If you believe in yourself,

have dedication and pride and never quit,

you'll be a winner.

The price of victory is high,

but so are the rewards.

-Paul Bryant

My friend Kelly put this quote on her Facebook wall yesterday.  I googled the quote and found out it was by Paul Bryant who was a football coach for the University of Alabama. But when I read it on Kelly’s wall I felt like it was written just for me.

Like most athletes, I am hard on myself.  But lately I’ve been more frustrated than usual, I’ve been negative, and I basically feel like I’m falling into a black hole of self doubt.  I read this quote and it hit me hard. I felt like Kelly had unknowingly tossed me a life preserver.  I stared at the words and thought, “The answer is here somewhere.”  So I started dissecting it.  And the more I dissected it the closer I got to my life preserver…

Strength and Endurance:

Can We Have Both?

No one ever told me I could be strong.  From an early age I was told I had “the body of a runner.”  Translation: you are tall and skinny and should probably stay away from sports that involve physical contact with another human being or heavy objects.

So I became a runner because that is what I thought I was “supposed” to be.  For a long time, I let my body type direct my athletic destiny.  From one perspective you could say it worked out well.  I joined the track and cross-country teams in high school, came to love the discipline of training, and enjoyed the camaraderie that came with being a part of a team.

I left for college, still a runner at heart but without a team to be a part of.  I wasn’t nearly fast enough for the University of Michigan track team, so I just laced up my shoes and hit the pavement on my own.  I wasn’t sure what I was training for, all I knew was that I couldn’t stop competing whether I was asked to be on a team or not.

Training for nothing got old pretty fast so I registered for the Chicago Marathon.  I found a training program online that I followed religiously during my junior year of college.  It was a typical “long slow distance” (LSD) training calendar that would increase my mileage weekly, my longest runs always falling on a Saturday.  The calendar worked me up to two 20-mile runs that I was to complete roughly 6 and 4 weeks before the marathon.

I ran the Chicago Marathon in October of 2001 and finished in a time of 3 hours 51 minutes.  I was so pumped after this experience that I immediately signed up for the San Diego Marathon which would take place the following June.  I followed the same training program and finished the San Diego Marathon in… wait for it… 3 hours 52 minutes.  That is zero improvement. It’s actually a little worse than zero improvement, but let’s not split hairs...

It's rare that I can finish a competition without feeling compelled to write about it.  I think it's usually a combination of extreme physical exhaustion and being a slightly overly sentimental person in general.  Okay fine, maybe more than "slightly".  My tired body will lay still and silent while my mind wanders far away.  I usually waltz into the land of metaphors and find great satisfaction in relating my competition experience to life in general.  I've learned a lot about who I am and what I'm made of by competing.  I do think this is one great reason to train and to compete - because while we are lifting and sweating we are actually learning a lot about ourselves and the world around us.  Metaphors abound.  Lessons are learned.  My mind wanders further and soon enough I'm not thinking about reps and times... I'm thinking about the meaning of life.

But on my way to today's competition, long before my post-WOD, blissed-out, pseudo-meditation... I had a much simpler appreciation for what this day was about to bring...