Wyatt- "You know Mona, my Grandmother used to say, when life hands you potatoes, make potato salad".
Mona Dearly - "Well you know what Wyatt? Life handed me a big old bowl of shit, so what am I supposed to make with that"?
Phil Dearly, Mona's wayward husband, "A shit salad"?
One of the many hysterical scenes from the black comedy "Drowning Mona". If you haven't seen it, give it a watch. Lots of stars in rather uncommon roles.
Hello all,
So, I know many of you were expecting a race report from me, however, a riather unfortunate change of plans happened last Tuesday. As I was in mid race week prep mode, I received an email from the race director of Tawas and was informed that the duathlon was canceled. It was a terse, and very clinical email, stating it in a matter rather of fact fashion, which is exactly what it was. I get it, and this is a little balloon popper for you newer triathletes - our sport is a business. As much as we'd like to believe that multisport is "all about the athletes", fact is, its a business for race directors, sponsors, etc. If you don't believe me, check the price tag for the entry fee for any of the 70.3 race series events.
At first, I was disappointed, then angry, then extremely angry. And that feeling kind of hung around for a about 5 days. Why? Well, I thought about the amount of time I spent training to prepare, the races I missed to spend time training, the sacrifices, etc. And that made me slightly unpleasant to be around.
Then, last Friday, I re-read the story of Diane Nyad, the 64 year old woman who had recently swam from Cuba to Florida, without the use of a shark cage. But it wasn't the story of her success that fascinated me, it was how she handled all the prior attempts that failed. She never, ever gave up on her dream. Not to mention, did she ever falter in her will, in the face of much adversity, and always making it a point to learn from each failed attempt. Without actually saying it, she knew that every failure would put her one step closer to her goal. She knew that all the training she had done in preparation of each attempt was extremely worthwhile, and provided more insight, not only as to how to prepare differently, but how beneficial her training for each attempt was.
See, what Diane knew, and took me a few days to realize, is that in failure, as in disappointment, there is countless amounts of data, life lessons, and a deeper sense of how much our goals and dreams really mean to us. She never saw a failure as disappointing, she saw lessons. She saw opportunity.
So I took a step back and looked at the bigger picture - I found a replacement race, this weekend actually, even though its shorter in distance, its more competitive, and I had banked excellent training for the Great Lakes 100 miles tri in October. Not to mention I am in the best shape of my life, have gained more knowledge as to the components of Crossfit and Crossfit Endurance, learned more about my mental training as well as my physical, and most importantly, have come a few steps closer to running through the brick wall. Isn't that really the end goal anyway?
See, I don't like potato salad. I don't believe in simply letting go of my anger, but I do believe that channeling it properly provides fantastic opportunity to see the situations, the failures and the disappointments for what they are, face them head on, make the necessary changes and get back after it. Failures are what really define us, because they provide the opportunity to see what we are made of, who we really are. I say, like Diane Nyad, embrace the failures, embrace the disappointment, but never let it define you. Thanks to her story, I was reminded that I will take each disappointment as an opportunity to better myself and those around me.
And who likes potato salad anyway? I mean, the only time I've ever seen it, is when its been sitting out for hours at some BBQ, in the hot sun, where every bug within a 10 mile radius has landed on it, and most likely infected it. That's pretty gross in my opinion.
Stay strong,
Guy
