RF Now

I am riding. It is the bike leg of an Olympic distance triathlon. After another horrible swim, it is my chance for salvation. The bike is, after all, what I do and where it’s at. I have ho-hummed this race for weeks, I am only here in support of the two athletes that I am coaching. The nonexistent taper that I executed to near catastrophic proportions is now haunting me with an I-told-you-so evil grin. I cannot find a groove in spite of the rolling terrain that normally is my meal ticket to the podium. These 3-4% gentle rollers are having their way with me today, sending laughing drops of rain to add yet another layer of insult to my emotional injury. 

The thought appears like a speech bubble on the heads-up display of my steamed shades. It says, “If you think that THIS is bad, wait till we get your sorry ass to the run.’

I shake my head and clear the screen. Something needs to change pronto. I need an emergency attitude adjustment stat. OK, what can we manage, what can be done…God grant me the serenity…to impact the here and the RF now? 

We can stop thinking like a spoiled, pampered, entitled, conservative trust-funder and do the best you can with what you’ve got. Forget about the swim and the fist half of the 25 miles and give ‘em some hell right freaking (RF) now. 

I reach for my water bottle that has 8 ounces of vitamin C infused liquid courage remaining and take a deep swig in a shiver the loins moment of truth. I may not be Sparticus, but I am me. My tried and true racing strategy invoked, I begin the hunt. Whomever is in front of me is the bogey. Get them in the crosshairs, chase, catch and pull the trigger. NEXT. 

The adrenaline rush takes me by surprise and I begin to move with meaning. And while not exactly at the speed of light, it is faster, more focused and more to my liking than anything that has gone before today, or, gasp, any day, gasp, ever? 

I don’t need to go any further in race review narrative form. It was too late in the game to impact my overall performance, judged not by the place of finish or by elapsed time, but my personal assessment of the quality of my involvement in the event. I was in too rotten of a mood, ambivalent and sloppy for half of the race, impossible to recover from if your goal is overall judgment. It’s like winning a game because you got lucky, or the other team’s star was injured. I take no pride in that. 

What I do take pride in is a detail so small it rarely gets mentioned, let along discussed. Heaven forbid we would actually practice it in the attempt to become better. 

The detail is growth. Learning from our mistakes , our miss takes. Fortunately in triathlon we get other chances. We can get a good take. We can commit, focus, relax and execute with gumption and grace. We can make it look easy as it is killing us inside. We can use the failures of the past to better our chances of susses in the future. We do that by dealing with the present. 

That is why I write and that is why I race. It’s all a test. Who am I today? Can I rise up (against all odds) and figure out a way to better the ball, to invoke a detail so tiny very few are able to clearly see it? Can I recruit the lessons, refine the learning, take the knowledge from experience and convert it to wisdom, in real time, like RF now?

My inner coach always asks, ‘why did you wait so long?’ 

A question I have never been able to adequately answer.