Cereal pieces = training
Prize= Goal Event
It'll all make sense by the end of this post.
(Or just be really confusing. Either way, it'll be a good read...I think.)
Enjoy!
When I was growing up, they used to put prizes inside the cereal boxes, and they would always be at the bottom.....
Being the patient 5 year old that I was, I would wait until my mom left the kitchen, and then open the cereal and dig my hand down to the bottom to find that prize! Of course it got messy, and pieces of the cereal got stuck to me. But digging down inside that box, I found that prize.
Having the pieces of the Cocoa Pebbles or Corn Pops or Cocoa Puffs stick to my hand and arm was just a consequence.... A wonderful, tasty, delicious consequence.
My mother coming back into the room to an open box of cereal that had a 5 year olds arm (up to my elbow) in it, with cereal all over the floor, was, however, a not so wonderful consequence. Especially when the consequence was her taking the box of cereal away and "throwing it out"-Never one to waste, my mom gave it to the kid next door. (Come to think of it, the kid next door looked a little TOO well nourished!)
I did, however, get to keep the prize!
That short-lived, awesome prize... that was a constant reminder of all that awesome cereal I never got to eat.
Winter training, is like grabbing that box off the shelf. You see the picture on the cover (your target race's website), you get excited thinking about how delicious they taste (finishing the race), and that prize promised at the bottom (that feeling of accomplishment after you finish, and the pics of you looking super-cool and hardcore during the race).
But we don't want to take the time to savor and enjoy the cereal (training) while we are going through it. We just want to BE THERE ALREADY.
So, some of us take that shortcut: Skip rides until the weather gets nice, or cut training sessions short/skip a ride each week. Maybe we don't follow our nutrition plan, or get enough sleep. Besides, it's only January 29th! The season is still a few months away. We have time!
The next thing we know, just like digging our hand into that cereal box to find the prize (grabbing in the dark, at the bottom of the box) SURPRISE! Your goal event is here, and you're excited and elated!
Then you do the event, and are disappointed with the results (the equivalent to Mom walking in, and you getting only a few pieces of cereal that stuck to your hands and arm). You got SOMETHING out of the training, but only a small sliver of what you could have, had you been patient and committed to your training.
YOU MISSED ALL THAT DELICIOUS CEREAL!
Don't let the Temperature, or weather, or fact that all sane bears are still hibernating, keep you from following through on the work you MUST do to get to your goal event, and enjoy it to the best of your abilities.
You see, as per the ancient proverb "It's not the Destination, it's the journey that matters", You learn so much about yourself during your training:
What motivates you, how to work through difficulties, who's there to give you a good swift kick in the you-know-what to keep you going, and who's right there in the trenches with you, slugging it out, and EARNING the grit that comes with it.
*THANK YOU VETERANS FOR VOLUNTEERING AND THUS ALLOWING US OUR FREEDOM!!*
Buckle down, but enjoy a bowl of that awesome cereal every few weeks (RELAX! RECOVER! DO SOMETHING FUN NON-SPORT RELATED!).
You'll get so much more out of your training by working through it, making adjustments as you go, and reaching your goal event knowing how much you've grown and how far you've come as an athlete- and even more importantly, as a person...
You know, they stopped putting those prizes in the cereal about the time I turned 10, and perhaps not coincidentally, around the time my mom said she was going to call the cereal companies and tell them to stop putting the prizes in the cereal- just because of me and my digging....
Coincidence?
I think not.
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