A Moment of Glory
- Ondy Ho
- Nov 22, 2020
- 4 min read
Do you want to know the secret of getting a good sporty picture? You gotta be slow and speed up ONLY to make sure no one else is between you and the photographer. Yup. That's pretty much the key to it.
At the near end of 2020, Andy... what a great guy, finished his biggest challenge so far in his life, a 51.5K triathlon, swimming(1.5K), biking(40K), and then running(10K). As we mentioned in the previous one, it could have really been the end of him, knowing only how to swim to survive and practicing 3 times in the pool, one of which reached the distance. The real challenge isn't just the distance though, an actual lake! Assuming that it is the first and foremost obstacle to pass and likely to fail, Andy didn't work much on the other two items, and they turned out to be more difficult than he ever imagined!
By the way, these photos were not cheap so you'll be seeing a lot of them.
We're not sure how much information out there is related to what's happening in the game but here's some. Swimming in the Flowing Lake isn't as scary as it sounds. Take it from the guy whose least favorite sport happens to be anything near water. It's just the fear of fear itself. Before arriving at the lake, before the whistle in the assembly, and before the first touch of water, there will be all kinds of concerns such as dying, choking, hitting by other swimmers, being out of breath, going in the wrong directions, and dying again. Chill, seriously, just chill. There will be plenty of people who swim just as bad or worse than you do and the most precious moments you'll see right away is how they persist and overcome their shortcomings. To be dramatic, we could almost say that
Death has got nothing on these brave hearts. Besides, the rectangular shape of Flowing Lake has shallow edges on all four sides. One could practically stay on two sides to be safe although, on the return, there is a distance of about 25 meters where swimmers have to go across to the other side. That caused many of the participants to pause and re-evaluate their bravery.
Once you let everything go and just go with the flow, you'll find that the water is on your side, taking you with it; the people around the lake will cheer for you; the swimmers will support you; the rescue is just right next to you. Forget everything and just let your body do the work and your mind is going to be motivated by your surroundings. Just look at how relieved Andy was when he was just freshly out of water.
After resurfacing, there's a transition pathway that most people just ran through. Feel free to take a moment to re-adjust. People are all cheering around you! Go back to where you put your bike in the morning and make sure you only start ridding where they told you you could and buckle up your helmet. This is the end of the warmup.
Biking was surprisingly the hardest. To be more precise, it was the end of it. Why? It could be because of the fact that biking is the 40K, the longest of the three items and it burns you out, especially that final up the bridge. Since most bikers just try their best and go as fast as they could, many of them ended up leaning against the tree because their legs or backs gave up. Of course, this is not the case for the top finishers; Andy's at the bottom.
When the clock is "almost" irrelevant, you get the chance to see where you are and how people are; you get to enjoy the moment and focus on feeling it. Why "almost"? Even if the goal is just to finish, you still can't be that slow. It'd be better if we don't find out about what happens if they decide you can't continue anymore.
Finally, the part that can break you, the 10K run back home. It's not just about your willpower anymore but your body will literally become to crash unless you aim too low when signing up for 51.5K instead of 226K. Your body will find a way to speak until making itself heard. Your thighs, spine, shoulders, calves... You can ignore the game time but you can't ignore the duration. In time, everything the body withholds will need a release and it has to be after the finish line.
The game is over and what's left hanging is this question, "What is glory?". No one really likes being challenged not to mention, creating the challenge for ourselves. That seems counterintuitive and yet, every year crowds of people join or come c to witness events like this. We're all here for different reasons but essentially for the same thing, glory.
Glory is a concept difficult to explain like love. It can be experienced, felt but almost impossible to share with someone who didn't go through the same phase that grants it to you. How do you make yourself understood to someone whose word bank does not exist such word like glory? We might as well just be teaching Cookie how to talk. Plus, what exactly is it anyway?
Glory is the feeling that you feel after achieving something extremely difficult. It could be either or both physically and mentally. It's a state of mind of having honor, pride, integrity, and most important of all, self-love. There's no guarantee what you do will grant you glory. You just get it when you get it. It doesn't make too much sense but what is guaranteed is that it is indeed an exceptional feeling.
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