The Road to Nationals

Over the course of the last many months, you’ve read my Race Recap posts, sharing my experiences competing as a gluten-free endurance athlete with Celiac Disease in the Xterra off-road triathlon series. It has been a long road, one punctuated by disappointing lows and wonderful highs, and one marked by setbacks and challenges as well as tiny personal victories and greater successes. Now, there’s one final chapter to be written in the continuing saga of this season of racing, one final Race Recap to be shared…

Yesterday I received word that I have a spot in the 2009 Xterra U.S. National Championships. At the end of this month, I’m headed to Ogden, Utah to compete against the best off-road triathletes in the country. To say that I’m elated to have achieved a long-awaited and hard-fought goal would be a gross understatement.

Reaching this joyous and profoundly satisfying milestone has been the culmination of many contributing factors: the unfailing support of family and friends (most of all, Kelli); the countless hours (and days and weeks and months) spent training; the accumulated wisdom that comes from the experience of spending a full season racing; the motivation and the perseverance to rebound from disappointing finishes, temporary setbacks, and a handful of significant obstacles; and forging ahead in spite of what seemed like at times insurmountable odds against reaching this day.

But it also necessarily includes a day more than 2.5 years ago, when a doctor looked me in the eye and told me that gluten was making me sick. It’s scarcely imaginable that I could be where I am today, headed to compete in a national championship, without my diagnosis. The rapidly worsening symptoms I experienced pre-diagnosis (most of all, a catastrophic gluten-induced diarrhea that often left me malnourished, dehydrated, and fatigued) would have prevented this day from ever coming. Instead, the switch to a gluten-free diet changed my health, and the trajectory of my life, in significant and positive ways – some anticipated, others not.

And so here I am, less than three weeks away from the biggest race of my life. And in a roundabout and somewhat ironic way, I partly have gluten to thank for it. Stay tuned…hopefully you’re as curious as I am to see how this story will end…

– Pete