The Journey

By: Meg Herrell

We all have to start somewhere. I want to take you on my journey to where I am today in hopes of inspiring you to start your own journey.

I grew up doing one sport only, gymnastics. Then my senior year of high school I tore my ACL and that meant the end of gymnastics for me. After recovering from the injury I found that I had no hobbies outside of it. In college, I never found “my thing”. Then one year after college, I decided to buy a road bike because at that time road biking was still the cool thing to do in Northwest Arkansas. I began biking all around Fayetteville and then tackled doing the commute to work thing for a while. In 2018, I signed up for the Square to Square bike ride along the greenway from Fayetteville to Bentonville. Later that year, I opened our home up to a professional bike team to stay at while they were in town racing and this is where I’d say my love for endurance sports and desire to race began..

My first picture ever with my first bike

I spent the latter part of 2018 regretting that I didn’t even attempt to do a local cycling competition and decided that I would never let that doubt keep me from racing ever again. Of course, in 2019 I competed in a few local road cycling events and then made this full list of endurance events I’d like to do in 2020.

Well, we are all so familiar with how 2020 went that I bet you know exactly where this section is going to go… *cue pandemic*. 2020 was the most challenging year for so many of us and I tell people to this day, this is where my desire and motivation to become a triathlete really manifested. I spent the majority of 2020 swimming, biking, and running as much as I could. I had made several new friends whose hobbies were running and always jumped at the chance to run with them. For cycling, I have always enjoyed biking alone and found it to be my time to pray and reflect. As for swimming, it was the part of triathlons that was not my favorite.

In 2021 I had worked up the courage to go on a group ride with a group called the Fayetteville Wheelman. This was something that I was so nervous to do but it was a huge step in me finding community and other like minded people who enjoyed cycling.

Fayetteville Wheelmen

I went from doing local road bike racing to sprint triathlons, middle distance triathlons to then a full Ironman. ALL WITHIN ONE YEAR OF REAL RACING, my mind is still blown away by this. 2020 lit a fire in me to never live with the regret of “why didn’t I let myself just sign up” or the “I don’t have time to run or bike or swim with others”. It made me realize that I just need to push myself outside of my comfort zone and I can accomplish anything.

Ironman Waco 2021

I must say that endurance sports get lonely and training for endurance sports can leave you feeling depressed without the proper support and team behind you. In the beginning of 2022, I was feeling the loneliness that endurance sports can take. You get to a point where your bike rides start to creep up into the 4-6 hour range and your runs take about 2-3 hours when training for long distance events like an Ironman.

Finding others who are biking and running long distances can be daunting. This is when I learned the importance of having training partners.. After returning from an injury and a job change, I found myself up in a new area of NWA and in need of some change. I went to an open water swim night hosted by Swim Oz, at a local lake and left, finding an entire new community who welcomed me with arms wide open. I had no idea that just trying something new and just showing up would be so fruitful. Now the current part of my journey is having an amazing group of people to train with on team One80 Racing. It is such a blessing to find others that have the same passions as you do and want to push you to be a better athlete. It’s really cool how just taking the first step can bring so much reward in your journey. What is your journey, have you taken that first step to create chapters in your life's book of history?

Team One80 Racing (slideshow,)

All photos included in this post were provided by Meg Herrell.

About Meg!

Meg Herrell (she/her; @megherrell )is a triathalete from Fayetteville, AR. Meg can often be found swimming, biking, and running almost any day of the week. Specifically, you'll find her chasing those QOMs because she loves a good climb!

Meg races for Team One80 Multipsort USA (@one80multisport).