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Old 02-06-2008, 01:24 PM   #1 (permalink)
sg516
Without ME its just AWESO
 
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: MD
Posts: 476
Default epiphany: why i do this.

last night i was swimming with my training group. it wasn't a particularly hard swim i did maybe 1600 yards not counting the warm up and warm down. but at one point i was struggling really bad. i felt like i had nothing left. and the thought went through my head "i'm dying out here" and thats when it hit me.

i am doing the triathlon to raise money for the leukemia and lymphoma society. so what hit me in the middle of swimming that lap was that the people i am doing this for actually are dying. that tommorrow i will wake up sore but many of them might not wake up at all if i don't keep fighting to finish. no matter how tired i am there has to be some more left in the tank bc i am still alive. if these people can fight to hang on and go through the hell of their treatment and their suffering than i can hang on and go through the hell and suffering of the training.

i had an aunt that dided of leukemia when she was in her late 30's. hell of a woman. way too young to die. she left a husband and two kids. i never did get to say goodbye to her. anyway, it turns out that soon after she died a treatment was found that they speculate would have had tremendous results for her particular type of cancer. i think of all the people out there that benefitted from that treatment afterwards, how many people didn't have to lose their mom or their wife, or their aunt. so this is why i do this. the fund raising is my way of helping. the training is my way of connecting with the struggle.
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Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad.
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