I am just coming to a state of confidence and comfort with the fact that I am an ordinary athlete. In my very first post on this website, I offered myself as such, but it was with a bit of forced, and perhaps slightly false, modesty. In my head I still believed myself to be the second coming of Steve Prefontaine.
Delusion.
I think this is because in high school I was a walking billboard of flashing neon that spelled: “potential.”
As a freshman at Monte Vista High School, I was a top varsity runner on the cross-country and track teams. At the end-of-the-year awards ceremony, my coach touted me as “the most promising runner to emerge from the San Ramon Valley.” That summer I attended Stanford University’s “Nike Camp of Champions” for high school track and field athletes. Stanford coaches and athletes, including Coach Vin Lananna, selected me as the “top all-around athlete” at the camp. Throughout high school I often dreamed about running a sub-4:00 minute mile my senior year.
But I never came close to duplicating the successes, yet alone shattering the records, of my first year as a competitive runner.
Our program had a revolving door for coaches. (I reported to no less than seven different coaches throughout my four years at Monte Vista.) But more than program instability, my disposition, with respect to my immediate athletic abilities, was rooted in optimistic ignorance and arrogance.
Once I knew I was good, I figured I had plenty of time to become great. And so I invested myself in other interests—school, leadership opportunities, developing a healthy social life.
I figured that since I had the potential to be special on the track, I could take a week off from the requisite training to be such. A week very quickly turned into a month, which turned into a year. No matter, I told myself. I could always come back and pick-up from where I left off.
But I never did, at least, not with the same focus and intensity as when a rangy, know-no-better freshman.
I slipped into a very similar pattern in college. My first year at Santa Clara University I was a member of the rowing team and a proud NCAA Division I athlete. Never had I been in better physical shape. Then I transferred east to Georgetown University, chose academics over athletics, and rationalized it all by believing that with a few months of dedicated training, I could be back to prime form for sport.
Eighteen months out of college, I know I can only chase the shadows of my lanky 14-year-old self on the track. But I also look to the top triathletes in the history of our sport—Dave Scott who, when 26, won his first Ironman World Championship, and who 14 years later came out of retirement to take a second-place finish at Kona when 40-years-old; Mark Allen, who when 35 won his fifth consecutive Ironman World Championship title; Peter Reid, who was born in 1969 and is still at the top of his game; Tim DeBoom, who is 34-years-old and emerging as one of the most potent athletes in the pro field—and think I still have plenty of time to become great.
The thing is, I don’t have a lot of time. To be truly great, an all-time great, it takes a lifetime of commitment and dedication and training. It is foolish to expect to be Hunter Kemper when I’m “that guy down the street who wears too much lycra”.
This is not to say that dreams are dangerous; indulging in “what could be” exercises are not unhealthy or bad. But I do need to stop deluding myself that I have the legs and lungs to kick through a 14:00 minute 5K. Or at least, I need to stop expecting myself to have such.
Yes, I could have been an extraordinary, even a great, athlete. But I chose otherwise. And so I should not let the guilt of skipping a Sunday morning bike dilute the awe of watching a sunrise in San Francisco with Lauren. I should not excuse myself from those rare all-night conversations with friends filled with laughter and earnest debate about how to save the world simply because I feel obligated to attend an open water swim practice at 5:30 a.m. the next morning. I am an ordinary athlete.
This struggle to accept my ordinary athlete status reminds me of the always hilarious phenomenon that takes place when I go golfing with my buddies, an activity, keep in mind, that occurs maybe once a summer. Yet here we are, a veritable rag-tag of Three Stooges stand-ins, who react with frustration and anger when we three-putt or duff our drives into a water hazard. You would think the entire world is ending because we can’t duplicate Tiger Woods’ stroke.
It is only by accident, and maybe only twice in an entire 18-hole, 120-stroke round, that I will actually drive the ball where I intend. Same with my buddies. But we yell and moan and grunt and swear as if a poor shot is atypical; as if we expect a hole-in-one and instead — GOSH DARN FUZZBUCKET BRIGADE OF %$#-ing JERKFACE MARSHMELLOW @$#!&^#@! — we sliced or hooked the dang thing.
None of us even own a complete set of clubs! The last time I held a putter was at Camelot’s Fun Miniature Golf Park and Playground; a piece of pizza was in my other hand as I tried to scoot the ball around a giant dragon’s tail made of fiberglass and painted pink. I am not a pro golfer. I am a novice — a neophyte! — so why the freak-out when I play like an amateur?
Sometimes the hardest part of my training as an ordinary, middle-of-the-pack, age-group athlete is thinking of myself as one. For more difficult than managing the burden of being an athlete pregnant with promise is accepting the reality of being an athlete that had potential and never realized it.
But I’m trying. And as I slowly mature to reflect on the past less with regret about what could have been than with contentment and fulfillment with what was, I am learning to let certain dreams and delusions fade. It’s an incredibly liberating feeling, to run in the moment rather than to keep-up with expectations.
But watch out, Simon Lessing. You were 34-years-old when you set a new half-Ironman course record at Wildflower in 2005. I’ve got 11 years to train to match your pace.
Run With It!
J.R. Atwood
