Eight days from now I am competing in a triathlon, a sprint tri as this one is called, a swim of 750 meters, a bike of 20 kilometers, and a run of 5 kilometers. 

Doing triathlons has been a goal of mine for many years. At some point in my forties I subscribed to a triathlon magazine, hoping that would be enough to motivate me to reserve the time and energy it takes to participate in them. 

It was, apparently, not. 

Last year about now I finally did my first triathlon, also a sprint tri just north of Pittsburgh, the Mighty Moraine Man Triathlon. My son Jack did the Olympic version at the same time. 

I rented a wetsuit and rode my wife Wendy’s bike. And I finished. 

I biked and ran ok. But the swim was brutal. After about fifty strokes I panicked and wasn’t able to keep my face in the water the rest of the swim. 

Fortunately, my years of competitive swimming and teaching swimming lessons in Vermont got me through. I swam the elementary backstroke and sidestroke the rest of the way. 

It was miserable, though. 

The panic didn’t come out of the blue–I have had a fear of water for over fifty years now. My dad tricked me as a kid to put my head underwater with the promise of a real-live monkey as a pet. 

I never got that monkey and I never quite overcame this fear.

In high school despite my fear I joined the swim team my junior year along with much of the cross country team. Over the next two years I became a passable swimmer. My times from then are, let’s say, cute. All four of my children are swimmers and they each broke my times before they turned 8.

But, I did it. I was afraid but I pushed past the fear.

I started playing competitive sports in second grade, joining the local little league team in Lucas, Ohio. My dad volunteered to umpire my last game that year when the regular ump didn’t show up. He made a couple of calls that our parents didn’t like and as I remember it we were run out of the park by a mob. 

I started playing football the next year as well, and for several years did both sports. Football was my favorite and though I was routinely covered with bruises and suffered from intense migraine-like head pain from helmets that were too small, I loved it.

Up until seventh grade. For some reason I stopped playing. I’m pretty sure it was the stress from my dad’s first heart attack and the school phobia that ramped up as I moved up to middle school, but I really can’t remember any specific reason.

That fall I tried out for the basketball team, the sport that has truly been the love of my life. On my birthday though, after a week of practice, I walked up to the coach and quit. 

Shame from that decision still haunts me. 

In my freshman year of high school I went out for the football team, one of only three freshmen it turns out. I quit after three days.

There was nothing I was prepared for less than trying out for that team. The reason there were only three freshmen that tried out was because of the reputation of the team for underclassmen. Not having many friends, I didn’t know about this. 

Instead I found out what hazing was directly. 

Sometimes I can catch a ghost of how quitting basketball and football felt, of the impetus to quit and the emptiness and self-doubt and loss that remained. 

In so many ways my decision to confront my fear of swimming again now formed out of those experiences. I am going to complete this triathlon in ten days to push back that same self-doubt, to prove to myself at fifty-seven that I’m not a quitter. 

That is irrational of course. I am not a quitter. It is not bad to be a quitter. 

How strange are humans, that echoes of fifty-year old feelings continue to make us turn our heads and divert our paths.

So I’ll take a deep breath that morning and push off into the cold lake, trusting muscle memory and my training and my years of persistence to carry me through.