Pay for Play

As I begin ramping up my training, within all agreed upon limitations by my docs and Mistress, the juices come flowing back into me, the drive to be great, the focus, the creativity. The fun of fitness.

I really love hanging out with my tri-pals. but endurance people by necessity are soloists, we are not trying to tackle or catch an object. We are not a collective team trying to outscore an opponent. In reeality our truest competition is not even a clock; its the person in our head. We get up early or stay up late to fit it all in. Our lunches are not sitting with co-workers but dodging traffic and weather windows and rushing to be done in time to not be late getting back to the office. We put in hours of training time each week all by ourselves. The only mention is a blurb on a social network site or the corner of a personal webpage.

I do think that endurance athletes pay more to play, mentially and emotionally. We do not have that collective misery that make teams come together in the big game. Our two-a-days are in the same sweltering heat of summer as a high school football team but what we do we do alone, not with four dozen people going through the same thing.

If we do train with team mates its a true blessing in the sport. But on race day these truest friends become your race markers. You are looking for them, are they ahead, are they behind, do they look fresh or hammered? You want to beat these people but at the end of the day the discussion of who beat who is secondary to the effort you put into your day.

Sure we Pay to Play, mentally and emotionally. We can only please ourselves.