Coach SVB

Exploration was my word for 2023. It was the year I turned 50 and I wanted to explore the feelings I had around that milestone.  I didn’t dread it. I didn’t look in the mirror and feel old, or gray, or wrinkled. I thought mostly, “SVB, you have a lot of life left to live. What will I do with it?”  Let’s explore. I tried saying yes to more things. To training in groups, to parties, and to coaching. This has brought me immense joy with friendships I’ve come to cherish and a second job that has reinvigorated my enthusiasm for sport. I explored new elevations, and cycled the Pyrenees, full of pride and grateful for the best friend and training partner one could wish for.  I explored my feelings of parenthood as my kid got his first job, his learner’s permit, and continued saving for his first car.  How can I be simultaneously terrified for him and yet want him so badly to get his dreams? It’s hanging on and letting go.  

One thing that didn’t go as planned was my Ironman in Mont Tremblant and although I let go quickly, I have still hung on. The brief version is I pulled out because an injury started to reappear on the run.  Although I was fine with this decision, I’ve hung on to trying to figure out why it happened in the first place when I was healthy all the way to the start. I have continued to explore the outcome as I’ve safely and healthily been building my run up stronger again. Perhaps the obvious answer is I pushed too hard, gave too little time to the build or the recovery, but I think it is more nuanced that that and after several months of exploration I heard a podcast that gave me an idea.  Maybe my brain was overtrained?  

This second year following my husband’s death has felt so much harder than the first. If I’m honest, this showed up at holidays (more sad), at work (more easily frustrated), and on the race course (often forcing the why).  I’ve asked a lot of my mind these past several years. I’ve dug in and kept going when everything around me could have fallen apart. It made the difference, and it made me strong. Now I wonder just like our physical selves, maybe my brain simply had enough. Despite all the self-talk and mantras, it showed me and because it knew I wouldn’t listen (I’m stubborn like that), gave me a physical sign that I couldn’t ignore or push away. I listened to you this time brain. I walked off the course and let it go, which was hard and easy.

I carry this exploration into 2024 with this year’s word: Lightness. It has already started to resonate and has me thinking how as an athlete and a coach we can lighten our load. This doesn’t mean giving up on hard things or forgoing the tough training. It doesn’t imply not making big goals or accepting sometimes we won’t reach them.  Lightness, I think as I write this now, is working on managing the load of both the body and the mind so that they can find harmony when we ask that of them.  Cheers to 2024!  Coach SVB