2022 Season Recap

2022 theme: Seeking change

For much of my life, I hated change. I feared failure and I did not like stepping out of my comfort zone. For the past 16 years, I've lived with someone who loves adventure. Karel has helped me become much more courageous when it comes to new or different experiences. With Karel leading the way in most of our adventures, it has forced me to understand (and work through) that paralyzing moment of anxiety, stress and worry when things are out of my control. Because fear has the power of stopping us from making the most out of opportunities, I realized (with time) that being courageous means making the choice to get more out of my one and only life.

It’s easy to avoid things that feel hard, uncomfortable and different. But this mindset means we never learn how to stretch our comfort zone. For many years, I was scared of failure. But I learned that I was robbing myself of great opportunities and meaningful experiences by shying away from difficulty.

Learning to be comfortable with discomfort is an important skill to living a truly fulfilling life.
Over the past 12 months, I've taken on three new sports - gravel biking, trail running and mountain biking. Whereas in half and full distance triathlon racing, the experience is very familiar and routine for me, I've been filled with curiosity with each new sport.

Over the past 16 years of endurance triathlon racing, I've become good at racing. However, it wasn't always this way. If I only look at results, I won my age group at my first Ironman in 2007 (18-24 age group at IMFL) and did not win my age group again until 2017 (35-39 age group at Chattanooga). Since 2017, I've won my age group at an Ironman 4 times, placed 2nd and raced in my 5th and 6th Ironman World Championship. I guess you could say that it took me ten years to become an overnight success.

I love the sport of triathlon because I love to swim, bike and run. I also love what triathlon has given me - a job, a reason to travel, friends from all over the world, and a way to help others step outside their comfort zone. Triathlon gives me focus and purpose. It's part of who I am.

Although I can put myself into 'autopilot' mode when it comes to swimbikerun over 70.3 or 140.6 miles, I can't tell you how many times I've freaked out, fallen and struggled with trail running, gravel riding and mountain biking.
Instead of knowing, I am growing.

In 2022, I did a lot of things for the first time. From participating in a mountain bike event to climbing mountains in the Alps of France, 2022 was a year of seeking change. New experiences. New possibilities. New goals. New limits.

January