I don’t wanna go through the motions

If you had told me four years ago as I stood at the finish line of the first Witt’s Warriors challenge – a 5k mud run – that I would go on to do a marathon or a triathlon I probably would have said that you were crazy. Not surprisingly when my buddy, Tony Alger, approached me back in 2013 and said “I’m gonna do an Ironman next year and you should do it with me” I think my response was something along the lines of “Heck No! Are you out of your mind?”. 

Mike Hooper crossing the finish of his first Ironman

I really didn’t know much about Ironman but a friend of mine had just done his first Ironman and I can remember seeing his finish line photo on Facebook. In the photo you can clearly see the exhaustion in his face as he crosses the finish and above his head you can see his finish time – 14:07:05. My very first thought was “how in the world can someone exercise for fourteen straight hours”. No way was I signing up for an Ironman. I did like the idea of doing a sprint (short distance) triathlon though. 

So in the spring of 2014 I began to train with Tony as he prepared for his first Ironman. My plan was to try to do a sprint distance triathlon by summers end. It was overwhelming at first. I didn’t even own a road bike but Tony generously loaned me one of his and took me on my first ride. Our ride that day was only thirteen miles and we clocked just under 13mph – pretty slow in the sport of cycling – and it wore me out. My first swim was equally humbling. I had swam on a community swim team when I was in elementary school but was never very good. I got in the pool for my first training swim thinking I would just swim for as long as I could – knowing that I probably wouldn’t be able to swim the eight laps that would make up the distance of the swimming leg of my triathlon. I stopped at the end of my first lap gasping for air and exhausted. Well at least the running would come easy I thought. Then my body reminded me that I hadn’t run in seven months. I didn’t give up though. And in August I competed in my first triathlon – the 2014 Tri Clarksville. The race was tough but that made finishing all the more rewarding.

I didn’t do much training after the Clarksville triathlon and by spring was really searching for motivation to get me off the couch and back to training. And that’s when I saw a Facebook post by Natalie Seabolt in the Nashville Area Heart Parents group. Natalie is a volunteer with the Nashville Chapter of Mended Little Hearts (MLH). MLH is a great organization that is dedicated to helping children born with a congenital heart defect. The Nashville MLH Chapter was looking for “super fit determined heart friends who want to join an Ironman team”. They were organizing relay teams to compete in the 2016 Chattanooga Ironman 70.3 (also known as a Half Ironman) and raise money and awareness for Mended Little Hearts of Nashville in the process. Now I surely didn’t consider myself “super fit” but I was a “determined heart friend” and had been motivated off the couch once before by my son Witt – a heart transplant survivor.

I didn’t immediately respond to Natalie’s post but it certainly did peak my interest. The next day when I saw another post about the event I decided that I wanted in and I wanted to do the triathlon solo. Thankfully Tori and Natalie were supportive of that idea and welcomed me on board.

Two days later I started training for the 2016 Chattanooga Ironman 70.3. Over the summer of 2015 and into the fall I was fortunate to be able to train with Tony Alger and Kristen Fisher. Tony had followed through on his goal of completing his first Ironman in the fall of 2014 and was training to do Ironman Madison and Ironman Louisville in the fall of 2015. And Kristen was training for her first Ironman. As my training progressed and as I heard more from Tony and Kristen about their training and about Tony’s Ironman experience I began to think “Why not me? What is stopping me from doing a FULL Ironman – a 2.4 mile swim/112 mile bike ride/26.2 mile run?”. The simple answer is fear. Fear that I wasn’t strong enough. Fear that my body would start to break down and injury would keep me from even reaching the starting line. Fear of failure and embarrassment. I wrestled with this fear for weeks. And with the registration window for the Chattanooga Ironman quickly approaching I was paralyzed by this fear.

And then one day I’m driving Witt to baseball practice and on the radio Matthew West’s song The Motions begins to play. I’d heard the song before and knew that Matthew had written the song about a time in his life when he felt that his faith had grown stale and he deeply desired a life full of passion for the Lord. It was also a time when Matthew was faced with a difficult decision. Matthew had been told that he needed to have surgery on his vocal chords. Afraid that the surgery might end his singing career this decision didn’t come easy. Matthew ultimately decided that he didn’t want to just go through the motions and that he would trust that the Lord had great plans for him.

This might hurt
It’s not safe
But I know that I’ve gotta make a change
I don’t care
If I break
At least I’ll be feeling something
‘Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of life

I don’t wanna go through the motions
I don’t wanna go one more day
Without Your all consuming
Passion inside of me
I don’t wanna spend my whole life asking
What if I had given everything
Instead of going through the motions?

The Motions – by Matthew West

Those lyrics spoke to me that day in the car on the way to baseball. I began to realize that I didn’t want to just go through the motions myself. I didn’t want to look back with regret. And then we got to baseball practice and I see the t-shirt Witt wore that day – a Matthew West tour t-shirt with The Motions lyrics on it.

I honestly don’t know where Witt got that shirt. I know we didn’t buy it for him. Most likely it was a hand-me-down from one of Alison’s friends. But after hearing The Motions that day, after being so moved by the lyrics and the story behind them, and then seeing Witt in that t-shirt, I realized that I had to face my fears and register for Ironman Chattanooga. And I realized that it really didn’t matter if I failed. In that moment I remembered that God’s love for me wasn’t based on my ability to run some race. God’s love for me is unconditional and eclipses all of my successes and failures.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39