
Because the alternative was drowning. Or floating away on the tide. Or having someone scoop me out and have to start all over again with an even more shattered sense of self.
I’d had enough of that. I’d had enough of that old me. My triathlon training – physically, mentally, and emotionally - had given me the preparation and experiences I needed to face the truly terrifying race that I’d not even known I was also training for. It was preparing me to build a new life, free of all I had done and all the pain that followed in its wake. I didn’t know that new life was coming. The triathlon had shown me a glimpse of what was possible, then a few months later I was given the Real Deal.
Funny how God works.
When I got to Seattle, I hit the water hard.
I entered an outpatient rehab program and began the long process of not only facing my past and changing my behavior, but also learning for the first time who I really was, then crafting a new life that honored that. It took me a while to learn to love who I saw in the mirror and forgive the old versions of myself. It was messy at first, the path to the First Buoy.
There were other “swimmers” with me, too, though now I could see that they were all in the same place as me. We looked out for each other, so there was no need for lifeguards – we wouldn’t let each other drown. We celebrated reaching our various buoys along the way, and even learned how to have fun with it.
There were other Ingrids, too, who’d done “races” of rebuilding before, who knew what to say to me and when, because they’d been there before. They’d had their own sufferings, their own moments of deciding between sink or swim. They all had their mantras that kept them going to their Next Buoy.
Training to do Life on Life’s Terms is paradoxical – we learn to push beyond our pasts and present fears, while honoring and forgiving ourselves when we can’t. What we can learn to do for ourselves, we can then support others in doing for themselves, even if it isn’t pretty and doesn’t look like how I or you do it.
And in that, we discover the true definitions and experiences of things like Love, Connection, Forgiveness, Acceptance, Peace, and true Freedom.
You know...little things. Things that before that first race day, I never believed I could ever know. But now I know them all – I live them all every day. And yes, it’s as wonderful as it sounds, even when it isn’t pretty.
It would be easy to say that my first triathlon, or God, saved my life – and those wouldn’t be incorrect. But the truth is they just pointed the way for me. I had to do the race, and I still do it daily.
I still go after just the First Buoy.
By doing that, I am doing a hell of a lot more than many other people are that day.
And that makes me a Beast.
Anyone can have all that, can do all that, can be all that. And you don’t have to be a train wreck like I was before you do.
Just focus on that First Buoy, whatever it is. It’s all that matters at any moment. Especially That Moment.
You ready?
Well then, “Let’s go!”
___________________________
If you are now considering doing triathlons, you’re crazy and should just embrace that. To get some inspiration that goes just beyond the physical health elements, check out Mike Reilly’s Finding My Voice and Rob Cummins’ Chasing Kona. For the best ways to start and regulate training - and not overdo it - see this and this. If you’re looking to talk yourself out of it - or someone else - try this and this.
But seriously - you should do one. You’ll feel like your favorite superhero afterwards.
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Thanks for reading My Sunday Post. Here are important updates on some other parts of my week:
Soul Book of the Week: Awareness by Anthony De Mello
Book On My Nightstand: The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Best Show I Watched: Fargo – Season 2 (Not for the squeamish, but dayuuum it’s good)
Best Food I Cooked: Spicy lime cilantro steak strips with garlic rice
Strongest Ear Worm Song: “This is the Sea” by The Waterboys
Most Fun Moment of the Week: Doing Stacy Heller’s radio show / podcast
Longest Run / Ride of the Week: 8-mile run and 25-mile ride (Sunday)
Weirdest Voicemail of the Week: Wrong number from guy making his one phone call from jail
Coolest Thing I Saw This Week: Bald eagle pulling a giant fish out of Lake Washington
Biggest Laugh of the Week: The Match dating app ad where Satan meets 2020
