The Campbell Academy Blog (77)

Character shift

So, just another little one that references a little bit to yesterday's blog about nowhere.

As I was sat there watching the guys rack their bikes at the Outlaw half triathlon basically in the middle of the night, as I watched people jog down in their wetsuits to the start line, nervous, wondering if their training was going to pay off wondering what the next four or five or six hours would be like and what they would be like at the end.

Even after I stood there as people crossed the line and came up the stairs with their medals and their T-shirts and their big glasses of alcohol-free beer that the Outlaw is now famous for, I never wished for a minute that it was me.

That's the first time that's happened to me in all the times I've been there.

I've been there as an athlete doing the whole thing and the half thing. I've been there for countless relay events, and I've been there other times just to watch and support, but all of the time, there were people who I wished I was or people that I wished I could be.

Sunday was the first time I didn't wish for any of that.

Sunday was the first time I could celebrate other people's achievements without being sad that it wasn't me doing that or me doing it.

I was able to watch people come across the line with their family or their friends or their children and not feel that I had to do that at all.

Maybe it's because I've done some of this before, maybe it's because I'm old, or perhaps it's just because my life has moved on to different places or things.

I always described myself as a would-be Triathlete.

I think yesterday I became a former, would-be Triathlete.