Teammates: When excellence becomes an imperative

I realized something today on my walk home from my morning swim: It's hard to be dedicated to working hard day in and day out when it seems like the exception instead of the norm. Part of what makes having a team so valuable is that you see a group of other people who work hard day in and day out just like you do, and it makes the effort and commitment and dedication the norm. It means that if you want to be better than any of the others, you have to not only show up at every single practice but also be focused and hard-working and driven constantly. The situation forces consistency and it forces you to push yourself because you constantly see everyone around you doing the same. It makes excellence an imperative in that showing up every day and giving it your all every workout is simply the expected minimum within the circle that you run in.

The real world is hard in a way because to the average on-looker, I train a lot. In my mind I feel like I'm hitting bare minimums for what I want to do, I'm not even approaching the average of what I should be doing, but to everyone else, that level of effort is commendable. And over time, I really want to buy into that. I really want to pat myself on the back for a short mediocre workout because hey, at least I wasn't just sitting on the couch. There are a lot of ways in which high expectations are extremely exhausting and difficult but at least they keep you accountable and force you to push yourself. The low expectations are hard in their own way because they sap motivation from me and allow me to accept less than my best, which really isn't something I want to get in the habit of doing.

It's a fine line to toe I guess, the balance between the expectations I had for myself in my former life as a competitive swimmer and my current life as an adult who enjoys racing and training but knows that it's always going to be just a hobby. I wish I could push myself back into that mindset where the hours and the struggle and having my body hurt all the time was just normal so I can stop throwing myself pity parties because my legs ache and burn and I just don't want to push hard during my workout today. Still trying to figure out how to go about making that happen, beyond just yelling at myself internally to be mentally tougher.

In any case, I took a swim today, cut it way short because I really wasn't feeling it. In some ways I'm impressed I made it as far as I did, because I didn't want to go, and I wanted to leave after warm up, but at least I got through half of what I had planned before I threw in the towel. On the other hand, I knew that if I had a team or a coach I wouldn't have been allowed to just quit. I would've finished it out and been better for it. So on one hand I'm accepting of what happened today, on the other hand, I'm disappointed. I've sort of lowered my standards for myself a bit this week because I want to be calm and rested and in a good place mentally going into racing on the weekend, but I really want to get back in the habit of expecting great things from myself at all times once I'm in St. Louis and settled down into my new med student life. Here's the set:

Today's Workout: AM recovery swim

• WU: 1000 SKIPS
• Main Set:
• 5 x 100 free @ 1:45
• 5 x 100 IM @ 2:00
• WD: 200 pull, 200 kick, 200 swim
• Total Distance: 2500 SCM

Hit rate: 15/17 (88.2%)

That's all for now. Will take runs tomorrow and Thursday, Friday off, short run on Saturday, and race on Sunday! Then we'll talk a brief recovery break and some serious triathlon training.

Much love,
Jess