When I was in graduate school for Public Health, I had an assignment where I had to take a public health problem and fix it. I created a smoking cessation campaign that I called “Try, Try Again”, where I created a commercial that showed tons of public figures that had failed during their first venture of whatever it was that made them famous: Michael Jordan, who was cut from his high school basketball team, Katie Couric, who was fired from her first news anchor position. The gist of my commercial was that to excel at something is hard, so if you fail the first time, you need to try again. I got an “A-” on my project (my professor said there was too much fluff and not enough theory. Whatever).
Very early last Saturday morning I thought about that project for the first time in almost a decade. No, I haven’t taken up smoking. I was about to “Try, Try Again”. A few weeks ago I did a training ride where my Olympic distance triathlon is going to be held. The bike course is 21 miles long, with a portion where the elevation drops 1200 feet over the course of two miles. At the bottom of this steep hill, the rider must make a hairpin turn – and climb right back up those 1200 feet, those steep 2 miles.
When I did the training ride a few weeks ago, I started about 5 minutes before my triathlon partner, Jeff, who is a much faster (read: better) biker than me. He passed me in no time, leaving me to face that hill on my own. And I did. And I failed. I got to the top of the hill and panicked, telling myself before I even got going that I couldn’t do it. As I descended, I had all my weight in my forearms, which quickly cramped up. I engaged the brake on my right handle bar the entire time, so I also cramped up my hand, and throughout it all a wasp was stinging me on my right shoulder – 4 times (though many of my friends have defended the wasp, saying he knew the hairpin turn was coming and was just trying to hang on for dear life). Needless to say, I missed the turn and had to stop short just after it. Then, I couldn’t get my bike going back uphill from a dead stop, so I walked my bike back up the 2 miles and 1200 feet of elevation. It took about 30 minutes, and in that time, “Fat Girl” had a field day inside my own head: “What were you thinking? You can’t do this course! Triathlons are for ATHLETES, Fatso!”
By the time I was done walking up the hill and got to a part flat enough that I could get going again, I had not only quit the triathlon, but had decided that my resignation dinner was going to be held at an all you can eat barbeque restaurant. Jeff finally found me (by finishing the route and then getting in his car and driving to pick me up on the course), and when I told him I’d quit, he quietly suggested I think about it and maybe try the course one more time. I told Peter K of my failures, and he suggested the same thing. My first thought was “No way.” And frankly, so were my second and third thoughts. But after a few days, the aches in my arms subsided, as did the pain and itching from the wasp stings, and I thought maybe the guys were right. If I was going to fail, I at least wanted to go down trying.
Jeff and I met at the course again this past Saturday. I started about 5 minutes ahead of him, and took off. I wanted to see how long it would take Jeff to catch me. I was so focused on going fast that I wasn’t paying attention to any of the other smaller but still difficult hills on the course. Suddenly, my wheels picked up speed. I shifted to my highest gear, but pedaling wasn’t helping me anymore. I was on the hill.
I gave a quick look around in my brain to make sure “Fat Girl” wasn’t there. She wasn’t. Then I just stayed calm and focused on my own breathing (Ok, I also made a quick check that there were no wasps on my shoulder, but then I was all about the breathing). I kept saying “Your arms are strong. You got this.” I stayed in control.
After a couple of minutes I heard something. I thought it might be a car, so I slid over to the right just as Jeff came barreling down past me. As he went by he yelled, “How did you get so far ahead?” I smiled, and then heard something else. Jeff was downshifting his bike. We were at the turn!!! I downshifted, too, and followed Jeff off to the left. Jeff turned around and watched me grin with my whole head as I came around the corner right behind him and started climbing back up.
I have to admit, my euphoria didn’t last long. Nothing like 1200 feet of elevation to knock the happiness right out of you. But, I didn’t stop. I reminded myself of my endless spin classes, leg lunges, miles of terrain I’ve run. I knew my legs were strong, and if I’d stop psyching myself out for 10 minutes I’d get up the damned hill. And I did.
By the time I got back to the parking lot, Jeff had already racked his bike and put his stuff away (and did he change his clothes? Did he really have that much time?). But I didn’t care. I did it. Susan Lucci was nominated for an Emmy 19 times before she won one, Walt Disney was once fired by a newspaper because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas”, and Alison Pollock once couldn’t make the hairpin turn and get back up the 2 mile hill at Harriman State Park. But as one of the world’s greatest graduate school public health projects :-) ever taught me, sometimes you need to just “Try, Try Again”, and then absolutely amaze yourself with the results.
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