"'We all have 2 lives. The second begins when we realize we only have one'.
I have always admired triathletes. After all, swimming, cycling and running is not for everyone. I thought they were machines both physically and mentally and that's why, 9 years ago when I was running 10km, I put it in my head: "I'm going to do an IRONMAN" which is 3.8km swimming, 180km cycling ending with a marathon (42,195km) and all of this in up to 15 hours. In the beginning, highly motivated, I did everything, but the injuries came and the motivation went away where I didn't have the discipline to continue and that's when I reached 120kg...
Working up to 14 hours a day, traveling, moving to another country, financial problems, putting my frustrations into food, drinking, my body simply stopped and, through a depression where I ended up giving up on life, it said "ENOUGH" . That's when my "second life" began.
Contrary to what everyone thinks, it was not a quick process. It was a slow but consistent process. I started by completely eliminating meat from my diet (... which has always been a spiritual goal and I have had to put up with countless jokes and nicknames because of it to this day), I learned to control my consumption of sweets and, little by little, I reduced the amount of alcohol I consumed. momentary happiness, but I was charged a lot for it the next day and I implemented a healthy workload in my work.
I gradually lost weight and saw that I could turn the IRONMAN dream into a goal! I hired a coach who believed in me and a nutritionist and I followed everything to the letter where my goal was to arrive at this test in the best shape of my life, building a beating-proof body and mind and that's what I achieved.
I arrived for the test weighing 74kg, almost 46kg less. The penny just didn't sink in after 2 years of training for that day. Several times during the test I looked back on my journey and cried alone. Remembering everything I went through gave me surreal strength to bear all the pain, always smiling.
With about 1km to go to the finish line I could already hear the people in the stadium screaming... the music... the atmosphere and I simply couldn't believe it at that moment. The crying took over and I couldn't even breathe anymore. After all, I could see that this depressed, overweight and sad guy had turned into an Ironman!
The final message is: enjoy the process, fall in love with the transformation of your body and not with vanity. Fall in love with your mental capacity to maintain yourself within a discipline that makes you a powerful machine to the point of transforming your body and making you a different individual.
Today I'm proud to say that Triathlon saved my life."
