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Normal is Great!

In General Triathlon of TTC (December 9, 2008 3:22 pm)

As triathletes, in fact all high achieving human beings, we sometimes lose sight of the real reason why we participate. Most of us, for any number of reasons, are not going to be world or Olympic champions. Perhaps the main reason is that most of us have something else in our lives which requires more attention (work, family etc.)

This doesn’t mean that we can’t strive to perform to our potential or achieve our goals. BUT it does mean that if we don’t achieve them our real reason for being is still there.

Why do i mention this now? I see many athletes who are frustrated that they fail to set a new PB at a race or can’t go sub 40 mins for a 10k and this makes their whole life a misery. In short they lose sight of the reason that they took up the sport in the first place.

At the weekend we were walking in the Yorkshire Dales. A quite spectacular place to be at any time but when the sun is shining there’s not a cloud in the sky and you are walking through 18 inch deep virgin snow it’s hard not to imagine you are in the Alps.

One of the guys I was walking with is a very keen cyclist. I’ll call him D. A few years ago D developed a heart complaint and for a number of years even work left him shattered, let alone the cycling mileage he was accustomed to. Thanks to some skilful surgery he is now back to full fitness but 2 years ago he wouldn’t have been able to enjoy that walk. We spoke about this and discussed how great it was just to be healthy.

The point is that in some ways triathletes go past healthy and on to obsessive. They forget how good it is just to be able to swim bike and run. This is normal and D is now just happy to be back to normal rather than setting PB’s

Now, I’m not really a big fan of Christmas but I do know it is a time for rejoicing, so lets rejoice in the fact that we can do these sports and occasionally we’ll set some great times. But when that doesn’t happen let’s try to remember why we got into this sport in the first place. Because it’s fun, it’s hard work it’s outdoors and we love it. Normal is great!!!!

Keep smiling…tomorrow it could get worse

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