Motivation lacking lately?
Need a little boost?
I have just the summer reading for you.
If you’ve been in my class long enough, you’ve heard me mention Chrissie Wellington, four-time Ironman World Champion.
Her story is simply amazing: Until 2006, she’d never witnessed, let alone competed in, an Ironman–the grueling endurance event that consists of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and 26.2 mile run (yes, all in a row). While most pro triathletes are veterans of the sport by college, Chrissy didn’t truly dive in until her late 20’s, having traveled the world post college, built an impressive career in international development, and even worked for an NGO in Nepal for over a year. As she says in the book, if you’d told her a decade earlier that she would have completed an Ironman, let alone be World Champion, she wouldn’t have believed it.
Finally, a professional athlete we all can relate to!
How insanely amazing is Chrissie? She’s trashed just about every existing record in ironman-distance events, including running a 2:44 marathon to finish the ironman-distance Challenge Roth, setting the iron distance record there year after year (8:18:13 is her ironman current best), and breaking the 17 year-old record at the World Championships in Kona. In 2008, after losing 10 minutes on the side of the road with a flat tire and fault inflator, she still won the race by 5 minutes. In 2011, after a cycling accident two weeks before Kona left her with a torn pectoral muscle and infected road rash that had her limping the week before the race, she still won the women’s race by over two minutes.
Simply said, she’s simply amazing–and as her book shows, a real human, not just an athletic automaton who only lives for the sport.
She shares her path to greatness in her new autobiography, A Life Without Limits. That path has been more than circuitous. She candidly delves into adolescent eating disorders, her informal introduction to endurance sport, and throughout provides a compelling, inside look at what goes on inside the mind of a pro athlete before and during a major event. The descriptions of the races are so compelling and moving that I found myself choking back tears many times reading them (cheesy, I know–but I vividly recall watching those races and cheering her on, and to read her personal account of them is an incredible treat). I know I’ll be rereading them again and again for inspiration.
Her grim determination in the face of injury and illness will undoubtedly inspire me the next early morning I don’t want to crawl out of bed for a workout. Still, this isn’t just a book for athletes. Anyone will find inspiration in its pages. At its core this is a story about pursuing your passion and giving the things that are most important in life–be it sport, family, your career, what have you–your all.
