There’s something about endurance racing that strips everything down to its essentials. No shortcuts, no distractions just you, the course, and your own mind for hours on end. Last weekend I crossed the finish line of my second Half Ironman in six hours and forty-seven minutes. 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike with 6,000 feet of climbing, 13.1-mile run with another 3,000 feet of elevation. It was one of the hardest days of my life, and also one of the most instructive. As a physical therapist, I spend a lot of time thinking about how people move through difficulty physical, mental, and everything in between. These are the lessons that surfaced during those six hours and forty-seven minutes.
Specificity Is King
I had been swimming consistently leading up to this race. Open water, too. I felt prepared. What I underestimated was the full complexity of race-day conditions: fifty other athletes around me, bodies and arms and feet splashing in every direction, the need to stop and look up to navigate, and a wetsuit that constricted my breathing far more than I remembered.
Within minutes of the swim start, I was in a panic. I had to roll onto my back, float, and just breathe.
This was a hard reminder of something I preach regularly to patients: general fitness is not the same as specific preparation. You can be in great shape and still be caught off guard by the particular demands of a new situation. Whether it’s returning to a sport after injury, taking on a new role at work, or navigating a life transition the conditions that are unique to that challenge matter enormously.
In a Crisis, You Have More Control Than You Think
Floating on my back in the middle of a race swim is not where I wanted to be. But it was exactly where I needed to be in that moment. I took slow, deliberate breaths. I reminded myself it was okay to pause. I didn’t need to solve the whole swim I just needed to get through the next couple of minutes.
I broke the 1.2 miles into small, manageable pieces. Swim for a few minutes. Float on my back. Breathe. Repeat. Somewhere around the halfway point, something shifted. I found my rhythm, my breathing steadied, and I finished the swim.
At the start, I genuinely wasn’t sure I’d be able to. I thought I might be looking at a DNF (Did Not Finish). But I kept giving myself chances, one small chunk at a time.
This is something I see in rehab constantly. A patient faces a setback pain flares up, progress stalls, something hurts that wasn’t supposed to and the mind goes to a dark place fast. What I know, and what the swim reminded me, is that the worst moments are usually temporary if you don’t catastrophize them. Slow down. Breathe. Break the problem into the next small manageable piece.
Use What You've Learned Before
By the time I reached the run, my legs were already unhappy. I knew this feeling. In my first Half Ironman, I had cramped hard early in the run and paid for it. This time, I carried that experience with me like a piece of equipment.
Rather than pushing out of the gate, I was strategic. I eased into the miles deliberately, moving within what my body was willing to give me. I didn’t force anything. I listened.
And something started to happen: confidence began to build. One mile became two. Two became four. The legs, which had every reason to revolt, kept cooperating.
Past experience especially past struggle is a resource. It doesn’t guarantee you’ll get it right the next time, but it gives you information that you didn’t have before. In recovery, in sport, in life, the people who tend to navigate difficulty best are often not the ones who’ve had the easiest road they’re the ones who’ve been through something hard and paid attention.
Keep Moving. Just Keep Moving.
The run was 13.1 miles with 3,000 feet of climbing. There were long stretches where the thoughts turned dark. Doubt is loud when the body is tired. Part of me was ready to negotiate a surrender.
But I didn’t stop. I didn’t force a pace I couldn’t sustain. I just kept moving slowly, deliberately, taking stock of how I felt mile by mile and adjusting accordingly. No heroics. Just forward momentum.
Gradually, something unexpected happened: my pace began to increase. By the final miles, I was moving faster than I had been at the midpoint of the run. I finished stronger than I started.
This is the lesson I find myself returning to most. Not just for racing, but for all of it for patients in the middle of a long recovery, for anyone grinding through a period of life that feels unrelenting. You do not need to know how the whole thing resolves. You just need to keep moving. Chip away. Feel what the body is telling you, honor it, and take the next step.
The Body Can Change
If there’s one thing six hours and forty-seven minutes taught me and one thing I try to carry into every treatment session I have with a patient it’s this: the body can change, even within a single day.
There were moments during this race when I was convinced things were falling apart. The panic in the swim. The cramps building on the bike. The dark miles in the middle of the run. Every one of those moments felt like it might be the end. And every one of them passed.
The body is not a static thing. It responds. It adapts. It surprises you if you give it the chance to. The worst thing you can do in a hard moment is decide it defines the outcome. Keep your mind open. Keep moving. Give the body a chance to change.
That’s true at mile forty of a bike course. It’s true at week six of a rehab program.
The finish line of a race like this is earned across thousands of small decisions to take one more stroke on the swim, one more pedal stroke on the climb,and one more step into the run when the legs were begging to stop. None of it is glamorous in the moment. The journey and person you become from it is worth it.
I hope some of what surfaced in those six hours and forty-seven minutes is useful to you, wherever you are in your own race.
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