Celebrating the Little Victories: Rah!

It's been a particularly busy spring and early summer here. And oh, so hot! I don't think I've ever wanted so badly for winter to come.

At any rate, I've been on hiatus (for too long) from the blog and I thought that I'd try to catch up. I did another blog entry about my recent races and upcoming plans and I thought I'd write today about a topic that's been on my mind for a few weeks now: celebrating the little victories.

An event at the swimming pool a few weeks ago and a suggestion from coach Justin got me to thinking once again about motivation--not only MY motivation but motivation for athletes in general. I'm sure this topic that has received ample attention from sports psychologists, but I haven't done any relevant reading on the topic. So today, I'm just sharing some of my thoughts and observations.

Event #1--The swim TT

A couple weeks ago, Justin had me do a 1000 yard TT at the pool. In our time working together, we hadn't really done much benchmarking at the pool, but I had suggested that we do some TT's at various distances to see where things stood with swimming. Starting with the EC Swim Camp in late November, it's been a great 8 months of swim training. In part because of a schedule change at work and in part because of a recognition that our masters' workouts weren't very specific for long-course tri swimming, we took a new approach with swimming this year. For the time being, we've ditched masters practice entirely and I've done 3 workouts each week on my own. It's worked out well. I've probably made more progress these past 8 months than in the previous 2 years.

Which gets us to the time trial. For the 1000 yard TT, I was at the pool all by myself one day. Not another person in sight at the 50m by 25y pool....20 SCY lanes to myself. I think it's pretty hard to do a long swim TT alone, but I finished the ~1200 yard warm-up and off I went. The TT swim went well and the time was a PR. I got to the wall, looked at the clock, and gave a big fist pump. But, as it turns out, I wasn't alone after all. There was a lifeguard sitting quietly on the bleachers who stood up and applauded. He took me by surprise and I could only chuckle, perhaps a little bit embarrassed about my celebration at the wall.

If he only knew....

Event #2--Race Schedule

The second thing that got me to thinking was a suggestion from Justin. We were talking about my potential to improve with short-course racing in the 2011 season and we both had some ideas. But one of Justin's suggestions was to do more low-priority races. He's clearly right. Frequent racing undoubtedly helps develop the "racing nuts and bolts" that it takes to excel....over and above whatever conditioning (from training) is also needed. This got me to thinking about my schedule for this year....and then last year, too.

In 2009, I attended the EC Tucson camp, did 7 triathlons (including 4 sprint races, 1 Olympic distance race, and 2 Ironman races), raced a relay leg (swim) at another triathlon, and swam in 1 open water swim race. In all, 12 weekends with racing or camp. All but 1 of the triathlons involved out-of-town, overnight (or longer trips).

This year, I attended the EC Tucson camp and scheduled 5 triathlons (including 1 sprint, 2 intermediate distance, 1 70.3, and 1 Ironman race), 2 open water swim races, and 1 running race. If I don't add anything else to the schedule, 11 weekends with racing or camp. Again, a lot of out-of-town travel to support the race schedule.

I completely realize that, in many circles, that's a very modest racing schedule. But by the same token, it's still a lot of time devoted to the hobby of triathlon. In the end, there are a handful of races among hundreds of days of training--for me and for most every other triathlete I know.

The Point!

I've taken a round-about way of getting to the point. But here it is. Race day is fun for so many reasons. Probably more so than anything else, it's a chance to challenge ourselves--to see what we can do.

For most of us, though, the opportunities to celebrate "big" victories on race day are few. No doubt, race day comes with the opportunity to excel in one or another aspect of the race, or to improve upon one's performance from a previous edition of the race, or complete a longer distance race than ever before. But there's only 1 race winner, 3 people on the podium, 1 age group winner, a small number of qualifiers, etc. So when there's a "big" victory, there's ample reason to celebrate.

But what sustains triathletes during the season....or even from season to season? For me--and for many others, I do believe--it's the "little" victories. Not only on race day, but each and every day.

Like I said: if the lifeguard only knew.... My neighbors will know that when I finish a run at the bottom of my driveway, my arms are almost always over my head, like at the finish line of a race. And when the run is a negative split, the finish is usually accompanied by a "Rah!" on my part. When I'm running outside, I celebrate at the top of every hill. When I'm inside, I cheer when I see that I outlasted everybody else on the treadmill. At the pool, I cheer every time the last 100 is as quick as the first, every time there's a new PR for a longer distance swim, and I cheer really hard when I manage to string together dozens of flipturns in a single workout. And I cheer for nearly every little victory on the bike....every new season-best or all-time best cp1 or cp5 or cp20 or cp60, any time I "win" the impromptu sprint, and certainly any time I'm fortunate to keep up with faster company. Even out-racing the occasional stray dog deserves a cheer.

There's almost NEVER a day when I don't have the chance to celebrate a little victory along the way. And that's what sustains me.

Celebrate the little victories!

Larry