Wow does time fly! I've started classes again at school and man am I busy! It has been an interesting few weeks but I have been dedicated to my training. I had a race after my last post that was a great learning experience for me. I was really hoping to do well during this race and I was determined to push my limits.
Only days before this race I met with Coach Shanks and found out how horrible of a swimmer I really was. We worked on my form and after a couple painful hours I walked away with a ton of useful tips to improve my swim. With this new found knowledge I entered the water at my race feeling more like a shark and less like... well less like a retarded dolphin. I ran through all the tips in me head and as the proverbial gun went off I dove in with new hopes of swimming out in front. Well needless to say I was less like a shark than I was hoping. The whole time I was trying to swim correctly but my body wouldn't listen to what my mind was saying... in fact a retarded dolphin probably looked more like a swimmer than I did at this point. Once I finally made it to the shore I knew I had time to make up so I went into the bike with the intentions of making up for my lost time. I flew on that bike, Lance Armstrong himself would have been humbled by the amount of speed I was propelling myself forward with. With only the run left I was feeling great and thought I had a great chance at setting a new PR for myself. The run was brutal but I kept reminding myself of my goals and I never gave up. I have never been so proud of myself crossing that finish line than I did on that day... until my wife told me my time.
I had made no improvements over my time from last year and was still in the exact same ranking in my age group and overall. I was crushed. I had given it my all and made absolutely no time improvements, how could that be? How could I not even improve in my overall placement? I posed this question to my coach and he came back with some very valid points and event sent a very reassuring article to me. Both he and the article were right. Sometimes it's not about your time or your place overall, but simple that you were happy with how hard you pushed yourself. I feel like this is something I have always felt, but sometimes we get caught up in setting objective (measurable) goals instead of subjective (how you felt) goals. Those subjective goals can be even more satisfying than the objective ones and in the end that's really what matters. I have another race this weekend and even though we have set some objective goals ( cut 8 minutes off my time from last year) I also plan on racing my hardest and being happy with the fact that I got to race, because in the end that's what really matters.
No comments:
Post a Comment