On The Water

Maturing as an athlete is a lot more than just getting faster or becoming more efficient. I believe that what makes an athlete mature is a great mindset.  From my own small-world perspective, my athletic attitude has changed dramatically over the years. I remember my first season that started in October 2011: I was restless. I wanted to train every day. The more the better. I was getting excited with every little success, from clocking faster 5K times every month to winning the smallest local race in town. I was also getting depressed easily: whenever my knee was hurting or my shoulder was pinching. I was becoming really pessimistic if I had to take time off training in order to deal with smaller or bigger injuries. I remember I was crying for days when I had to stop swimming for nearly 4 months to rehab my left shoulder from chronic rotator cuff injury: I went to the 2012 Collegiate Nationals having practiced 0 swimming for 4 months (I finished 4th overall). The majo...

I am sure you have heard over and over again how yoga can benefit your endurance sports ambitions. I was myself among those who were reading and hearing about the power of yoga but never really wanted to give it a shot. I was kind of feeling a little out of the whole yoga-spiritual-relaxation kind of attitude. Up until I was suggested to try it by my doctor. I finally have a sort of diagnosis about my chronic injury and an action plan. I have a soft-tissue injury in the connective tissue between my psoas and my illiacus (something that apparently is not detectable with any current visualization methods: MRI, CT scans, Ultrasounds, etc). Lots of reasons may have caused that over the years: office-work lifestyle (I have been reading, writing and working at a desk for as long as I remember myself-from my elementary school years till now), trauma, accidents, etc. Over the years, the lifestyle or an accident or a trauma (which I had so many as a cyclist) had created imbalances that favo...

When it comes to training and racing for a goal or some few goals for the season, things do not always go right. They go left, up or down. Shopping for "going right" this year. Anybody? I spent last year in the shadows, training and racing minimally and trying to fix a problem that killed my running. After tons of exams that only proved my body is in perfect condition and after spending a good amount of six months on the massage table in the hands of Nathan Handerson, I finally got it under control. I got optimistic, I thought that all of my patience and persistence have finally paid off. I started running some pre-season races pain-free. Yes! I thought I got it! Unfortunately, timing is not always right. I am still on the roller-coaster train. Sometimes I am racing pain free and other times with some pain. So, things are not yet right 100%. Therefore, my scheduled training periods have started getting canceled and I started going south. But only for a little while. T...