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Why Do We Do It?
4.30 in the morning in Khorfakkan, I sat in the hotel restaurant getting some early carbs in before a big ride, when a friend said across the table, "Why do we do this to ourselves?" A thought a few of us were likely having at that point thinking we could be back in a cosy bed counting sheep. She said it half-laughing, but honestly, there is a bit of absurdity in the fact that this activity is quite a normal practice in our group. We rolled out, but the thought stayed with me for the rest of the weekend, because it's a good question that most of us never really sit down and think about.
"Find your why" is one of those phrases that's been repeated so often it's gone a bit hollow, at least in my case. It gets printed on gym walls and tacked onto the end of motivational posts, usually sold as a fixed thing, a single sentence you discover once, write down, and recite to yourself when it gets hard. But when I think of mine, it feels like a constantly moving target. It began as plain old fitness, wanting to lose some weight and look a bit better, and eventually evolved into a way of escaping things that were going on in my life. Run away from the problems, find some peace on the bike, and put yourself in the bin to forget everything else. Destructive maybe, but it certainly could have been worse.
That version had a shelf life; you can only fuel things on bad energy for so long. What came out of it, though, was a far better why, and not one I expected. Friendship. This might sound strange, but if I'm honest, for most of my life, success was the key metric. Succeed as a golfer, succeed as a manager, succeed as a golf coach. Sure, I had friends, but did I ever give them enough time? Probably not. But on this day, as I rode from the back of the group to the front, with no achievement in sight other than getting caffeine into my body a little bit sooner, it started to dawn on me that the 4am alarm is there to give you time with your friends. Those people you just enjoy being around, chatting to, who do the same stupid things you do on a daily basis. Those people whose approach to life you admire, and who help you enjoy yours that little bit more. Which is really the reason we were in Khorfakkan at all.
While it was set to be my first triathlon in a year and a half post-hip surgery, the weekend is actually about Harley Jae South, a charity that two of my closest friends, Lucy and Jon, run to support children with life-limiting conditions and their families. The camp has become a bit of a fixture in the calendar, a few days away that pulls together a load of their friends from different backgrounds and endurance clubs, raising money for the charity, and finishing with a local triathlon on the Sunday. On paper it's a training camp, but in reality it's something much bigger. It's about friends supporting each other, spending time together, and trying to help somebody out there who is less fortunate than us.
Standing on the start line for the first time since the surgery, there were definitely some nerves; it felt like going into the unknown again. But that didn't last long. You can't hold onto your own concerns for very long on a course like that. Cowbells going and friends scattered around the course roaring encouragement, it got me thinking: everyone out there had chosen the half-four alarm. Forty other people setting the same one for the same reason, putting aside the argument you normally have with yourself in the dark.
Somewhere around halfway through the run I clocked the Harley Jae logo on someone's shirt, and I smiled. I've thought about what that logo means to me more than once this year. Friendship, because that's where all of this started for me. Difficulty, because life isn't straightforward for anybody, but the darkest places can produce the brightest light, and above all else, that's what Harley Jae does.
So, why do we do this to ourselves?
I didn't have an answer at half four that morning, I was more concerned about finishing my bagel and coffee at that point. But by Sunday afternoon, sat on the ground five metres past the finish line, I realised the question was slightly off.
Nobody in our group was doing anything to themselves. The alarms, the hours, the hurt, the weekends given up, none of it was being endured. It was being given.
Time with friends for this amazing cause is not something done to you. It's about the best thing you can do with a Saturday.
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