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Pulling Yourself Out of a RutThis article was originally published in Triathlete Magazine, 1999 Things are going great! You feel strong, your training is right on and you, you rock!! Everything feels good. You’re swimming PR’s in the pool, cycling like a crazed yellow jersey laden phenom, and running like the wind, (or at least it feels that way!). Life is good. You say your thanks and make sure that everyday you appreciate all these wonderful things, knowing that the more you show your appreciation, the more likely they are to stick around. It’s kinda scary in a way. If you’re like me, you start to think , okay, something’s up here, this is too good to be true. Well, it’s not. It’s just that our journey’s through life will always consist of peaks and valleys. When things are good, or great for that matter, dive in, enjoy it, live each moment of it to the fullest! Gain strength, confidence, and power from it. Enjoy the feeling of relief you get when things run smoothly without really having to struggle with it. From this you can form a basis for those great visualizations we athletes are meant to be practicing each and every day. Imagining ourselves swimming, biking and running powerfully, fast, with great confidence and just a solid, steady effort. This is what we aim for in all our races. Internalize the great feeling of euphoria you get on those awesome days and then feed on that memory when things aren’t running so smoothly. Inevitably, one of those fantastic, feel-good days, will sometime be followed by a real challenging one, or two, or three or twenty. Here’s an example: Tuesday, I go to the pool, Jane serves us a real doozer. I mean, this one will either really toughen me up and make me faster or just send to me to an early death. Hopefully, not the former as if I die in the pool, they’ll probably have to shut it down for a couple days. Anyhow, somehow, I get it through. I don’t just survive, I feel great! I make all the intervals with time to spare, I love it!! I don’t want the workout to end as each interval successfully made, makes me feel stronger and more confident. As the workout goes on I feel better and better. It feels great! I want more! It leaves me hungry for tomorrows challenge. Well, tomorrow comes and I’m feeling ready to go. I know what I accomplished the day before and expect to do the same again. So, in I dive and off I go. Performing what I feel is perfect technique, but really resembles a helicopters propellers trying to pull a half drowned copter out from under the sea. We get a set with a really easy interval for some 100’s. Swimming the time’s we were doing in yesterday’s 100’s I would have had at least 15 seconds rest. I decide to hammer, to try and beat my times from yesterday. This is a personal challenge, me against the clock. So, off I go, I know I am working hard because my heart is threatening to break out of my chest. Boulder Hospital is picking up my numbers on their emergency screens. I must be moving fast. Well, to my horror, I had missed the interval by 10 seconds, yes 10 seconds, I checked my watch. Told Jane to fix the pace clock and off I went again. Same thing, working my butt of but going nowhere!!! What was wrong? I finally, resigned to the fact that I was having a bad day and would move over a lane and just go very easy. Tomorrow would be a new day. Well, day after day for what seemed like an eternity, I really struggled. I was in a rut. I felt weak, my confidence was being severely threatened. Time for Action! The last thing you want to do in this situation, is sit there and wallow in your pain, fertilizing that growing garden of self-doubt. You need answers! Sometimes they are difficult to find, but with a little self introspection and persistence you can figure it out and solve the problem.
Have I not been eating the right things? Basically, you need to go out and find yourself. Go to your favorite place (not McDonalds, or Big Buster’s Brew Pub), your favorite place of peace, of calm and relaxation. For me, that means up top a mountain somewhere in Boulder, alone, with the only sounds I hear being the sound of the hawks, the birds, the crickets, the wind and the rock and dirt under my feet, or out by the reservoir, water always seems to open my mind, free my soul and calm my nerves. You may not have mountains or a body of water near you, perhaps you have an awesome spot near a pond or a lake, a peaceful trail through a wooded forest or a room in your house that always brings about a calming of your self. Go to that place and just sit and have a conversation with yourself. Ask yourself questions and answer them honestly. This will lead to an opening of your mind and a freeing of your thought and will hopefully result in bringing you answers as to what is making you feel the way you are. Listen to these thoughts and follow their instructions. This will give you strength and confidence just knowing that you are taking action and working to resolve your temporary problem. Remember also, that most of our growth as human beings occurs during a difficult period of our lives, or a crisis. Take comfort in this and see it as an opportunity to grow, to get stronger and to bring yourself to a higher level. Siri, 1998 |
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