Something I read that I hope will encourage me.

I'm looking forward to training after exams.

from Chris Riekert

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Today was a rough day. Like always my swim sets are hard but I understand what pain in the water feels like. I am able to just push through and grind it out till the end of the set. I finished my swim sets (20x50yd IM on 1:00 and 4x300yd on 3:45) relatively easily. I pushed my 300 set and went 3:30, 3:25, 3:25, 3:15 for the set. It felt good to be moving in the water.

The run was a different story though. Pain on dry land is something that I haven’t yet become accustom to. My track work out (10x400m on :90 and 2x800 on 3:00) seemed like it you be a walk in the park….wrong.

I was able to hold :80 for all of the 400s but when it started to get hard at the end of the set I started to bargain with myself to get out of the 800s. I told myself that I would go for a run later that night to make up for the lack of mileage I would miss from the set. I finished the 400s I stopped to grab my things walk away in defeat.

I took a drink from my water bottle and started thinking about how much better I would feel if I just finished the last mile. I thought to myself about what my competitors would do in this situation. Well, I am my biggest competitor. I am the one that has to push myself to wake up and go to they gym or to ride my bike or run. Skipping this set was giving in and taking the easy way out.

Upset with my self for even thinking about stopping I threw down my stuff and jumped back on the track. I finished the first 800 in 2:50 and the second in 2:40.

I understand that things are hard sometime and I know that I want to quit. But when I go to the starting line I don’t want to have any doubt in my mind. I want to know that I trained as hard as I could, I did every set to the fullest. I don’t want to give up. The pain that I felt during that set wouldn’t have been anywhere close to how bad it would have hurt if I would have lost a race by 10 seconds.

I’m going to be great. I am going to be myself.

Chris.

That's the guy who rode the bicycle so fast on the video below. Now you know how he did it.