I’ve been
teased. I’ve been mocked. I’ve been laughed at. Indeed, I love to watch the
cartoon, “Bob’s Burgers!” And I’ll tell you why. It’s simple. In such a complex
world, is it really that bizarre to crave a little simplicity?! It’s simple and
it’s funny, enjoyable entertainment. What you see is what you get. Nothing
more, nothing less. Sometimes it would be nice if life was a little like Bob’s
Burgers. The last few months have been challenging. Life has been far from
simple. Not much has made sense…. Until finally (spoiler alert) last Sunday, at
a 5150 Triathlon in France, something uncomplicated and “good” happened.
The months
of March to May were marred by illness for me. Gastro ended my day early in
Mooloolaba. I never get gastro. It was odd. And then a nasty flu (complete with
vertigo, dizziness, headaches and ultimately, on returning to Australia, a
complete inability to stand up) ended my day early in the Philippines. In between these mishaps, I managed some
flashes of brilliance but they were in training so, at the end of the day,
fruitless. Randomly, one Friday evening in April, I performed a set of 10x1km
reps at a pace >5secs/km faster than we had expected or that I was meant to.
And it felt so easy. This was perfectly timed, two weeks before the race in the
Philippines - the race where sickness prevented me even getting to my running
shoes in T2. I was then just getting back on my feet physically and mentally when
a nasty sinus infection hit and I was put on a month long series of various
antibiotics. Despite still being somewhat under the weather, I headed to
Mauritius for the African Cup, desperately searching for some confidence. A top
5 finish and the fastest run time, whilst good on paper and a small semblance of
a return to form, still ate away at my fragile confidence. Based on my
performance there last year, my expectations leading in to the race were far
higher than what eventuated. No matter how much of a forward step on the
preceding few months, it still did not reflect where I knew I was at, or had
been at in training. And so the rough patch continued.
Four days
after returning to Australia from Mauritius, I boarded a plane to Spain and
thirty three hours later, my triathlon slump was suddenly and unexpectedly put majorly
in perspective. The world, and our family had lost an amazing man just as I had
landed in Spain. It highlights how fickle life can be. It also made my
triathlon dramatics seem so small. I was out there doing what I loved, and that
should have been all that mattered. Life is short, life can change in the blink
of an eye, it can even disappear altogether. Enjoy what you do.
And thus it
was time to find the enjoyment again. To make life simple again. Simple
enjoyment. I went to New York to race the New York Triathlon with only the
simplest of orders from my coach - “enjoy yourself”. And I took him at his
word. But 8km into the bike, with each revolution of my rapidly flattening
tyre, the task of enjoying myself became a little more difficult. And then, with
each step of the journey back to T1 to get my runners (dragging my un-rideable bike
in tow), and then the next mile to the finish line to collect my clothing bag,
and then the next mile back to my hotel, a positive attitude was getting harder
and harder to muster. “How long do I have
to keep being resilient for?”
But hello, I
was in New York City. The city wasn’t going to keep me down for long. Some supportive
words from home and a fabulous afternoon spent exploring New York, ending with
a yummy dinner at the Gramercy Tavern, was the best possible cure for my blues –
thank you, Caroline! And slowly but surely, with New York City flowing through
my veins, I started to rebuild mentally. I flew out of JFK the next day with a
tiny voice in my head urging me on. It told me to keep life simple. To get back
to Spain and to simply keep turning up. Eventually the tide would turn.
I didn’t
have to wait long to give it all another shot. 48 hours after landing in Spain
from New York, I was boarding a flight back to London, en route to France for
the 5150 Triathlon in Marseille. With a consistent message from all in my
support network, I went to Marseille to have fun. With team mate and friend,
Will C in tow, that wasn’t a hard task. Race morning came, and the still and
hot conditions had given way to a typical Melbourne morning. The winds were
blowing a gale, and the water was grey and choppy to the point of completely swallowing
the massive yellow buoys. But for some reason, I didn’t worry. In my mind, I
was standing around at Williamstown beach in January, waiting for the start of
a 1500m open water swim in what were just everyday conditions back home. Mental
hurdle number one successfully navigated. The next came in the way of a
mountain. Literally. The bike course included roughly a 10km mountain climb –
ascending and descending obviously – and on TT bikes given this was a
non-drafting pro race. My TT bike and I had never encountered a mountain
together and so, with the words of one of my training partners from my last
squad ringing in my ears - “it’s just a
bike. Ride it!!!” - I faked it. I pretended I hadn’t just missed three
weeks of bike training. I pretended I could
ascend and descend mountains on a TT bike (although I obviously wasn’t too successful
at faking the descending part given comments by a German competitor of mine
post race – oops). And the run, I just ran. Simple. Every time I started to
hurt, I told myself to look around at where I was racing. Enjoy it. Those were
the only orders. Simple. Enjoy what you’re doing. I finished third pro female
and third female overall with the fastest female run split of the day (36.20
for the 10km). I crossed the finish line, and smiled a sigh of relief. Finally.
I may be slowly learning how to make life
simpler. Some things may slowly be starting to make sense. But I’ll never grow
out of Bob’s Burgers. I’ll never stop loving the simpleness it represents. It’s
light, it’s simple, it makes me laugh and I think everyone needs a little bit
of that in their life.
