My friends and I are use to taking home age awards at races. Most of us have enough medals to host our own race and enough trophies to show off at work and make our coworkers think we are pretty awesome! Nothing beats standing at the water cooler telling your coworkers that you took first place in your age group at the last local 5k! What is a 5k they may ask? You smile and give them the whole race play for play down to every sweat particle and second you took off your PR!
Yah we are pretty competitive and pretty damn good! Around here! We know if we head to the Boston Marathon or even run the local IL Marathon there is very little chance we will place. It doesn't matter because we take all the areas races anyway! Those big races just level us out and let us know there is always someone out there better. Extreme talent for us to appreciate and strive harder to achieve!
With the area races I got to the point where I wasn't happy unless I got first place in my age group. I could race and get my PR by several seconds but get second in my age group and I still wasn't happy. I did my absolute best and I was still disappointed! You can imagine my surprise last week when I finished my first Olympic Triathlon and found out I was dead last in my age group! I was crushed!
I started doing triathlons this year with the understanding it was for fun! I wasn't going to place, so I would try something new and have fun with it! My first tri I was pretty happy and I actually placed in my age group! I have to admit this was not the best thing for me! The first thought that entered my mind was maybe I was better than I thought! I even challenged my friend that I would beat her at a tri! She did an ironman last year! I was insane and a little cocky!
My next tri I still finished fourth in my age and was still pretty happy! The swim was longer so I felt good about my place. Then, I do a OLY and I finish! I felt great about it! I come home with a super good attitude! Then I look at results and see I am last and suddenly all my feelings change. I suck, I am horrible, should I even do this anymore??
I have raced a tri since and did better in my age but I didn't feel better overall. I felt better in the tri I came in last at. So..... Why do I compare myself to others? Why do we all? If we just ran for ourselves every race and didn't worry about others or age group places I wonder how much better we would be and feel about our performance.
I ran most this year on a broken hip and still felt a need to compare myself with everyone else! Why? I am doing tris for the first time and still feel the need to compare myself to others! Why??? I want to learn to just do my best and be happy with that!! Why is that so hard for me? Once I learn to accept that what I do is my best and that's all that matters I have a feeling I will be a much better athlete.
Medals and trophies tarnish and blemish, the feeling knowing you just did the best you could never fades.....
