I did something so out of character for me this morning. I got up at 5 a.m. in order to make a triathlon training session. There previously were only two things that could get me out of bed so far in advance of the sunrise: to catch a plane and needing to use the bathroom.

I’m 10 days into this training program, and y’all, it is HARD. Not that I didn’t realize it was going to be hard, but there’s a huge difference between acknowledging in your mind that something is going to be hard and actually experiencing the hard thing.

It has challenged me in so many ways, from forcing my not-morning-person ass out of bed earlier than I’d like, to working out at a different time of the day, to going longer, harder and faster than I’m accustomed to. Even the swimming, which would be my strongest discipline if I have to claim one, has challenged me. While I don’t find it as physically draining as the biking and running, I’m working on correcting, oh, 26 years of poor technique in order to become more efficient. It’s basically like learning how to swim all over again.

This morning was our first outdoor ‘brick’ workout, ie combined bike and run, and we went 16 miles on the bike and 3 miles running. Tack on a short swim, and I might as well have done a full sprint triathlon this morning.

Let me reiterate: it’s just day 10. We’re in the ‘prepare the body for training’ portion of our schedule. It’s going to get so much worse. And after this measly ‘prepare the body for training’ workout, I wanted to DIE. I didn’t sleep well last night, so my energy was already somewhat shot before I even saddled up on the bike.

But I’m not going to completely lie. There was a smug sense of satisfaction at getting up far earlier on a Saturday morning than most people and at accomplishing way more before most people woke up than most people accomplish in a full Saturday. And when I got home and stripped off my sweaty clothes I saw something in my body that I haven’t seen in years. I saw athleticism. I saw a body that had some muscle tone and definition and looked like it was in shape.

I’ve been saying all along that I wanted to do this training program so that I could stop being one of the slowest in the bunch, and that is very much true. But I felt called to compete in triathlons in the first place because they seemed like a tremendous challenge and because I wanted to be athletic and in shape.

It’s incredibly cliche, but it’s also incredibly true: it’s amazing what we can accomplish when we push ourselves outside our comfort zones.