I'm having a harder time getting into the swing of this off-season training thing than I thought I would have. I believe there are a couple contributing factors, but mostly that just adds up to excuses for not doing what I know I need to. Part of my problem (excuse #1), is that I'm sorta lonely. I've gotten used to being part of a pack through the summer, frustrating as that can be. Now, with the exception of spin class, it's just me, and somehow that's just not as fun. I don't think there's much I can do about that, other than suck it up and focus on the goals.
Goals are part the problem as well (excuse #2). It's all good and well to say "I'm going to do a tri!", but the fact is, that is still many months off. I am, at heart, a short term kind of woman. I like goals that I can knock off in a matter of weeks, not months. As such, I'm going to spend some time coming up with some entertaining goals for myself (complete with rewards, naturally). I'm thinking they are going to range from something like 'run 5 miles' to 'follow your workout plan for two weeks'. The rewards will be in scale with the achievement, but I find they make the work all the sweeter.
The final problem is probably the most pernicious. While I've mostly wrapped my head around doing a tri next year, I have yet to commit to being a triathlete. As I mentioned in a previous post, if I do this thing, I want to do it well. Unfortunately, I'm not exactly a natural athlete. This is hard for me, and I'm not a person for whom many things are all that hard. This is the biggest test for me, personally. Am I willing to put forth the effort to do this? Am I willing to put myself forward in this manner, knowing that I may well fail? It's a mental game, an internal wrangling to decide which version of myself will prevail. Will I be a triathlete? Or a wanna-be?
Ah, the athlete's curse. If you're competitive, you will never be good enough, no matter how much talent you have. There will always be someone faster, always another goal to reach.
ReplyDeleteThing is, you can't fail at this point, not really. Think about where you were two or three years ago, and compare that to where you are now. Can you _honestly_ say that you have failed in any meaningful way? You might have a bad race, or a bad workout, but that's failure only in a trivial sense (though it won't feel like it at the time). It's like drawing blood mountain biking - it will happen, but it doesn't define the overall experience. :-)
Don't let your competitive side ruin a good thing for you - smack it upside the head with the 100 miles you rode after only a couple of years of serious biking and remind it how few people could do that. It's a blessing and a curse. Without it, you probably don't make the kind of strides you have in such a short time, but when it stops being beneficial you have to rein it in a bit. You want to stay hungry, but not so hungry that you start gnawing on your own arm.
And with that, I'm out of bad analogies. :-)