Perspective

The past few months I've felt like I'm seriously lacking perspective on all the training that I'm doing.

Two years ago I started cycling. I trained with Team in Training for a century ride, and every ride that we did was the longest ride I had ever done. It was so cool! Within a year, I had done four century rides of varying difficulties, and the high was starting to wear off. Once you've ridden 100 miles, the milestones don't seem as exciting anymore.

This year I started training for triathlon. The cycling part was old hat for me, but the running and swimming were totally new. Pretty much the last time I had done any running was when I was forced to in P.E. in high school. So, for the first few months of training, I had all the highs again of reaching goals and accomplishing new things. I did my first sprint tri in May, and it should have been great. I mean, here I had trained for months and months, and I was finally accomplishing my goal, right? But my next triathlon was six weeks away, and was supposed to be an international distance, which pretty much meant doubling all my distances in six weeks. I began to have a serious crisis of faith at that point. Why was I putting myself through this? What was the point? What was my REASON?? After several weeks of this, I finally came up with the answer. I do it because I can! And I will keep pushing myself to see how much more I can do, because that's just who I am!

What I had forgotten was that I was supposed to be having fun. I was too wrapped up in trying to accomplish too much too soon, and had stopped enjoying it! And if you're not enjoying your training, what's the point?? Let's face it, it's some grueling stuff! (And I haven't even reached the longer distances yet...) We punish our bodies day in and day out. If we're not getting some enjoyment out of it, then it's just plain torture for no good reason! So I got back to the fun of things and backed off a little but somewhere along the line I lost perspective on the amount of training I'm doing.

Last month I swam a mile in the ocean for the first time. That's freaking huge, right? If I go outside the world of triathlon, not a lot of my friends/family have ever swam a mile in their life, let alone in the ocean! But we don't live outside the world of triathlon, we live in it! And in that world are people who do this same stuff (if not more) every day, so it starts to appear normal. And this is where the perspective gets lost.

Example: Today I worked out at the gym with my personal trainer. After that I went for a bike ride with a teammate. Then a few hours later, I went for a one-mile swim in a very tempermental ocean.

Two years ago, if you'd have told me that I would do this, I would have told you that you were freaking nuts. And yet, this is a totally normal day for me. And to those people who have been doing triathlons for a while, I'm sure this sounds like no big deal. But shouldn't it be??? Shouldn't it be crazy that seven months after starting training I've come this far?? Shouldn't it be amazing that my body just goes along with everything I ask it to do, and doesn't complain (at least too much...) or totally break down?

It's becoming harder and harder for me to think clearly on this subject, that's for sure.