Drift away

Most nights I lay awake in bed. Trying to sleep but understanding it won't happen. Sometimes it's the pain of grinding out workout after workout without proper nutrition, recovery, cool down. Other times it's the aches and pains of my back or knees that remind me I may be human after all. Or it may even be the stress of work keeping me on my toes.

Other nights it's my mind replaying a scene over and over and over again. It's never a long scene, never a race. Usually a couple of seconds of real time slowed down to last a minute or two, over and over and over again. One corner of one lap of one race maybe. Just a mistake, maybe a couple of inches here or there, maybe a split second of lost balance, or a lapse in mental judgement. Over and over again. Never changes. Never visualize it the way i thought it would go before it happened. This repeat is different, the repetitiveness is simply to prevent it from ever happening again. To dwell on it. To get angry about it. Sometimes it's not even a race. Sometimes it's not even to get angry over. Maybe it's a corner of one lap of one drill of one practice. Maybe it's something done correctly. It stays and lingers and plays and plays over and over trying to create muscle memory through a simple slowed image.

Sometimes it's just motivation. It's not easy to wake up and run your mind and body into a wall everyday, over and over again. It could be a word. Maybe a thought. A feeling. It seems to always be a similar theme, someone else's voice or thought describing exactly what I can't do and why.

Then right before I finally drift off it's always there in some concept or another, some phrase, word, or emotion: watch me. 

Gut Check

A couple of weeks ago I wrapped up 2013 single distance championships, which by all means was the trial run for the Olympic trials in January. More then that, it qualified athletes to compete in world cups 1-4, 3 and 4 serve as Olympic qualifiers for country positions. In other words, a poor World Cup 3 and 4 would limit how many athletes we take to compete at the games, or in each distance, or if we qualify a relay for the games.

Trials was the same format as Olympic trials. But six qualified to compete compared to the maximum of 5 that can at the games, if we qualify a relay. 

When it all ended I finished 7th. It was very difficult for me to swallow. My pride took a huge hit failing to qualify, to be completely honest. Not because this was my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal since November 2010 when I moved to SLC for ice has been Olympic Trials. The way it all happened is what made it hard. Last summer I gained an inordinate amount of speed in a short period of time, although I had the speed to make the team last year, I didn't know how to skate at all yet. 

This year the focus was trying to learn how to skate, and I made great strides in that regard. But falling down in 4/6 distances and getting DQ'd in another doesn't spell out a great performance. It's more then that even, falling down happens. But the way I fell sucked, once or twice was just random acts of a blade being on the ice instead of in it. Most were because I failed to control the speed I had at critical spots on the track.

Heading into the final distance I was in 6th place. I thought I new what I was doing at a time in my last race and I miscalculated. And in return I failed to qualify. Deja vu. In 2006 the final race of jr inline trials I still had a chance to make the team, and I blew it. You learn from your mistakes, but sometimes they linger.

The week that followed trials was tough for me. The next morning I was at work explaining 100 times that I finished 7th and six qualified. The thought that continued to run through my head wasn't that I failed, wasn't that I wasn't physically as fast or anything else. It was the idea that I'm putting in 80-90 hour weeks between training and work and I didn't have anything to show for it. I didn't have the vindication I was looking for. That's what weighed on me. 

A lot of people like to mention my time on the ice.. Still under three years, and tell me how impressive it is to be where I'm at in that time frame. I acknowledge and appreciate the compliment but in competition no one cares if you've been skating a day or a lifetime. It does remind me I'm learning on the fly, I didn't fully dedicate myself to just ice until last season. But when I chose to move to SLC my timing was mostly based on the idea that I didn't want to get really good in the 2015, the season after the games. I made the move when I did with the idea that if I picked it up quick then I had time to figure it out before the games. 

I briefly thought I couldn't do it anymore that there was no way I could keep it up. My body hurts everyday, regardless of training, just being on my feet, not sleeping, not resting, not sitting, always moving 18-20 hours a day my body aches but I'm only 22. My diet isn't what I wanted to be, but the only two days I don't work I train even longer, some weeks I don't feel like cooking the food required for lunch and dinner for three days at a time. My recovery after training sessions normally consist of a 3min locker room shower followed by rushing off to work. At work I run a department and a few times a week I'm in charge of the store as well. 

Sure enough during my first training session after trials I still had mixed feelings about my capabilities. Then a hard workout put things back in perspective for me. I was done feeling sorry for myself. Within about a 45 minute span I 180'd everything. Now I find myself challenging my mental and physical capabilities. Keeping the purposes of everything in the front of my mind so I can focus on the details that can't be seen.

I have a little over three months and the way I see it, the only thing in my way is me.