Not just me

Over the last 2 months, injuries have taken its toll on my body physically and mentally. As I have started to finally return to my training, I was pleasantly surprised to see this morning a new blog by my favorite triathlete, Chrissie Wellington. It has been a long time since her last blog. Title: learning the lessons. I figured it was going to be something about a tiny goof she made on the bike or something like, I was 2 seconds late for taking a drink. I mean really, Chrissie is awesome! Boy was I wrong. This one hit home hard with me. She was talking about our expectations for ourselves, in training, racing and in life, but what happens when those expectations are not met? Have we "failed" ourselves. Her blog was about how do you cope with not reaching your goals. I stopped reading right there and thought to myself, how do I cope with not reaching my goals? Holy crap, I don't know! I sat and pondered at this for hours. Why do I not know this? I do something, but what is it? Then it hit me. I do nothing. I don't look back at the events leading up to the event, during the event and how to improve on those items. When I "fail", I do not want to admit I failed. This is something I have struggled with all my life, admitting when I am wrong. Why is that so hard to do? Does it make me a weaker person? No, everyone makes mistakes, but it is how you learn from those mistakes. This is what I need to work on. The rest of this morning I was going over the last 2 months in my head and what did I do that caused these injuries? How do I learn from these? It really all came down to a lot of basic things that when you become "comfortable" with a sport, you don't think about anymore. When Chrissie did not have her A race, she looked back at why she did it in the first place. I had to look back and ask myself the same question. Why AM I doing this? I'm not out training to win races, but to give myself a healthier lifestyle. I should not be beating myself up over not being able to run 7 min/miles, but just be happy that I CAN be out running. Triathlons are so much fun for me. Granted, it helps to do really well, but it isn't the end of the world if I dnf.
On a much lighter note, I received my new wetsuit yesterday. Awesome. It fits perfect. It definitely fits a lot different than the men's. The neck is a lot tighter than I am use to so I hope I don't freak out in the water because of it. I also need to work on getting out of it. When it fits like it is suppose to, it is a lot harder to get off your second skin.