Healing

It's no secret that I've spent the last 5 weeks healing from a broken arm, which has put a damper on spirits for sure.  But, this time has helped me focus on the part of training that I don't necessarily neglect, but am not very good at.  That is, mental training.  It's just like when I was a personal trainer and made people do the things they hated the most - that was my job.  I knew when they weren't with me, they only did the things they were good at, inevitably the exercises they enjoyed doing.  Same with me, I thoroughly enjoy the physical aspects of training...but sadly, that's not all it takes to be successful at racing.  Because I wait too long, it's always so overwhelming.  Like I said, the good news is that I've had some time to focus on my mental training, and it's been very healing.  Most of my life I have been happy and optimistic, but there are times when I just feel this dark cloud following me around, and it keeps me from looking up - it keeps me from my dreams.  It's good to see light again :)  And I think I realize what it means when I need to take care of myself - I need to be my own friend.  We all need to.  I need to sit down with myself and have those tough conversations that I keep supressed behind the I'm too busy or don't know how to deal with you so go away.  It's not rocket science and it's not that I don't hear it all the time, but it's sometimes hard to convince myself that I need to listen and I need to not just ask for help from others, but I need to ask for help from myself.  THIS training for me is far more difficult than mile repeats or timed 400s in the pool.  But we all know that anything worth acheiving is worth working for.  THIS training is going to be far more rewarding than I imagined.  I feel that I've come so far in a short period of time, and the most exciting thing of all, is that I have a long way to go!  Ugh.

New Year - same old me!

All-in-all, the holiday season was darn good!  I had a lot of fun visiting family, and catching up with Ryan. 
I've often told people that just because I work out a lot, doesn't mean it's easy.  The end of my racing season this year, was not too long ago, December 10th.  This has made it particularly difficult to be motivated come the first of the year.  In fact, I was a little uncertain wether or not I could actually find my motivation again!  It completely snuck up on me the other day as I started to look at races for this coming season...and there it was all over again.  Now, I'm faced with a foreign challenge of not being able to train hard for a few more weeks due to my heeling broken arm. So, I've taken on a few other projects to keep me occupied...like re-organizing the entire house :)  Hey, I have to do something with my energy! 
I am definitley looking forward to the coming season, doing the things I love the most; racing my heart out and spending time with family and friends.