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Zarak Fatah is training for his first triathlon at 50, tackling open-water swimming for the first time. He's hired a coach, training with friends over the summer, and wants you to watch and keep him honest.
Zarak Fatah is training for his first triathlon at 50, tackling open-water swimming for the first time. He's hired a coach, training with friends over the summer, and wants you to watch and keep him honest.
Okay, it's time. I've been procrastinating long enough, and I'm sharing this with all of you because I want you to hold me accountable. I have been talking about training for a triathlon for six or seven months now, and I have not started training for a triathlon. Now I've decided to compete in my first triathlon to celebrate and honor my 50th birthday. When I turned 40, I decided to enter my first fitness competition. Now, not because I wanted to look in the best shape of my life at 40, but more so right here. I knew that I needed to shift my mindset. In my late 30s, I had become complacent just riding the waves of my success. And 40 was a time in my life when I had to reevaluate. Is my life going the way I wanted it to? And if I wanted to be in a different place by 50, what was going to need to change in not just in my life and circumstances, but most importantly, my mindset. So I decided to do my first fitness competition, which led to me doing four fitness competitions, which ended with me placing third at the Canadian Nationals, which I'm very proud of. So as my 50th was approaching, I thought, okay, what can I do to begin this second chapter of my life in the best possible physical, mental, emotional, energetic state? And a triathlon is what I decided upon because I like to run, I like to ride my bike. I'm not a good swimmer. I almost drowned when I was 8 years old. So I have this fear of open bodies, of water, which is precisely why I'm doing a triathlon, because I want to overcome that fear. I don't want to actually just overcome that fear. I want to smash it. I want to smash it. I want to be rid of it going into the rest of my life another 70 years. I do not want to have that fear of swimming. I do believe I'm going to live to 120. And I feel that this triathlon, what I'm going to learn from my training, from my resilience, from my dedication, is going to help me to take the next 70 years of my life to that next level. So what does this look like? It means making some sacrifices and making some choices that are aligned with the goal I have, which is to not just complete my first triathlon, but actually do really well at it. I'm competitive. I'm a Leo. I'm an Alpha man. I don't want just good. I want fucking awesome. And that's what I'm shooting for. So that means this summer I'm coming back to Toronto and I'm going to spend the whole summer, June, July, August and September training and preparing for the triathlon. This is something that's very important to me. It's something that I know even though it's going to be challenging, even though there's some fear around the swimming component, I know on the other side of this challenge is going to be an evolved version of me in every way, shape and form. So I'm sharing it with all of you to hold me accountable. I'm going to be hiring a triathlon coach. I've already got a couple of buddies that are going to join me in this because community is everything when you're going through something so difficult and transformative. And I hope that what I'm committing to and this goal of competing in a triathlon at the age of 50 might inspire you to question what can you do to take your life, your health, your love, your career, or whatever it is that you want to elevate to the next level? And I intend to share this journey of my first triathlon with all of you because I know it's not going to be easy. I know there's definitely going to be some challenges, some fears I got to overcome, some boundaries I got to push past. But I want to share with all of you because you're in this with me. So stay tuned for some updates. Stay tuned for my learnings and discoveries as I attempt to do something that I've never done. If what I'm sharing is in inspiring you to maybe commit to some challenge of your own, then drop it in the comments below. Let me know what are you up to? What are you willing to put on the line and that you're willing to sacrifice the good times and fun for to make it happen? Share in the comments down below. I'd love to read what you got to share.
