The Origin of Species

Certain truths are easier to accept than others. One particularly hard pill to swallow, as I was once reminded, is that on any given day there's always someone who is faster than you. This pearl can be applied to virtually ANY aspect of your life, just change the adjective. There's always someone who is . . . faster, smarter, taller, stronger, thiner, prettier. . . than you. I mean, no shit, it's not like out of all 6.8 billion of us I thought I was going to top ANY list. BUT, it doesn't mean we shouldn't be proud of what and who we ARE. Right? Welllllllllll . . .

Nature makes us competitive beings. Don't make me pull out my BA in Anthropology, but Darwin had a couple things right, one being the importance of competition within a species (which many times has led to an entirely new species all together . . . ). Competition can be fun, it can keep us on our toes, it can motivate us, and if you're a white moth during the industrial revolution, it can destroy us (err . . . sorry). Healthy competition is, well, healthy. Constant competition is not. Constant evaluation and comparison of your self to others WILL eventually make you crazy. To occasionally take a moment and just be proud of yourself and your accomplishments, not in comparison to anyone else, is good for you. But those moments are few and far between and outnumbered by time spent thinking about how we need to get faster, or thiner, catch that person in front of us, catch a boyfriend, land a better job.

I go back a forth between feelings of great confidence and a complete lack there of -- in training, in racing, in life. I remember qualifying for Boston and feeling like I was ON TOP of the world. I was so proud of what I had accomplished. I was a GOOD runner. I was a FAST runner. I was one of just a small percentage of marathoners. Then I got to Boston. I was one of 25,000. I was no longer good, I was average. Seriously. The average Boston time is 3:40. I ran a 3:39. Growing up, I NEVER got a "C" in school. All A's, maybe a B en la stupide Francais. Never a C, never average. Speaking of school, I had these grand visions of going to my 10 year reunion as the only class of '99 Ironman finisher. Maybe I wouldn't be married, maybe I wouldn't have children, but I would be the only Ironman there. Except that I wouldn't. Turns out I graduated among other Ironmen-to-be. One in particular has qualified for Kona and is racing this October.

My ideas of grandeur never seem to last for very long. And maybe that's good. It's not like I need to be walking around all high and mighty, delusional about how fast I am. The thing is, I seem to slide right from the crest of the wave down into the trough. Maybe I'll be a 3 time Ironman finisher by the time I'm 30, but without a quality relationship, with a career I'm unsure about, an overall malaise (take that Madame Magnin!) for where I am right now. I somewhat irrationally start to question every decision I've ever made. Where did I go wrong? Was it because I went to prom with Adam? Was it that job at the art museum I had during college? Was it that 4 year stint as a vegetarian? WHAT?!?

Sometimes I get sad. Who doesn't? I feel like I'm not living up to my potential. I feel like I'm so far from what I had pictured for myself. I'm scared that I have far less control over my life than I thought. It is hard knowing that virtually everyone I grew up with, everyone I admired, everyone I was in "friendly competition" with, seems to have figured it out while I am still struggling. Sometimes I feel a tinge of embaresment when people ask me if "all" I do is coach, or comment that I never moved from my hometown. I once emailed a friend (who's married with two kids) who I haven't seen since I was a freshmen in college. I told her about my marathons, triathlons, racing, coaching, traveling. Her Response: "You didn't tell me much about yourself other than coaching and keeping up with rowing and racing. Tell me more." What if there isn't more? And what if that's not enough?

Darwin saw in nature a constant competition between individuals with different degrees of fitness. Competition leads to the survival of advantageous traits which eventually lead to the evolution of a new species. (I know, I know, ix-nay on the arwin-da.) Sometimes I feel like this is the story of my life. Most days, in most company, I feel a little out of place, a little unrelateable, like I'm just a different species. When DO I feel "normal," like I'm in my element, like my priorities and goals aren't so out of wack, like I can speak the language, like I can be proud of exactly who and where I am . . .

When you finish the Ironman, Mike Riley ("Voice of the Ironman") announces your name and declares you an Ironman. For obvious liability reasons, Ironman asks for as much of you medical/personal/family dog's name type information as possible. Among other information they have your age, home town, job. I must have finished during a lull in athletes, because Mike gave me quite a bit of air time this past November. As I fished he announced, "Kelly Vanek, a 28 year old rowing coach from Tempe, Arizona. Welcome home, Kelly. YOU are an Ironman." I hadn't won, I hadn't even finished while the sun was still out. I wasn't going to Kona. I wasn't the only Boston marathoner or alumni from my graduating class that raced that day, I still wasn't married with kids (difficult to accomplish during a 140 mile endurance race). I was still coaching, living in Tempe, 20 miles from where I grew up. And I was proud.

You'll rarely win, you'll only occasionally be better than average, sometimes you won't even have the right skills to compete at all. We're not all made to do it ALL. But we are all made to be happy and proud of who we are. And all those people infront of you (outside of the foot race) let them be. They're you're competition, but they're also your company, your own weirdly evolved species. Like all those Galapagos Island freaks.



"Let each man hope and and believe what he can." Charles Darwin