Who else heard ‘you are so lucky to (…)’? I hear that a lot and it actually tends to annoy me. The other day, I got to hang out with an old friend of mine and he commented that people don’t see what goes into ‘being lucky’. Isn’t that the truth!
What people say is race pictures (carefully selected not to look scary), curated selfies and videos from workouts, medals and glamour. I’m sorry to break it to all the people who think that’s all there is to it: no, there is plenty of hard work, sweat and yes, occasional tears.
When I raced Ironman 70.3 Gdynia, I got a HUGE laugh out of pictures from the race. Here is one where I saw the camera first:
And here the camera caught me first:
But obviously, social media will be full of the first picture (it’s now my profile pic on Strava actually). Nobody brags about being hurt or miserable. But it happens.
When you train for a marathon, you have to get a lot of miles in. I’d like to say that all of them are pleasant, in perfect weather conditions and I come home refreshed. Unfortunately, that’s not what they all are. Here is an example of what my face looks like during the run, when I’m not trying to put on a good, encouraging face for my family, friends and followers:
Yes, definitely plenty of miles are miserable. They can also happen when so called normal people (whoever they are) are still asleep:
And yes, I enjoy running. And swimming. And biking (most of the time). I just started to think people around me believe it’s all glamorous. I guess social media (Instagram in particular) is so curated and full of awesome looking runners (many of them of people wearing makeup and not even sweating). If you only look at those, one can easily become convinced that they are the only ones suffering during workouts. No. A lot of people go through pain and suffering to get/ stay in great shape. It’s hard work!
Have I mentioned that the training takes up a lot of time? I was at the pool at 5:20 this morning, just to find out that it was already packed. Again: hundreds of hours of training behind ‘luck’.
Now that I have ranted a bit about hard work behind luck… There is some luck involved, although not of the type most people think of. The way I perceive ‘you are so lucky’ is that my friends think I was just blessed with awesome fitness, which allows me to do marathons and triathlons. That luck is actually hard work. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t any luck involved.
Those yellow shapes I drew in the picture on top… Let’s think of them as fires that can melt your iceberg of success. Dodging them is good luck and running into them is bad luck. Sore muscle and fatigue can derail your training, or at least discourage. I still love term ‘pre-fatigued’ to describe workouts when your legs are feeling heavy. But if they are flat out hurting, you may need to take a few days off to recover. One way or another, they aren’t making training any easier. Injuries are even worse – at the very least, you will need to modify your training to allow your body to heal. Getting injured sure is bad luck! Not all injuries are equally bad though, although plenty of them hurt. They can be simple scrapes that will make you wince for a few days:
It sure hurt! But it kept me away from training only for a couple of days. My ankle did get badly hurt though and I had to modify training for a while to let that heal up. That’s the nice part about being a multi-sport athlete: you can find alternatives! OK, everybody can look for alternative training. It may just not be as helpful with your goal.
I wish all the injuries were this simple. A friend of mine got hit by a car while riding a bike and this is how it ended for him:
That’s definitely not lucky! For most of us, this means an extended ‘vacation’ from training and loss of much of your fitness. So I guess there is a lot of luck involved in crossing that finish line…
Not all the obstacles are of physical nature. Over the long months of training, it’s really easy to lose motivation and doubt your ability to achieve your goal. I definitely struggle with this more often than I care to admit! So your luck here is all about finding strength inside of you to deal with yourself.
As if your own doubts aren’t enough, then there are others. When you think big and tell people around, don’t you ever hear ‘you’re crazy’, ‘that’s not doable’, ‘you can’t do it’ and other variations on the subject? I hope not, but my experience says that you will always find those naysayers around you. It’s sad, but true. I always remind myself that those are people without vision and they don’t really get me. I tend to be pretty resistant to negative thoughts of others, but doubt can creep in. All I have to say on this issue is: don’t give up! And if you feel their negativity impacting you, find yourself some cheerleaders! If you can’t find one around you, reach out to me – I will be happy to be one for you 🙂
Last, but not least, obstacle on your road to ‘luck’, also known as hard-earned success: LIFE. Things will happen. I recall seeing a marathon that required registration many months in advance and didn’t allow deferrals or bib transfers. But what if you got pregnant? Actually, I saw a comment of a lady on that marathon’s page asking what should she do, since she got pregnant in the meantime. I don’t remember the answer, but that’s not the point of this post. The point is: life happened. You are expecting and an endurance race won’t happen. That’s life… You may have much more banal obstacles: change of jobs, which derails your training plan; climate change impacting weather around you and not allowing you to train; loss of access to a swimming pool… and so on.
I guess what I’m saying is: when people say ‘you’re so lucky’, they usually have no idea what they are talking about. You weren’t born a marathon runner or an ironman. You had to work hard to get there. You did, however, get lucky to certain degree and all the possible obstacles didn’t prevent you from happily accomplish your goal. Don’t give up, keep showing up every day and help your luck!