Thursday, July 31, 2008

The ups and downs

I guess I consider myself a serious athlete. I throw "serious" in there because there are definite sacrifices that I make in life in order to ski faster. I don't think I'm locked into this life, but it is one that I've chosen, at the expense of a different life. I'll keep my day job though, thank you very much.

Ten things I hate about being a serious athlete:
10. Training in cold rain
9. Social life? What's that?
8. Putting on a wet helmet (I guess thats not endemic to serious athletes...but it is something I hate!)
7. Training in the dark in November
6. Getting out of bed for morning workouts when I'm tired and its cold out
5. I can't live as car-free as I'd like without sacrificing performance
4. Resting
3. Serious lack of teleskiing, climbing, hiking, and other fun outdoorsy things
2. [Constant] overuse injuries
1. Sacrifices on my time with Ed

Ten things I love about being an serious athlete:
10. I love seeing the year-to-year (heck, day-to-day) improvement, knowing why it is happening, and being able to plot it over time
9. Races give me a healthy outlet for my hyper-competitiveness
8. The satisfaction of doing intervals and hitting every split and every HR goal
7. Being in shape--like, really in shape
6. Beating people
5. That tired, empty feeling you get after a long OD
4. The structure that training brings to my life
3. My competitions allow me to travel the globe, satisfying that travel urge
2. I can eat all the food I want
1. Following through with something I am passionate about

What did I miss?

4 comments:

Jess said...

I think you missed awesome other crazy athletes to hang out with =)

Alex said...

I really should have just had #1 be "Jess Snyder".

Zoo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Zoo said...

Here's one you missed in things to hate:
- Money, money, and more money going into equipment and performance

And one for loving it:
-Clarity after a hard workout.