Definition of Success

I have returned home from one of my stints of driving all over the country and living out of my car (and other people's homes).  Hopefully I'll catch up a bit and write a blog to recap my training travels and experiences, but this is something I've been thinking of writing about for a while and I wanted to get it out.  It has to do with success.  In this case I'll speak more specifically in regards to success in sport, but I do think it applies to just about everything. 

Success is never a surprise.  Not really.  I mean, sure, sometimes maybe you didn't expect to do as well as you did, or maybe you failed a few times and it was a little surprising when you finally accomplish what you set out to do, but it is always the result of a lot of hard work and perseverance.  The level of success you achieve may be mildly surprising, but seeing a good result from that hard work shouldn't completely shock you. 

I have seen this in the athletes I coach and most notably in myself as an athlete.  First I need to say that success should not be measured any one way for every single person.  Success means something different for each person.  I've coached athletes doing the exact same race where one went 14:30 and another went 9:30 and got a Kona slot and both were extremely successful races.  It should be based on reaching your potential under the circumstances you have to work with.  This also means that even the same athlete might need to have a different definition of success based on their life situation at the time.  Your best race when you have 20 hours a week to train is going to be different from your best race you can manage when you only had 10 hours a week to train because work got really busy, or your wife just had a baby, or any other number of reasons that life gets in the way.  The result after only training 10 hours a week might not be as good, but if you maximized the time you had it should still be considered a success. 

People I know who are successful in racing don't make many excuses.  They just get the training done.  That's not to say that they are not hindered by obstacles like the occasional cold, an unexpected business trip, sick kids, or again, any number of legitimate reasons that training sometimes gets sidetracked.  But they do take those things in stride, miss the workouts they simply can't get in, move on and let those go without worrying about how it will impact everything else.  But they also do their best to get in what they can without disrupting the rest of their lives.  Yes, I said it's ok to miss workouts.  The successful people know the difference between missing a workout because you legitimately can't get it in (or are legitimately exhausted) and skipping a workout because it is less than 100% convenient or they decide that a minor obstacle gives them a legitimate reason to skip it.  (Please note: I've been guilty of that second one myself.  I think we all are at times.) 

This is not to say by any means that every single person who decides to do a triathlon should never make any excuses, and it certainly doesn't mean that they should prioritize their training over things that really matter in their real life.  It simply means that you should manage your expectations and don't be shocked when you maybe don't do as well as you thought you would.  Or when you maybe don't do as well as that guy you know who you used to be just as fast as, but maybe he has a really flexible work schedule and his kids are in college and he has a lot more free time. 

I don't know a whole lot of people who nail all of their training and then have bad results to show for it.  Of course there are always going to be cases of bad luck like flat tires, broken chains, unfortunately timed illnesses or days where your stomach just isn't cooperating.  "Nailing your training" though doesn't just mean physically getting it done, but it means being mentally present as well.  And taking care of the little things like your health, nutrition and rest.  If you're not racing up to your potential (and again, by "potential" here I mean based on your own life circumstances, so your "potential" as a working mom with an hour a day during the week is different from your potential if you are someone like me who is single with no parental responsibilities) then there is usually a concrete reason for that.  And if you are successful then usually you can look back and see that you just went out and got it done. 

I've been thinking a lot about this because when it comes to myself, I've somehow morphed from a "no excuses" type athlete to.... well, not quite like that.  Training wasn't optional, it was just what I did that day.  Alarm went off, and I was up and out of bed before I even had a chance to think about it.  Clothes were laid out for whatever workout, and there wasn't any stopping to think, "Should I go train or should I go back to bed?"  Again, it just wasn't a question. 

I discourage you from looking at some of my more recent race results, because I know what they say.  But if you do, and then you go back and compare them to some of my better years when winning my age group at many races or coming in top 10 in my age group in Kona happened more than once, you might wonder what the heck happened.  Now, there were some legitimate setbacks in there.  Injuries (hoping for no more stress fractures, ever), minor surgery, or my father's accident and death.  But I allowed the setbacks to destroy the momentum, and I haven't fully gotten going again.  I can assure you that at this point it is entirely mental as I'm probably physically healthier than I've been in a long time, without any sort of lingering aches or pains that I was working my way through. 

I've done some crazy things in the past to get workouts in.  I wouldn't say that every person should do such crazy things, but I will say that when I look back at those crazy workouts and my dedication, it is absolutely no wonder I raced as well as I did.  Get up at 4am to get in a 3 hour run before work?  Sure.  Swim 4000 yards at 5am, drive up to go skiing, and follow up said skiing with a trainer ride and an outdoor run?  Sure.  Getting up between 3:30 and 4am for an entire week of a vacation at Disney World to get 27 hours of training in while not interfering with any of the family fun?  Oh, and also riding my bike on a 2.7 mile loop over and over again, mostly in the dark, for 6 hours, during that same vacation.  Sure, I never even thought that it wasn't an option. 

I won't guarantee that every single person who completely dedicates themselves like that will be a Kona qualifier, or whatever else your goal might be.  But you can surely improve dramatically if you dedicate yourself enough.  But then I'll also say that you should know yourself well enough to know just how much you want to dedicate yourself.  If your life is such that you can prioritize the training, then great, go for it.  But if it isn't, then that's ok, too.  But try not to be envious of the super fast people, because they are most likely making a lot of sacrifices to be so fast, and those sacrifices are probably not worth the result for you.  And again, that's ok.  Some people's jobs are more demanding, and some people have more family obligations or any other number of real life things that get in the way.  Keep your life situation in perspective when it comes to the goals you set out for yourself and understand that your definition of success can vary based on it.  Rather than being upset about the fact that you can't beat that guy in your age group because he has way more time to train just appreciate the time that you do have and the reasons that you can't train as much, whether those be your great family or a job you enjoy that maybe just takes up a little more time than you'd like. 

But, sometimes the results just speak more to your level of dedication, and sometimes you don't have a great reason.  Or maybe this only applies to me.  My results are no accident.  Sure, I will tell you that I was surprised when I won Lake Placid since I knocked an hour off my (also Kona qualifying) time from the year before, because I was.  I was surprised maybe at the actual level of success, but not at the fact that I nailed the race and felt great the whole way through.  I had been completely dedicated to my training.  I don't recall specifically but I am pretty sure I didn't miss a workout for at least 6 months leading up to it.  I got up early, went to bed early, ate right and raced light.  On some level I still see it as a fluke, (and in some ways it was because of course it just depends on who else shows up) but when I really look at my approach in the months leading up, I was incredibly dedicated.  The same can be said of my race there in 2009.  I did have a somewhat disappointing run that year, but after a terrible year prior, I had to overcome a lot more coming back, and since I once again nailed the training, I had what was probably the best possible result under the circumstances. 

I'm skipping Ironman races this year.  I think I needed to not have a marathon weighing over my head for a year, and so far I'm very happy with that decision.  After 17 of them, I could use a year off.  And I'm hoping to regain that momentum to once again become the successful athlete I was before.  It really does become second nature eventually, and I do enjoy the training once getting over that initial hump where it is not fun and you can only think about how slow you are.  I'm also hoping to start blogging more again as an outlet for my writing and because when life is going well and training is going well, I write more.  So, here's to a fun summer of training and local races and getting the positive momentum going again.  I'm looking forward to doing all races within driving distance this year and hopefully having fun and maybe even doing well.