I know it's not quite the New Year yet, but since I'll be in China with what will likely be limited access to blogging websites (thank the Great Firewall for that), I figured it would be better to write this sooner rather than later.
I'm not typically a resolution setter. Or at least not a New Years Resolution kind of resolution setter. I think I like to set resolutions at whatever random time of year they are convenient to me and am about as good at following through with them as typical New Years Resolution setters are (by which I mean they tend to last in the range of 3-10 days). I want to try it this year though, because this is something that I really want to do, and like maybe if I set a resolution and tell people about it they'll hold me accountable for it. So here goes.
I want to log blog every single day of 2016. (Which is 366 days because it's a leap year!) The reflection that I do here carries a lot of value to me and the therapeutic effects of this crazy shout into the void are totally real. The blog really helps me stay in tune with what's happening with my body and in my mind and I think it'll be important to helping me maintain the balance that I have still not really found. 366 days means blogging even on the off days or weeks or months (who knows what will happen right?) because those days are just as integral to the process as all the training days. I want to be motivated to use this tool, I figure the resolution might help.
I would also like to share my blog for the first time. Literally nobody knows that this thing exists. Not even Henry, I haven't even told him about it and he's my number one in life. I think I have a lot of anxiety about people finding out what it is that I really do with my life in as many details as I know it in. For one, I'm not a great athlete. I may have been swimming my entire life, but I don't have much by way of athletic talent and I'm really new to running and cycling. The idea of other people knowing exactly how little I know about what I'm doing and how slow I really am on a day-to-day training basis sort of freaks me out. For another, I'm not one of those people that's perky and motivated all the time. There are a lot of ups and a lot of downs in training and I'm very open about the low points here, which is not something I object to sharing necessarily but is something I'm a little bit self-conscious about. I also don't want the downs to be misunderstood. I love what I do and I don't want anyone to take the downs in the process as evidence that I don't. And finally, I think anytime you open up about experiences like this, you welcome commentary. I understand that commentary can be productive. Listening and learning from others helps you grow, sometimes other people have a better sense for your strengths and weaknesses than you do, blah blah blah etc. etc. etc. But as someone who is pretty insecure about a lot of what gets recorded in this blog, it's actually really scary to think about opening up the space to allow for others to comment and critique.
Given all of that, why is it that I still want to share this? Because I don't want to hide this part of my life. It's actually a weirdly isolating experience to not be able to share this part of my life with most of the people who are a part of my life. When I swam competitively in my younger years, the experience of training was so entirely different because I was always surrounded by teammates. Having like-minded people that run on your schedule and face the same challenges that you do really pulled me through all of those years. My teammates were my second family and we always joked that between practices and travel and meets, we probably spent more time with each other than with our real families. I don't have that same sort of training support network here. I race as a member of the Wash U Triathlon Team based out of the undergraduate campus, but as a medical student, I run on a completely different schedule and generally don't train alongside my teammates. (Also, not gonna lie, they're all really fast and some days I get intimidated out of going to intense run workouts led by the fast boys.) I swim with a master's club, but not often enough that I really feel integrated into that community yet. I cycle with groups occasionally, but my cycling skills still need work which makes me reluctant to do group rides more often even though I probably should. The gist of it is that I don't have the same kind of community to share my experiences with that I used to. It makes training a little bit isolating, which is what I would like to push back against. I feel like making an effort to share my experiences this way, even if no one ends up reading it, is meaningful because at least I've tried to make that connection and put myself out there.
That having been said, I really hope people are kind. I'm not a very interesting person and I'm not a great athlete but the things that get recorded here are some of the things I hold nearest and dearest to my heart in life. I hope people respect that.
So. On January 1st, I'm going to be starting this new journey. It will be interesting because I believe both the 1st and 2nd will be travel days for me. I will write blog posts likely on planes or something of that sort and retroactively post them after the fact. They will likely be boring and devoid of real meaningful content because my training cycle doesn't start until the 3rd or the 4th, but whatever! It'll be the start of what will hopefully be a great year and a great new adventure. I hope you'll join me on that adventure! Wish me luck!
Much love,
Jess
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