We have all heard the saying, "Don't let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game." I heard it before that girly movie Cinderella coined it, but yeah, they used it too. In my case it is the fear of drowning, flying off my bike, or walking when I should be running, but you get it. Actually my fear lately is coming in last place, something I am not use to.
I had a breakdown before my Olympic Tri last weekend. I always worry before a race, usually it is about getting sick or injured. If it is a race I have done before I worry about PRing, doing worse than I did before, or not placing in my age group, etc. I am a decent runner. I do pretty well around here. I usually place in my age group, sometimes even first. If I go to a bigger race this isn't always the case, but I place pretty decently among my age and sex. For instance at the IL Marathon I placed in the half marathon 89th out of 2843 women / 389th out of 4936 total / 17th out of 379 female in the 30-34 age group. That's above average and something I have come to expect from myself. So last year at my first Olympic triathlon when I placed 10th out of 10 in my age group with only a handful of people finishing behind me overall, well yeah, I was mortified to say the least. I went instantly from being proud of myself for finishing my first Olympic Tri to being so sad about my placement that I moaned and bitched about it constantly. A year later when it came time to do my next, the bitching turned into panic.
For those of you that do not know what an Olympic Tri is, you start out with a 1500 meter swim, followed by a 24.8 mile bike, finishing with a 10k run. It is harder than it sounds....believe me :) The people I race against make it look easy. Nick Modrzejewski says something like this after we finished Sunday, "Well, I wanted to do 6:00 minute miles for the run but the weather conditions made that hard." Really...really man?! Because I can't do that in the running race let alone after I have biked and swam! He is awesome though, and for him, that is normal! Mike Bucher and Nick assured Aldo and I that are time was good. Nick even went a step above that and told us his first Olympic time was slower than ours, so there is hope for us to turn into Nick someday....haha yeah right!!
Anyway, I was full on panic the week before thinking I would come in last. I almost decided to just say F IT and not go. I even told a few people I just wanted to cross train and not do Tri's anymore. To my surprise I placed 4th out of 10 in my age group and 19th out of 40 women overall. I don't care about overall because those men and some of those women are just insane. I was proud of myself for how much I pushed myself and I got a little confidence back!
That was until yesterday.... I looked up the results from the next Olympic we are doing and we are in for a competitive race. With the time I did at this past one I will come in pretty much last. So I am once again in full panic mode thinking I do not want to do this anymore. Everyone keeps telling me that placement doesn't matter, but I think it would matter if it was them, but maybe not, it shouldn't.
Why do I do this? Why did I look at the results? Why can't I just accept this is a new adventure for me and let it be that....let it just be for fun. I am about to try something this year that most people in their life time would not even consider, may not even know exists. Why am I so hard on myself? I am competitive, we all know this :) But why can I not see that it is good enough to just finish, even if I do come in dead last.
In my group of friends we have a few that are not as fast as the others. They have even named themselves a special name for when they run together. The funny thing is, when you compare them to everyone else, they are fast. They all have run marathon's in 10:00 - 11:00 minute mile pace or under. They think this is slow?? Most people would think that is amazing. It is amazing, we just have high expectations for ourselves. Looking back to when I first started running, to think I could FINISH a marathon, to think I could swim one lap without stopping, or ride my bike 10 miles, these are all things I never thought I could do. Now I am giving myself a hard time, having panic attacks, because I am afraid of doing bad. It is rather silly. I have wrote about this before, tried to get myself over it, I am still dwelling....see?
We all have goals. We all want to be better. Why can't we accept that we are good, while we try to be better? I will probably not finish last. When I finish I will be happy for a few days and then full panic mode will set in until I finish my Half Ironman. I wish I could accept and let it sink in that I am doing something that is amazing. That we all are amazing just for getting out there and pushing ourselves.
I guess when I am being down on myself I am lucky to have amazing friends to tell me to shut the hell up! Tell me please.... Remind me that I am ok, and not to freak out! You all know me by now! Sadly we really do all hang out with amazing people who do awesome in sports that sometimes we compare ourselves instead of look at our own accomplishments. I need to remember my hardest competition is myself, and that is the competition that matters. If I am comparing myself to everyone else and putting myself down because I can't do as well as they do, I will never do as well as I can. And seriously, in this case, all that matters is me!
