I did my first triathlon in 2003 on a mountain bike.   The race was in Anilao and the bike route went up & down the hills where the dive resorts are and down to the town and back up again to the resorts.

By the time I got to the u-turn in the town, I had this pained expression on my face.  I thought that (1) things of great & dramatic effort needed a matching facial expression, and that (2) pain was a more publicly acceptable emotion than fear & insecurity.  As I rounded the u-turn, one of the locals watching  yelled, “Kuya baka kailangan mo muna ng pandesal.”   That hit me. I remember the inner dialogue:

So why does your face look like that? You’re not that tired.  And you want to do this right? Why not enjoy it?

I relaxed my face and realized that I didn’t need to prove anything or make any excuses. I enjoyed the race and got to the finish line in my first triathlon.  Ten years later, the lessons still holds true:  (1) the important things we do, don’t always need to be announced — we do them precisely because they are important;  and (2)  in sports as in life, the good ones are the ones that make it look easy.