On The Water

  “Is there anything in life so disenchanting as attainment?” Robert Luis Stevenson - British author Sports and modern society have made us believe that winning promises to give more than it can actually deliver. And this is because we are probably focusing on the wrong aspect of winning. We view winning as an end-result but fail to take a deeper look at the process. Does winning medals alone bring success, recognition, admiration, fame, money, and personal happiness?  How do we feel when an Olympic athlete fails to make the finals? And how does it even compare when one loses a gold medal by a few hundreds of a second?  Does falling short by a lot or by a tiny bit make some athletes losers and less worthy of our admiration?  I am not trying to take away the crowns from Olympic gold medal glory or from achieving a challenging goal. And because I believe that "winning is everything", I will never be at ease with giving away participation medals to everyone completing a...

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...