The last 6 months have been all about decision making, some choices were made for me, some I had to figure out myself. My newly acquired obsession with motivational video clips, some very cliché, some worth watching, made me come back over and over again to this one sentence, which goes as follows;
“Make a choice. Just decide. What’s it gonna be, who you gonna be and how are you going to do it. Just decide”
I have been a veterinarian for a decade. Its what I know best
I was told by my former employer I had to decide whether I wanted to be a veterinarian or an athlete. Quite frankly I did not want to decide and with that attitude I was without a job before I knew it. I also did not want life getting in the way of any aspirations I had for my sport, XTERRA triathlon and Mountain biking, and this attitude took its toll on my relationship. Again a decision made not by me, but being made as a consequence of my drive to succeed as an athlete.
With a month to go before starting my XTERRA Europe Campaign with 3 races in 4 weeks I was now wondering if this was all worth it instead of training my butt off.
I looked back on 6 months of intense racing, juggling my training hours between riding, swimming and running. Swopping and changing from mountain biker to a triathlete and vice versa. During these months, my association with the Subaru-MarathonMTB team had given me a platform. Through the team I had met people who were just as driven as I was. They had given me advice; they had supported me and challenged me. I had learned so many things about racing in general since joining the team for the first marathon of the season at the Kona Odyssey. The finishing photo was proof of how little I knew about marathon racing back then and how far I have come now. During the ICME stage race in Alice Springs a few weeks back I got rewarded for all the hard work I put in so far. The highlight for me was coming 3rd in the Marathon stage, next to the bigger names of the sport Rowena Fry and Jenny Fay. It made me even hungrier to train harder, learn to ride better and succeed.
At the finish of the Kona Odyssey
After the ICME stage race I suffered from the so called Post Stage Race Blues and I was warned this would happen. Racing in Alice Springs was a great escapism from the real World. With 3 XTERRA races ahead of me I had to re-focus, keep believing I was doing the right thing, and believe that things somehow would work out.
I had to accept the hard fact that although I am racing in the pro-category I am not a pro athlete. I need to work to pay for what I would like to achieve in the sport. So after a whole lot of soul searching and listening to some terrible depressing music I came to this conclusion. I need to do what works for me. I need to find a job where there will be support for my sporting aspirations. I am a veterinarian, it’s what I know best, but I am also just as much an athlete. Which means I have to find a veterinary job where I can work part time and get the time off to train and race. This will not be easy but I will keep on trying until I have found the right balance. In the mean time I will have to earn money somehow, working in a bike shop, freelancing as a vet here and there and panicking every other day about how this is all going to work out. But I decided I wasn’t going to quit just because I was swimming against the flow.
Juggling between racing off road Triathlon and Mountain biking
After all this feeling sorry for myself I took control. In order to race well in Europe I had to become a better swimmer, so I spend the money and joined VLAD swim squad in Sydney. This meant I tripled my hours in the pool. Ironically these hours have now become my favourite training sessions as I can notice improvement every time I swim. This made me think about another sentence I heard in a motivational video “Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft”
With not much time left before my European XTERRA extravaganza that is what I am doing now, swim, bike, run. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. And I can be found behind the counter of Cheeky Monkey Bike Shop in Randwick when not training. Someone asked me what on earth I contribute to a bike shop, I have absolutely no idea as I have been a veterinarian for a decade now, but I owe Cheeky Monkey big time for hiring me. Please come and buy a bike. Without help this dream is simply not possible, and I owe many people for their support.
Make a choice. Just decide. What’s it gonna be, who you gonna be and how are you going to do it. Just decide” It is really that simple.