Joining a team

 

After 3 years of doing exercise on my own, I have joined a local triathlon team, Team Tri2Aspire. Why? I think mainly because of two reasons: It gives me more motivation and commitment to follow a training program, and second because I feel I have join a team of like minded people.

Back in February/March, I had my cousin Nuno around for 4 weeks. He came to race Abu Dhabi and Singapore with me, so we trained together everyday, and raced together. This was a great experience, making it much easier to get out of bed at 5am to go cycling or running, or just making it to the pool at 7pm instead of slacking and saying to myself “I’ll do it tomorrow”.

I still love and need to run on my own. My relationship with running is much more than just a sport, it is my way of relaxing, distressing, solving problems or shutting down from work. Nevertheless, I don’t think I would ever do 5 hours on the bike like I did this Friday if I was just training on my own, specially when it isn’t part of my training program.

On the other hand, in many of the races I’ve done I’ve seen this group of people, using their green Jersey’s with their nicknames on their short, looking fit, happy and always having fun together. They looked great, but I always thought that my lifestyle (work and travel) wouldn’t allow me to take great benefit of it.

After my cousin left, and talking with a fellow athlete that was already part of the team, I immediately felt that I had to join, and I wasn’t mistaken. I’ve joined an amazing group of people that form a great team. The spirit is amazing, and the collective knowledge of the entire group is something that I can’t describe. And there’s athlete’s of all levels and ages. There’s people that are qualifying for Kona Ironman, the top of the top Ironman events held in Hawaii or people competing in world championships, and there’s people doing their first triathlon or half-ironman races (like me).

I’m sure I will benefit a lot from joining this team. Hope I can contribute back. My advice to anyone would be that if you have the change to join or even create your own team, do it. Triathlon or running are individual sports, but training as a team it will help you grow faster and stay more committed and motivated.