Reflections on a struggle

Day 2 of my 90 day challenge started out early, I was down at Lake Hollingsworth (a local running and biking hotspot) with 7 other members of my local triathlon club, FR Racing (www.frracing.net). Getting out in the early morning hours, in this case before the sun had a chance to show its face, is a magical thing. There's something special about getting your workout done in the darkness, before the rest of the world has lifted their heads from the pillow, You feel a sense of accomplishment getting home before school traffic, before most people have even hit their snooze button for the first time.

Today was scheduled to be an hour and a half at an "uncomfortable pace" Well in the first 5 minutes I found my "uncomfortable pace" and that seemed to be simply pedaling. While I did best my last personal best for a lap around the lake by almost a minute, I couldn't sustain myself, even at a much slower pace. I was on a new bike, I was grabbing too big of a gear, I didn't get enough sleep, there's all sorts of excuses I could place on why I wasn't performing up to what I should, but the truth of the matter is, it was just one of those days.

Some days you go out and feel like you can't do any wrong, you run like the wind, or pedal like a Tour de France Winner, or maybe you glide through the water like Phelps. Those days are magical, those days are meant to be cherished.

Where there is light however, there is always shadow. The shadow is those days where you don't want to, those days when you don't feel like it, the days that you're already tired, worn down, or frustrated before you even start, the days that you just can't seem to get it going. These are the days that will haunt you, the days that will cause you to put your head down in shame, to rethink what you're doing, doubt your training, your nutrition, even your love of the sport. These are the days that really define you as an athlete, the down days, the days when you struggle.

Everyone remembers Phelps winning Golds, Meb triumphantly crossing the finish line, Ripken's 2,131st game. What people tend to forget is the days that Cal showed up not feeling great and went 0-5, or the long training days in heat or rain, with blisters or pain that Meb endured, the seemingly endless lengths of the pool that Phelps swam before the Olympic spotlight shone on him. We focus on others "highlights" and compare our everyday to that, we think about our personal bests, and wonder why we can't beat them every time. The truth is training is a struggle, winning is far less about the moment of achievement that is so visible, and far more about the hours, days, weeks, months, & years of preperation, sweat and hard work that led up to that moment.

While we all want to have that "Big Victory", our "Gold Medal Moment", we have to learn to look forward to, enjoy and even celebrate the hard days, because without their presence and our desire to push through them... our victories will never come. Next time you have a hard day, don't think about Ripken's 2,131st game, think about what it took for him to lace up for game 945 when he wasn't feeling well, think about Meb's endless training runs, and celebrate the fact that you are a doer, and only through that doing will true achievement ever be realized.