Friday, June 26, 2009
A quote I like...
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few." Shunryu Suzuki
Relentless...
The word... "Relentless"...
Hmmmm why do I like that word? At a lecture the other night by Dr. Steve Norris on "How to Parent your Superstar" he talked about the word "relentless". It struck a chord with me. Alpine Canada has it in their motto... "The Relentless Pursuit of Excellence" or something like that. Dr. Norris talked about Steve Nash and what he did when he missed a free throw losing his team a championship game. (I'm not a basketball fan... I don't know the team of the game.) What did Steve Nash do when he came home back to Victoria? He went to the gym at U of Vic upon arriving home after a long flight and threw 500 free throws till the wee hours of the morning. He went home, slept a bit, came back to the gym and threw another 500 free throws. He had lunch, and yup... you guessed it... went back and threw ANOTHER 500 free throws.
His pursuit of excellence was "relentless". Here is a man who is one of the best in the world, and he didn't sit on his accolades and accept the fate of the team. He relentlessly went to work to find the error... where did he go wrong?
We triathletes are not so different really, in our pursuit to be the best we can be. Sometimes our efforts bring us gold, sometimes coal, but we learn from every little experience in the pursuit of excellence.... "our" excellence. I think it's important that we define what "excellence" means to us as well. Is it time, execution, nailing nutrition, pacing the bike well, maintaining a happy face and bright shiny attitude from start to finish, placing in our age group, moving up in our age group, not panicking in the swim, remembering to eat on the bike, celebrating the accomplishments of others when we are disappointed in our own, running the whole run, remembering where our bike is in transition, making it home for our kids birthday party and still getting our training in.... the possibilities are endless.
So... find your own definition of success and remember it will change from race to race, day to day, sometimes moment to moment. Be relentless in your pursuit to accomplish what it is you seek, and be the first to say "I did a GREAT job and I am proud of myself"... then move on to the next check mark. As long as we keep learning, accept failure as a part of the journey to success, and acknowledge that we cannot know everything, we will relentlessly learn and improve. I hope to look at life that way until mine is over.
Something to think about anyway:) Thanks for reading.
Hmmmm why do I like that word? At a lecture the other night by Dr. Steve Norris on "How to Parent your Superstar" he talked about the word "relentless". It struck a chord with me. Alpine Canada has it in their motto... "The Relentless Pursuit of Excellence" or something like that. Dr. Norris talked about Steve Nash and what he did when he missed a free throw losing his team a championship game. (I'm not a basketball fan... I don't know the team of the game.) What did Steve Nash do when he came home back to Victoria? He went to the gym at U of Vic upon arriving home after a long flight and threw 500 free throws till the wee hours of the morning. He went home, slept a bit, came back to the gym and threw another 500 free throws. He had lunch, and yup... you guessed it... went back and threw ANOTHER 500 free throws.
His pursuit of excellence was "relentless". Here is a man who is one of the best in the world, and he didn't sit on his accolades and accept the fate of the team. He relentlessly went to work to find the error... where did he go wrong?
We triathletes are not so different really, in our pursuit to be the best we can be. Sometimes our efforts bring us gold, sometimes coal, but we learn from every little experience in the pursuit of excellence.... "our" excellence. I think it's important that we define what "excellence" means to us as well. Is it time, execution, nailing nutrition, pacing the bike well, maintaining a happy face and bright shiny attitude from start to finish, placing in our age group, moving up in our age group, not panicking in the swim, remembering to eat on the bike, celebrating the accomplishments of others when we are disappointed in our own, running the whole run, remembering where our bike is in transition, making it home for our kids birthday party and still getting our training in.... the possibilities are endless.
So... find your own definition of success and remember it will change from race to race, day to day, sometimes moment to moment. Be relentless in your pursuit to accomplish what it is you seek, and be the first to say "I did a GREAT job and I am proud of myself"... then move on to the next check mark. As long as we keep learning, accept failure as a part of the journey to success, and acknowledge that we cannot know everything, we will relentlessly learn and improve. I hope to look at life that way until mine is over.
Something to think about anyway:) Thanks for reading.
Enough with the 10k nastiness!
I looked back at my posts and realized that I am a 10k complainer! I'm unhappy if the course is long; I'm unhappy if the course is short; and I'm unhappy if the course if bang on but I execute poorly! It's kind of like the 3 Bears... no bowl of porridge is just right and I should suck it up and change my attitude:)
So... here is the new me. I had a GREAT swim this morning. I got to share a lane with my wonderful athlete Cindy, then David a good friend. Beside us were 2 of the Roth clan working hard. I was in my happy place. The water felt "heavy" but the clock indicated things were going well. I was motivated and glad to be there!
I got home and forced myself straight out on a run. It was windy (again) but not as bad as yesterday so I got it done. Who knew I could have SUCH A GREAT RUN! The sun was shining, I was by myself enjoying the beauty and serenity of our wonderful path system in Cochrane, I saw a beautiful Husky puppy and others out enjoying the day. Running felt fast and effortless. All was good.
It got me thinking about how lucky I am to have triathlon in my life. It gives me purpose every day. I'm surrounded by people who share my passion and are highly motivated to love life. Sure training can be a challenge to fit around the rest of our responsibilities, but I know that we always feel better once we've got it done. I'm the first to say "leave the vacuum alone... get your run in" and I base that opinion on the fact that I always feel better after the run, but not so much after the vacuuming gets done. I've heard people say that training for an Ironman is a burden. I was surprised at that. We all make a choice to go this route with our time, so how does a "choice" become a burden?
Think about places in the world where every living moment is spent doing tasks to survive. Getting water and food, building shelters, keeping your family safe; all things we take for granted. We have an existence where we are able to make choices about how to spend our time at some point pretty much every day.
So... the next time you are struggling to get out the door to swim / bike or run, give yourself a quick kick in the behind to "gently" remind you that you get to make this choice. We are a privileged group. I'm thankful for that.
So... here is the new me. I had a GREAT swim this morning. I got to share a lane with my wonderful athlete Cindy, then David a good friend. Beside us were 2 of the Roth clan working hard. I was in my happy place. The water felt "heavy" but the clock indicated things were going well. I was motivated and glad to be there!
I got home and forced myself straight out on a run. It was windy (again) but not as bad as yesterday so I got it done. Who knew I could have SUCH A GREAT RUN! The sun was shining, I was by myself enjoying the beauty and serenity of our wonderful path system in Cochrane, I saw a beautiful Husky puppy and others out enjoying the day. Running felt fast and effortless. All was good.
It got me thinking about how lucky I am to have triathlon in my life. It gives me purpose every day. I'm surrounded by people who share my passion and are highly motivated to love life. Sure training can be a challenge to fit around the rest of our responsibilities, but I know that we always feel better once we've got it done. I'm the first to say "leave the vacuum alone... get your run in" and I base that opinion on the fact that I always feel better after the run, but not so much after the vacuuming gets done. I've heard people say that training for an Ironman is a burden. I was surprised at that. We all make a choice to go this route with our time, so how does a "choice" become a burden?
Think about places in the world where every living moment is spent doing tasks to survive. Getting water and food, building shelters, keeping your family safe; all things we take for granted. We have an existence where we are able to make choices about how to spend our time at some point pretty much every day.
So... the next time you are struggling to get out the door to swim / bike or run, give yourself a quick kick in the behind to "gently" remind you that you get to make this choice. We are a privileged group. I'm thankful for that.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
PR's aren't all they're cracked up to be...
I've learned in the past 6 months that I'm not a good blogger. Honestly, when I'm riding or running I often come up with little tidbits of info to throw up on my blog, but I get home and never ever follow through with it. I'm finding out though that lots of people come to my website and take a boo at my blog. How disturbing that the first thing they see is a pad full of goo drawn out of my foot:) Time to move on past that.
So... TONS of things I could write about. Maybe about how today I was riding in a pace line behind Ken and the great Carmen Augustini into a kick arse headwind thinking I'm about the luckiest gal in the whole world to be riding behind these uber rider blokes. I could talk about that.
I could also talk about missing Terry "Tigger" Toma... but that's too hard right now. She's been gone since April 1st and I still don't have it in place. It will take a while.
I could also talk about the fact that my two daughters are aging and at the ages of 13 and 15 going into grades 9 and 11 I'm too darn close to being out of a "Mommy" job. I don't really want to talk about that either.
So many options... so little time.
Let's talk about the PR that pissed me off!!!!!
I'm not a fast runner. My times are coming down though and darn it, I'm working at it. From the perspective of some folks, I do OK. From the perspective of other (speedy) folks, I'm a big of a plodder. Still, I'm doing the work to improve, and it's paying off.
To why am I pissy about a PR? (The alliteration is killing me!)
The Foothills Academy 10k was a few weeks ago. I didn't taper really but I wanted to see a 44?? when I crossed the finish line. That was my goal. I'm not big on time goals but for this 10k, I set a time goal thinking it was realistic that I be able to accomplish it.
So, I started the race and I felt GREAT! I used my foot pod for pace, and was holding just below goal pace. Those darn km markers said I was going faster than I was, but who the heck is going to listen to that when I have my speed right on my wrist. At about 3k I started to feel not as good, but I hung on like a trooper. At the 5k mark I was amazed to see my 5k pr! How cool is that! A 5k pr in a 10k race:) Oops... can you say "poor execution"!!!!
So, the next 5k I suffered... BADLY. I will even admit to walking. Yup... I had a bit of a mental lapse for about 10 seconds and I walked. I'm a bit shamed to admit it, but I was hurting SO bad. I tried all the tried and true mental tricks... the ones that get me through and IM race. Nothing worked. I walked.
After that I pulled myself together and soldiered on. I had to finish this thing and I could still hit the goal time. Pain is temporary... pride is forever... right!!!
At the finish I clicked my watch. Mission accomplished. The deed is done. I finally have an official 1ok time reading "44" and I should have been thrilled!!!! Why wasn't I?
It all comes down to my deep rooted belief that a well executed race is a beautiful thing. Any distance any speed... if you execute well the time will come. Process goals process goals process goals. That's the key. What will you eat and drink? How will you pace? What are your mental strategies to keep your legs moving when your brain tells them to stop? These are a few of the things we need to look after to race well.
On this day, on this simple little 10k, I got the time goal, but my execution sucked. In the end I ran the second 5k 1:14 slower than the first. That is just ugly. The wierd thing is that poor pacing totally took away from the joy of the time. I would have been very happy with my finish stat IF I'd raced well. Who knew:)
So... next time you go to a start line think about what you value most and put the "steps" in place to honor that. I know I will... if I ever do another 10k!!!! Maybe next month.
Bye for now:) Angie
So... TONS of things I could write about. Maybe about how today I was riding in a pace line behind Ken and the great Carmen Augustini into a kick arse headwind thinking I'm about the luckiest gal in the whole world to be riding behind these uber rider blokes. I could talk about that.
I could also talk about missing Terry "Tigger" Toma... but that's too hard right now. She's been gone since April 1st and I still don't have it in place. It will take a while.
I could also talk about the fact that my two daughters are aging and at the ages of 13 and 15 going into grades 9 and 11 I'm too darn close to being out of a "Mommy" job. I don't really want to talk about that either.
So many options... so little time.
Let's talk about the PR that pissed me off!!!!!
I'm not a fast runner. My times are coming down though and darn it, I'm working at it. From the perspective of some folks, I do OK. From the perspective of other (speedy) folks, I'm a big of a plodder. Still, I'm doing the work to improve, and it's paying off.
To why am I pissy about a PR? (The alliteration is killing me!)
The Foothills Academy 10k was a few weeks ago. I didn't taper really but I wanted to see a 44?? when I crossed the finish line. That was my goal. I'm not big on time goals but for this 10k, I set a time goal thinking it was realistic that I be able to accomplish it.
So, I started the race and I felt GREAT! I used my foot pod for pace, and was holding just below goal pace. Those darn km markers said I was going faster than I was, but who the heck is going to listen to that when I have my speed right on my wrist. At about 3k I started to feel not as good, but I hung on like a trooper. At the 5k mark I was amazed to see my 5k pr! How cool is that! A 5k pr in a 10k race:) Oops... can you say "poor execution"!!!!
So, the next 5k I suffered... BADLY. I will even admit to walking. Yup... I had a bit of a mental lapse for about 10 seconds and I walked. I'm a bit shamed to admit it, but I was hurting SO bad. I tried all the tried and true mental tricks... the ones that get me through and IM race. Nothing worked. I walked.
After that I pulled myself together and soldiered on. I had to finish this thing and I could still hit the goal time. Pain is temporary... pride is forever... right!!!
At the finish I clicked my watch. Mission accomplished. The deed is done. I finally have an official 1ok time reading "44" and I should have been thrilled!!!! Why wasn't I?
It all comes down to my deep rooted belief that a well executed race is a beautiful thing. Any distance any speed... if you execute well the time will come. Process goals process goals process goals. That's the key. What will you eat and drink? How will you pace? What are your mental strategies to keep your legs moving when your brain tells them to stop? These are a few of the things we need to look after to race well.
On this day, on this simple little 10k, I got the time goal, but my execution sucked. In the end I ran the second 5k 1:14 slower than the first. That is just ugly. The wierd thing is that poor pacing totally took away from the joy of the time. I would have been very happy with my finish stat IF I'd raced well. Who knew:)
So... next time you go to a start line think about what you value most and put the "steps" in place to honor that. I know I will... if I ever do another 10k!!!! Maybe next month.
Bye for now:) Angie
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