What's Going On? Worlds 2011

Its been almost a year since I last put my thoughts into this blog and I feel like now is probably a better time  than ever to vent a lot of the things that have been floating around in my head and answer both the questions that people have been asking me and more importantly, the questions i've been asking myself.

As athletes, we strive to be victorious. It is our purpose. We understand, but struggle to accept the ideology that along with the great triumphs, there will inevitably be failures on some level. When we are serious about the goals we set, we do EVERYTHING IN OUR POWER to prevent those failures from happening, particularly when it matters most. Moreover, we do our homework with precision and consistency, we come to the show prepared and our senses are blind to anything other than the task at hand; we are machines.

Sometimes however, we are not serious about the goals we set for ourselves. We speak them, we write them down, we think about them, but we don't feel them. We say things like, "I want to win worlds." Sure those are words that sound great to the ears, but if they mean nothing to the heart, they are worthless, and when they are worthless, our minds tells us that it is no longer necessary to do EVERYTHING IN OUR POWER to succeed.

2004 was my first senior world championships. I was so close winning a gold medal i could taste it. Each race i skated i was certainly strong enough to win, but had so much fear racing against the veterans that i was missing just a slight mental edge that could have possibly helped me bring home a hand full of gold medals instead of the handful of silver and bronze that i actually came home with. I spent the entire next season reliving those races, they fueled me. Fast forward to the 2005 world championships, suzhou, china. I made it through each round of the 500m sprint on the track and found myself in the 500m final, again up against the veterans. David Downing was the coach that year. He sat me down before the race and pounded into my head that i was the fastest guy there and that i couldn't be afraid to be in control. Moreover, i needed to win the start and go full from the gun, taking matters into my hands and saying, "if you wanna beat me, you're going to have to BEAT ME." Those words belted down my confidence, as all year i had been mentally preparing for this very moment, being sure not to make the same mistakes from last year. When the gun went off, I had the perfect start, made it to the corner first, and never looked back. That was my first senior world title. It was literally what I had dreamed about for that previous 5 or 6 years as an athlete and the feeling that i had when i crossed the line was one that i've only felt a handful of times in my life, one impossible to explain with words.

The point of that story is to solidify the importance of goals driven by true desire and how effective they are.

I think the next several years of my career were kindled and driven from that very feeling i got when i crossed the line in the 500m in china. That feeling was the source of all my motivation; it was an addiction. From 2004 to 2010 i collected national titles, national records, world cup wins, world titles and world records. In truth, eventually each accomplishment felt less and less like that feeling i had in 2005, until finally, i found myself competing because it was what i was supposed to do, not because i wanted to. The addiction was no longer being fed, the motivation to train was no longer there and the goals i was setting suddenly became mere words on a paper.

I was spending the seasons barely getting by with the work done in previous years and the respect i had earned. I wasn't the same athlete i used to be. I only did just enough to prepare for the world championships-- i would spend a few months working on the details as opposed to spending a full season with a consistent program like i did when i was younger and fueled by that addiction. It seemed to be working okay for me, still having pretty good success, despite 'cheating' the system, but what i didn't know is that it would all catch up to me. I started only catering to my strengths at practice and stopped working on my weaknesses, because in my mind, all those little things just came naturally. I was wrong. Eventually, not working the weaknesses spawned more weaknesses until finally, i just began accepting not being good at the facets of skating that made me who i was before. I accepted not being good at indoor, not being good at corners, not being good at starts, not being good at hawks and not having great endurance on corners. I had intensity in my workouts, but i wasn't practicing the necessary things to be winning on a world level. Moreover, i wasn't working on any of those things that i ACCEPTED not being the best at.

So here I am. Failing to achieve my 'goals' at the world championships, or am I? Can i really accept my goals as genuine when they don't come from the heart? In the beginning, I knew I wasn't prepared. I was warming up for my races on the track trying to figure out the best body position in the corner, how to push efficiently, and where to have my hips in the corners, when in actuality, i should have been focused on what i was going to do in the race. Because I failed to do my homework, everything was 5 steps behind and it's too late to try to catch up now, particularly without having a residency program this year. Identifying my lack of preparation brought on overwhelming fear. However, this time it wasn't a fear of competing against the veterans, it was fear of letting the fans down and having people think I don't have what it takes any more.

This was an eye opener. My goals of winning worlds didn't really mean that much to me if my fears were based on other people's perceptions.

With each race that i come up short in, the frustration grows. What was initially fear, has now been completely transformed into motivation to prove my ability to myself. I do not want to fail, but I'm no longer afraid of it. I have 3 races left. Significant damage may have been done from lack of proper preparation, but opportunity still presents itself to be taken full advantage of, particularly now the mind is clear, the questions have been answered, and the goals are set for the right reasons again.