Written largely in the darkness of the night

This is going to be one long post, I finally feel settled enough to gather my thoughts and perhaps put them in a coherent whole. I rarely reread what I’ve written, because I don’t treat this as a diary. Writing helps me think, it helps me sort through the barrage of thoughts that run through my head and helps me find a way out of conundrums.

The holidays are when I feel that I truly learn, strange but true. I’m firm believer that learning takes place outside of school, away from the classrooms, distant from the teachers. I have been throwing myself into a packed schedule of training, and a continuous cycle of reading and learning. I have probably learnt much more about life in the past few days, than over the last two semesters of school.

Training – having a target does wonders. Every day I wake up, thinking of new ways to become a better athlete, not just faster or stronger, but better as a whole. Sport means different things for different people. Triathlon is about pain. It’s about putting your body through pain, and embracing it. People tell me that one of the greatest athletes ever is Muhammad Ali – indeed he is. What makes him great though, varies from person to person. For me, it’s not his prowess in the ring, it’s his willingness to work hard, and behind each trash talk, you know this guy’s for real. Maybe trash talking isn’t even the right word for him, because unlike everyone else, he’s got something to back it up. What I’ve never understood about boxing or other combat sports was the fact that you put your pain and suffering in other people’s hands. Your opponent dictates the pace, he dictates your pain. Triathlon is different – you dictate your own pain. Day in day out, you choose the amount of pain you want to go through and then you embrace it. Not because someone handed it to you, but because you choose to take it.

I went for a long ride yesterday, a break from my usual schedule, but that was because 4 of the strongest guys on the team were riding, there’s no way I was going to pass the chance to put in a hard ride. There was no way that I could keep up with them, but the very thought of getting dropped kept me pushing. It’s rides like that, that teach you a lot about yourself, when you’re willing to hurt and when you should hold back. I push through the hills and descents, catching the guys each time they leave me behind on the flats. I wasn’t as powerful as them, but I was faster and lighter on the hills. I didn’t have a power output like them, but I could keep going much further than any of them. This morning I ran hard, harder than I’ve ever done in a while. I was spent, but decided that I was going to put myself through some pain, and ran hill repeats over and over in the rain. People holding umbrellas passed me and stared. Kids in their raincoats looked on. I just kept running. Home, – eat – rest – head for a swim. 3km of drills later, my arms are giving way. More to come, tomorrow morning.

I know what I’m willing to do to achieve my goals, but I don’t know the limits of my body, so I keep pushing. I hope I never find the limit, because I’d like to think that it’s limitless. I remember my coach once telling me that it’s better to be the hunter than to be the hunted. I used to take his word for it and believed it for a while. At every race, I would wait, patiently. Till it was time for me to move up and make a dash for the finish. But I realised that it wasn’t the best way. Perhaps as a strategy to win, it was. But if you do sports because you want to challenge yourself and you want to be a better person, then it’s the worst strategy ever. Being the hunter or the predator gives you an excuse, when a predator doesn’t catch its prey, it can always come back another day. But the prey only has one chance, either it gets away, or it dies. So I’ve learnt – no excuses, I give it my all at every stage of the race. I push the bike as hard as I can. People tell me that’s dumb, because I’m not strong on the run, and it would mean that I was simply losing time during the last leg. To me, that’s just an excuse. People who race this way are driven by fear. Fear of being chased, fear of being passed. You can identify this people easily, they break and fall apart the moment someone passes them.

I sometimes wonder whether it’s this over-competitive part of me that keeps me going. Or was it something else. 2 years into the sport, and I still have no idea. Perhaps I like the challenge, I like the hard work that one has to put in. Many claim that they are willing to work hard, some do, some don’t. Those around me think I have it all – decent academic results and balancing I sport that I truly enjoy. What many don’t see, is the work that goes into it. I know how it’s like to have to claw your way to the top – because I’ve done it all my life.

As I prepared for the exams, I was mentally exhausted and started looking back on how far I’ve come. I realised that every step of the my academic life was a battle to the top. I did decently in primary school, and got myself into a god secondary school. But I barely made the cut-off mark. Everyone had scores much better than me, and after one year, I realised I needed to put in the hard work. And so I did. It took me one entire year of getting my foundations right, I could afford to cruise in my last year and made it to the top of the cohort, after starting at the bottom. The brilliant way in which our education system works, meant that when I got to JC, everyone else there was the top of the cohort in their own schools. Again, I had to fight my way to the top. It was harder this time; I was taking subjects that I had no interest in and some that I even hated. It was a brutal claw to the top, no happiness or joy when the exam results were released, just a huge sigh of relief, that I made it to the top. Now here I am, in law school. Where once again, our education system has ensured that the very best academic minds gather (I hesitate to say smart, because I always draw a  line between being academically-inclined and truly smart). The past few semesters have been tough, round after round of fighting, but I finally feel like I’m gaining a foothold. But the climb only gets harder, as every good mountaineer would tell you. More challenges, more hurdles. Next semester is going to be tough. School and triathlon both demand a huge amount of time, and pain. But the only way to deal with pain is to embrace it, and the “holidays” is when you build a base. You put yourself through a load that’s higher than you would face, you build a strong base and put it to the test when the term starts. If you have a base strong enough, it’ll take you through. Otherwise, you would be the victim of your own choices. You control your own pain.