The hard gifts....

-

Race Days are a gift for many athletes. It’s the day you prepare for and recount so many times in your head during the months of training. It’s the big event! The finale of everything you have worked for.

Some days are perfect, great weather, great energy and health and no technical difficulties. I often wake up with a few butterflies and maybe a little tired, but mostly excited at what the day will bring. It’s usually fun, always an adventure, and a day I won’t forget. This last weekend I was able to travel with some friends and do a race in some pretty nasty weather. It was a tough ride, the race took me 90 minutes longer than planned. It was cold, wet and windy the ENTIRE race.

The look on my face pretty much sums up my day.
Its the: "Who the hell signed me up for this race face." 

It was the type of race that breaks people down and many of us found our limits that day. But it was still a good day. About 10 miles into the race my cyclagrin kicked in. (That’s the cycling version of a permagrin). There were very few times during the rest of the day that I wasn’t smiling. Although this day was a little more emotional than many races! I crawled into bed very tired, and very satisfied that night. It was hard, and I had trained for several weeks to work hard. I worked really hard for the chance to be wet, cold and kind of miserable for nearly 6 hours. But I still consider it a truly epic and wonderful day.


I have another bike race coming up in a few weeks, so please pray for some warm and sunny weather. (And maybe pray for a constant tailwind if you have good praying skills.) I am kind of banking on a slightly more enjoyable ride. 
Sometimes race days don’t work out the way you expect. But I will continue to go back for more chances to create epic days with friends as long as I can!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What to do when you are burning more calories than you really want to eat. Yeah, I know... 1st world problems.

-
Hey guys!  I have had a few people remark about having problems getting enough calories down as they have increased their activity levels over the last few weeks. Disclaimer for those of you that don't know me personally: I have some clients who have bumped workouts up by double with the addition of new classes to our schedule or drastically changed up their daily activity in the last few weeks. Short and sweet: In the past you may have done a 30 to 50 minute workout. You logged your calories according to body weight and intensity and off you went with your day. Woohoo! A few hundred more calories to fuel your body with and you needed them. Those are the days when you want to eat within a close margin of your base and exercise calories back to strengthen your metabolism and fuel that awesome machine that carries you through every day. Long and laborous: Now that you have multiple trainers and 23 classes on the PURENERGY schedule its like a calorie burning buffet every day...
Read more

Wellbeing Wednesday:

-
Image
             I’m sure you have heard it before, or maybe some version of it at some point along your journey: “if it doesn’t challenge you it doesn’t change you.”  It is likely I had heard this quote in passing too, before it resonated so deeply with me, just about a year ago.  The words have been with me since then. They’ve helped me over mountains on my bike, given me courage in my career, and helped me grow as a person. I feel the message is important for all of us to keep in mind on our own individual journey.             I heard the quote from the mouth of Angela Manuel Davis, a fitness evangelist/motivator and spin instructor for Soul Cycle in L.A. Angela was also a member of the USA Track and Field Team and was a professional track athlete. As I sat down to write this, I did a little more research into other folks that have spoken the same or simi...
Read more

Wellbeing Wednesday:

-
Image
Running and I have had a long on and off again relationship. I remember my first run; recently quit smoking and still mourning the death of an incredibly close friend. I was 18 years old and desperately yearning to feel something other than the usual swing between apathy and despair. Mind you, at this point I had never run in my life. Truly, I hadn’t even run the mile in high school. They let us walk it. My only physical activity was gained from my waitressing job. Fortunately I was easily working 40 hours a week, so I wasn’t unfamiliar with movement. But I certainly wasn’t familiar with the beast known as cardio. I stepped onto the treadmill of the YMCA and wondered what all the buttons do. I decided to stick with “start”, it seemed the most straightforward. It took me over 12 minutes to run a single mile. I was destroyed afterwards. My heart was pumping frantically to return oxygen into my body and regain a normal heart rate. I felt nauseous, exhausted, exhilarated and for a...
Read more