ending on a grace note
A few years ago, I never would have thought to use the word "athlete" to describe myself. It's not that I'm not active; my mom had us swimming laps at the YWCA from elementary school age, I started running with my brother in high school, and I started taking 50 mile bike rides for fun when I got my first bike at 18. I've been pretty active for a pretty long time, but I've never thought of myself as an athlete.
For no particular reason, to me that word referred to people who got paid a lot to play sports on tv. Then one evening Mychal and I went out to dinner with a friend who's then-girlfriend had completed a triathlon. We ate a TON (as usual) and someone (I forget who, we drank a ton too) made a point about us being athletes and needing to eat a lot. I was very inspired by that and helped myself to fourths of the arroz negro with squid. That was the first time I'd consciously grouped myself as an athlete. (thus we get: athletes=people who earn a lot of money and who eat a lot)
So it's no small feat for me to use the words "race season" to describe what I've been doing from May to November for the last six years. And then, last season I started to "place" (another new term for me) in races, which got me thinking I should start using the correct terminology. So I started to sprinkle words like "training, intervals, splits, negative splits, descending, drills" into my conversations.
The vocabulary up-grade only had a minor effect on my season this year. Despite my faith that I'd have a better season this year based on the facts that Axel started sleeping last winter and that he was 99% weaned by August, it didn't translate into a perfect season. There were minor injuries and major exhaustion which made it just "ok." Four races instead of the nine or ten I'd hoped for. I didn't get the "firsts" that I was shooting for, "just" a "2" and, in the last race of the season, a "3."
Still, it's an improvement, enough of one to make me wonder if I need to start talking about my dissertation like this. Incorporate some intervals into the Intro, negative split chapter 5, descend the conclusion.
For no particular reason, to me that word referred to people who got paid a lot to play sports on tv. Then one evening Mychal and I went out to dinner with a friend who's then-girlfriend had completed a triathlon. We ate a TON (as usual) and someone (I forget who, we drank a ton too) made a point about us being athletes and needing to eat a lot. I was very inspired by that and helped myself to fourths of the arroz negro with squid. That was the first time I'd consciously grouped myself as an athlete. (thus we get: athletes=people who earn a lot of money and who eat a lot)
So it's no small feat for me to use the words "race season" to describe what I've been doing from May to November for the last six years. And then, last season I started to "place" (another new term for me) in races, which got me thinking I should start using the correct terminology. So I started to sprinkle words like "training, intervals, splits, negative splits, descending, drills" into my conversations.
The vocabulary up-grade only had a minor effect on my season this year. Despite my faith that I'd have a better season this year based on the facts that Axel started sleeping last winter and that he was 99% weaned by August, it didn't translate into a perfect season. There were minor injuries and major exhaustion which made it just "ok." Four races instead of the nine or ten I'd hoped for. I didn't get the "firsts" that I was shooting for, "just" a "2" and, in the last race of the season, a "3."
Still, it's an improvement, enough of one to make me wonder if I need to start talking about my dissertation like this. Incorporate some intervals into the Intro, negative split chapter 5, descend the conclusion.
posted by aelis at 9:11 PM
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