Resilience

Sometimes in life and in training, things go wrong.  Something that seemed so promising or well-planned can crash and burn unexpectedly, often leaving us stunned and confused in the wreckage.  A bad race at a crucial time, a failed training plan, an injury...whatever it may be, it doesn't matter.  The common denominator is the emotional investment and the feelings of disappointment and sadness following the ill-fated event.  As endurance athletes, we tend to wrap ourselves up in our training and accomplishments, and sometimes when things go wrong it can feel like our whole world has come crashing down.  Even after the initial sting has faded, we still find ourselves asking, "How did I get here?" and "Where do I go now?"

"How did I get here?" can be a more complicated question than it first seems.  As painful as it can be, retracing our steps to find the roots of the problems that caused the downward spiral can teach us much about what went wrong and how to avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future.  Often we put so much of ourselves into our training that it's hard to step back and look at a situation analytically and logically.  I in particular find it hard to escape the "all or nothing" philosophy.  It's so easy to give and give and believe that the more you give, the more you're bound to get out.  And while this can be true much of the time in endurance training, it's important to remember to reserve our "all or nothing" moments for when it truly matters and when this kind of intensity can benefit us rather than hurt us.  If we can step back and take a more distant perspective after a disappointment, sometimes it can help us see things we wouldn't have seen when blinded by our own feelings, plans, and desires.

It's also easy to feel a little lost in the aftermath.  Often we feel confused about what steps to take next, and at times when we look into the future all we can see is a big question mark.  It is at this point that our most important characteristic must take center stage: resilience.  It is the reason we are endurance athletes, the reason why we've come this far, and the reason we've accomplished everything we've ever been proud of.  If I had to define it, I'd say that resilience is the ability to be stronger than the situations around us.  Resilience is having confidence that even if things get turned upside down, we'll still be able to pick up the pieces and start again (and do even bigger and better things).  It's not preparing for the worst all the time--that's pessimism.  It's simply knowing that we can handle whatever life throws at us, and not living in fear.  Sometimes events can change us.  That's just the way of the world.  The key is to change in a positive manner.  Rather than shutting down and closing ourselves off, we need to remember to learn, grow, and mature. A wise friend once told me, "This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last."  As long as we believe in our own resilience, life will go on, and soon what seemed like a crushing blow will only be a blip on the radar.  Life may pack a punch sometimes, but the important thing to remember is...so do we.