When I started this post, I expected to be writing about all the great races coming this fall-the Vancouver Eastside 10k? Yes, sounds great! The Electrodash? Never met a 5k fun run I didn't like (but it's on the Friday of a long weekend :( )! The Seawall Race? New Balance Fall Classic? A friend's recent email looking for company in the races she wanted to do had me excited about all of them.
Then the return of Serious Training happened this week. So I thought well, there is a lot of training to be done between now and race time-writing about that seems more appropriate. I expected to be writing about how the return of swim club with Coach T was murder on the shoulders and how much I regretted my lack of swim training this summer.
But a funny thing happened-swimming didn't kill my shoulders and although I swam for all of about 30 minutes this summer, the return to the pool felt great, maybe even one of my favourite swims yet! And all of this got me thinking about expectations, particularly the ones we have of ourselves.
We've all got 'em-they keep us coming back for more, season in, season out. Whether it's hitting that goal you never expected to reach and having your confidence majorly boosted or having that day where you expect first place and land a DNF followed by weeks of rumination, expectations bring something special to sports: the battle between us and our greatest competition, the most private fight of all-the one with ourselves.
I know I've been on the winning, losing, and warring side of expectations (I can do this. No, I can't. I've totally got this. I should go home. Oh God, was that the start gun?) How about you? What have you learned/won/lost from your goals?
Til next time!
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