One Small Step at a Time

I recently crossed the finish line of my first IRONMAN 70.3.

1.9 km swimming. 90 km cycling. 21.1 km running.

6 hours and 28 minutes.

Looking at the finish photo, it is easy to see one big achievement. But that's not how it happened.

There was no single breakthrough.

No moment when I suddenly became ready for an IRONMAN.

Readiness accumulated.

One small step at a time.

I wasn't ready

When I decided to do an IRONMAN 70.3, I definitely wasn't ready for one.

I could run. I cycled occasionally. I could swim.

But being able to do those three things individually is very different from putting them together for more than six hours.

Swimming was the obvious problem.

Swimming in a pool was one thing. Swimming in open water, surrounded by people, with waves, cold water and no wall to stop at was something completely different.

So I didn't start by trying to become an IRONMAN.

I started by solving the next problem.

Get comfortable swimming longer distances. Try open water. Try a wetsuit. Learn to breathe properly. Figure out what happens when the water isn't calm.

Then came the bike.

Longer rides. Position. Saddle. Equipment. Nutrition.

Then transitions.

Then combining disciplines.

Each solved problem revealed another one.

And that was actually useful.

Small experiments

My preparation gradually became a series of experiments.

What happens if I eat this before a long ride?

Can my stomach handle this energy gel?

How much should I drink?

Will my watch battery survive the entire race?

Is my cycling position comfortable after three hours instead of thirty minutes?

What happens if I run immediately after cycling?

Some experiments worked.

Others didn't.

But even the failures gave me information.

I stopped looking for the perfect training plan and started building confidence through evidence.

Try something. Observe what happens. Adjust. Try again.

The closer I got to Tallinn, the less I was trying to prove that everything would go perfectly.

Instead, I was trying to understand what I would do when it didn't.

Smaller races became feedback

Before Tallinn, I entered smaller triathlons.

They weren't just preparation. They were reality checks.

At one race, swimming was much harder than expected.

At another, the water was choppy enough that I spent a significant part of the swim doing breaststroke instead of freestyle.

Not exactly the elegant triathlon technique I had imagined.

But I finished.

And every time something went wrong, the unknown became slightly less unknown.

I learned that changing the plan isn't the same as failing.

Sometimes adaptation is the plan.

That gradually changed how I thought about the main event.

At some point, I stopped preparing for the perfect race. I started preparing to deal with whatever race I got.

That turned out to be useful.

Race day had other plans

Tallinn didn't give us particularly friendly conditions.

It was cold. It was windy. It rained for a large part of the bike course.

And before the swim, we weren't allowed into the water to warm up.

When I jumped in, the cold hit immediately.

My breathing became difficult and stress kicked in. For a moment, freestyle simply wasn't working. So I rolled onto my back. That wasn't the race plan.

But moving slowly in the right direction seemed considerably more useful than panicking efficiently in the wrong one. I kept moving.

Eventually my breathing settled down and I became more comfortable. I stopped twice near the SUPs to clean my goggles. On the way back I tried swimming more freestyle again. Then my leg started cramping.

Another problem.

Another adjustment.

Eventually I reached the shore.

Problem one solved.

Then came 90 kilometres of weather

The bike wasn't much more forgiving.

Strong wind, mostly from the side. Sometimes headwind, occasionally the welcome relief of a tailwind. And rain.

It felt like a repeating cycle:

get wet, get cold, warm up, start drying, rain again.

For almost 90 kilometres.

There wasn't much point getting frustrated about it. The weather wasn't interested in my plans. So again, the job was simply to solve the next problem.

Stay safe in the crosswind.

Keep eating.

Keep drinking.

Keep moving.

At that point I wasn't thinking much about an impressive finish time. Mostly, I wanted to get off the bike. Eventually I did.

Problem two solved.

And then something unexpected happened

The run felt good.

The weather improved. The course was enjoyable. And psychologically, something had changed.

The swim was behind me.

The bike was behind me.

There was only a half marathon between me and the finish line.

Around kilometre 18, I started feeling cramps above my knees. I stopped briefly at an aid station, got some help from the medical team and continued.

And then I was running toward the finish.

My official half-marathon time was 1:51:57.

More importantly, I crossed the finish line feeling surprisingly good.

I still had something left.

After months of wondering whether I would be able to finish an IRONMAN 70.3, I had my answer.

The finish line wasn't the whole point

People have asked whether I enjoyed it.

The truthful answer is: Not really.

I don't particularly enjoy spending hours on long training sessions.

I don't enjoy giving away weekends.

I don't enjoy being away from my family because I need to complete another long ride.

And I definitely didn't discover a hidden passion for cycling for hours through cold rain and crosswinds.

But I'm still very glad I did it.

Because the point wasn't to find out whether I loved IRONMAN.

The point was to find out whether I could commit to something that felt too big, break it into manageable problems, keep learning and eventually finish it.

Now I know.

And for the moment, that's enough.

I don't have another IRONMAN planned.

The medal is staying.

The long training days are not.

It's time to reclaim some weekends, spend more time with my family and put that energy into other things I want to build.

One small step at a time

There is something from this experience that I want to keep.

Big goals look intimidating when we look at them as one thing.

Complete an IRONMAN.

Transform a team.

Become a better engineer.

Build a product.

Change a career.

From the starting point, the distance between where we are and where we want to be can look enormous.

But we rarely need to solve the entire problem today.

We need to identify the next meaningful step.

Try it.

Get feedback.

Learn.

Adjust.

Then take another one.

Somewhere along the way, all those small steps start adding up.

You look back and realise that something that once seemed impossible has quietly become something you're capable of doing.

There was no single day when I became ready for an IRONMAN.

Readiness accumulated.

One swim.

One ride.

One run.

One mistake.

One adjustment.

Big goals aren't achieved through one big change.They are built through small steps, feedback, adaptation, and the willingness to keep going when the original plan stops working.

One small step at a time.