"Courage means being afraid to do something, but still doing it." Knute Rockne

So there I was, dying to get on my bike and go for a ride. It’s around 10:00 PM and I was pacing around the house trying to figure out if I should start some pushups and crunches or go out to the garage and take the bike out for a spin.

I decided to go to the garage. I snapped on to the clipless pedals and held on to the wall testing the tightness of the cleats to the pedals and their release. My right foot naturally felt like the one that should be releasing so I snapped it on and off, struggling at first to really twist my ankle out as I hold on to the wall. On and off – on and off. I did it so many times my ankle started to get sore.

After about 15 to 20 minutes I decided to get off the bike and continue the on and off process some more another time. There was no way I was going out onto the street without feeling slightly comfortable with getting my foot out of the pedal before tipping over and falling on the ground.

This will be the biggest challenge for my bike segment of Tri Training. The whole pedal thing.

I’ve built up the courage to accept I’ll be in the ocean, fighting to stay afloat for half a mile. But right now I’m not so sure I have enough courage to get on this bike and pedal around with my feet stuck to it.

Yeah – I’m a afraid. But I’m still going to do it.

There’s several things I want my son and daughter to learn from all this. There are the obvious ones like determination, commitment, hard work and focus. But one thing I really want them to learn – especially Jake since Bella is pretty fearless – is courage.

"Courage means being afraid to do something, but still doing it." Knute Rockne

Here’s my new bike.



And that, as they say, is that.