I'm extremely bummed right now. I'm not going to hide it. Nothing went right for me yesterday. I had the shittiest race to date and I'm sure it's obvious just looking at the results. But here is what the results haven't told you:
The swim was shit. The first buoy was 50ish meters away from the start and with 57 guys that gets messy. Way too messy. But it wasn't the first buoy when my day started going wrong; it was about 500 meters in where my day went from an okay swim to a crappy race. I got kicked in the stomach. Imagine one of the strongest swimmers you know kicking you as hard as they can right in the stomach. I got the wind knocked out of me, my first thought was "Where the **** is the kayak?" But I kept going anyways, with the wind knocked out of me. I got out of the water trailing lead pack, which has happened in the past and I can normally make up those 10 seconds. After a good T1 I really thought I could turn my race around. But boy was I ever wrong.
The moment I mounted my bike I started throwing up from the forceful kick in my stomach. After throwing up for the first 30 seconds of the race, I lost a lot of energy and my goal went from a top 10 finish to finishing the race. Nothing was going my way but wait... it gets worse. I flatted about 15km into the bike. With only 5k to go and knowing that it was a slow leak I rode it out.
By the time the run came I just wanted to finish the race because I really didn't want a DNF beside my name. That's not me. I don't ever want to give up, and I still don't. So what I'm going to try and take away from this race is this: I had nothing going for me, everything that could go wrong went wrong but I still pushed through it and finished the race. In my opinion it was the best race I've ever done. It's going to take me a few days to realize it and it's going to be hard to recover from this race mentally but it's the only way I can leave this race behind. Onwards and upwards.
Hi Reid,
ReplyDeleteGreat attitude, learn from it, shake it off, get ready for the next race. Vince Lombardi (one of my favourite coaches) said "It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get back up that counts!" You're already up on one knee, just keep going! We are all behind you.
Daryl
"Perhaps the single most important element in mastering the techniques and tactics of racing is experience. But once you have the fundamentals, acquiring the experience is a matter of time."
ReplyDeleteYou have the fundamentals; perseverance, talent, and those specific to triathlon. Every race you learn something new. Keep putting those experiences together until you are experienced. Then, instead of nothing, everything will go right.