Patience – not to be confused with procrastination – is NOT something I’m very good at. As with most athletes, I presume, it’s hard to have a certain goal in mind and seemingly endless set of steps to get there. You want to have the faster swim NOW, and you want to be swimming on a 15 second faster interval, like, next month, using steps a, b, and c. It’s not that simple (unfortunately).
It’s a lot of hard work, and then, the beautiful, cruel reality is: once you get to your “goal,” you realize that there’s so much further to go. It’s what keeps us going, what drives us to excellence, and to the top… But, without preparation, without patience and without a little reassurance, it’s impossible to achieve.
This is one of the biggest purplepatch and Tower26 “lessons” I’ve been learning (at times reluctantly); it’s all about the journey and consistent, hard work.
Over the last few months, I’ve made some of my “if only” goals in the pool that I had thought last year, and now realize this is just the beginning. This weekend, I get to test my skills in my very first swim meet, where I get to see how far I’ve come — but knowing me, I will probably mostly focus on how far I have to go. (I’m nervous!). So, this is my little reminder to myself to enjoy the progress while heading on this journey towards some big goals ahead (and hopefully a benchmark PR in the process, but we shall see).
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