WAYNE'S WORDS
January 2006
TOPIC: EVERYBODY ELSE SEEMS TO BE DOING BETTER THAN YOU

A friend and I were talking the other night about some of our friends and how, on the surface, they seem to have this really perfect life. But when you start to really examine their life and analyze their behaviors, you start to see that they too have problems and anxieties and flaws just like everyone else.

This gets me to thinking that we all, at times, feel like everyone else is doing so much better at everything than us. But when you really get down to it we are all going through life with challenges and road blocks that constantly pop up in our quest to do and be the best that we can.

You see someone who does well at races, and their lives seem really balanced and you wonder why they get all the breaks and some of us always seem to struggle and fight and stress out just to keep our heads above the proverbial water in the lap lane.

But, as you get to know people better and start learning about their lives and their past, you see that everyone, especially endurance athletes, have crap that has happened in their life and have lives that are extremely complex and hectic. Most of us are balancing training and racing with the more important components of our lives like family, our health, money and our work.
The athletes that are in great shape usually have to sacrifice other parts of their lives to put in the time training to achieve that level of fitness. One of the hardest parts of being an endurance athlete is the ongoing balancing act one has with one's time.
Instead of wasting time and energy stressing out about why others seem to be doing so well, we need to help and support each other.

We need to help each other in our training and racing. We need to go to races we aren't doing and be a volunteer and a supporter for all the athletes that are racing. We need to help newbies in their training and keep them confident that they can finish their first race. But, we also need to help each other in the day to day crap we all go through.

You know a hard workout is much more tolerable when you do it with a group of buddies. You race harder and faster if a friend is out there with you, or on the side of the road screaming at you to do your best. So be it when you have a rough patch in the road of life. When things get tough in life, it's always easier to get through it with a friend's help.

No matter how great you might think you are, there are always going to be people who will be faster, have better equipment, be in better shape, have better hair, a better ride and possibly a better life.

But everyone has learned, or soon will, that training, racing and hanging out with you friends isn't about how you do compared to everyone else, but how you do compared to you. You compare yourself to who or what you were, last month, last year or five years ago. Hopefully you'll see improvement in times and race quality, but what is more important is improved health and fitness, improved friendships, and better management of your valuable time.

Really, the only person who remembers your last race result, or what kind of bike you raced on is you. Everyone else is working so hard on their racing and training that sometimes they might not even remember WHO you are. Take all that jealous and envious energy that you are now wasting on how successful others seem to be and how they seem to have their act together, and redirect that energy into a positive attitude about you and what you want to achieve this coming year, both in training and racing and in your life.

Until next time,
Train smart, live right.
Wayne
whuckshold@yahoo.com