Intention

CHAPTER 25The Roots of High Performance

“Man's habits are truly more powerful than his deeds.”

—Rabindranath Tagore

Sister Madonna Buder was born in St. Louis, Missouri on July 24, 1930. The eldest of three siblings, Buder's parents raised her with a strong sense of discipline and Catholic values, which led her to dedicate her early life to the Church. In her autobiography, The Grace to Race, Buder says that even as a teenage equestrian and amateur actress, she had a secret plan to devote her life to the Church.

And so she did, spending much of her life in a Catholic convent. She was a model nun throughout. When she was 48, a priest named Father John suggested she take a run on the beach, telling her that training her body could be a way to improve her mental well-being and become an even better servant to god. Buder found a pair of old shorts and sneakers in a pile of donated clothes and went for a run. And she never stopped.

She began applying the same discipline that she had nurtured in her service to the Church to physical training. Building on her already well-structured and habitual life in the convent, Buder started to intentionally focus on her physical strength and endurance in order to achieve her goals. Her routine was simple: wake up early, swim, bike, and run. However, as simple as the input was, the outcome was nothing short of miraculous.

Sister Buder is, at the time of writing, the oldest person to have ever finished an Ironman Triathlon. The race consists ...