When is enough enough? This is an ongoing battle any athlete, and no doubt, professional athletes, battle with all the time. Firstly, I am not, nor have I ever been, a professional athlete or a professional in the field, but I do have a story like all athletes.
I constantly battle the day-to-day challenge of when is enough, when will I stop? Right now, I’m injured; I need another new hip, but that won’t stop me. Why? because the problem with sport is we don’t know when it may end and when our bodies and our minds give up.
I was chatting today with the captain of our rowing club, a motivated young guy, who has built a strong group of juniors and is heavily invested. well, he is now at the age of going through the battle of how much should I focus on rowing or getting a “real job”. I can’t persuade him in any direction, nor would I, but what I did say to him is in sports opportunities don’t come around all the time, and when they knock you have to answer. Unlike the real world, yes there is that “dream job”, but there will always be another.
I’m getting a bit off-topic, so let’s get back to me, I always like that. lol
I was the hopeless fat kid in primary school. Back in my day sports teams were selected when the teachers gave the “cool kids” the job of captain and they had to select the teams (who they wanted on their side), I was always last or second last picked; I do recall it was a battle between myself and a bloke name Peter Spalding (by the way, he is now a pilot for Qantas flying the big arse planes, whose the cool kid now…), and this was a coed school, anyway, that really pissed me off, but to be fair, I was no good at any of those sports and if I was picking teams I would have picked myself last too!
Then I moved to senior school, and my best mate, Bill, said “Let’s do the Glenferrie gallop” It was a 9km run around Hawthorn, and I nearly died. But a spark was lit! I actually did it. My parents said I was dreaming if I thought I could run 9km. Well, the joke went back on them because when I finished that at 13 years old I said, well now I’m doing a marathon, and I did! well fk all you guys, I can do sport! and hard sport, not cricket at primary school, or tunnel ball, but I could run marathons.
Let’s move forward or I’ll be here all day. Now that I’m at the other end of my sporting career, and sport is very much a part of my life and my “Modus Operandi” I find myself now trying to work out a path forward; where I can still glean satisfaction, enjoyment, fear, and pain (do you like the last two? they are very important for me).
So where to from here? When I found triathlon over 30 years ago after I gave up rowing (for the first time) I was terribly overweight (103kgs…. yep…) and I found something that gave me so much within what I wanted from sport! The personal challenges, the pain, the pressure, the fear, the anxiety, the mental aptitude required, and from that I fell in love with triathlon as a sport.
But, there was something missing, a big part, the camaraderie, the group feeling, that didn’t exist as a solo athlete. Yes, you would win (or succeed, whatever that may look like to you) a race and feel great, but it was just you celebrating. I fondly recall my son during his early swimming days as a kid saying “it’s ok, but there is no one to celebrate with” and how right he was. This is why team sports are so important, again I’m going off-topic.
So when is enough enough? well, I say never! Of course one day we won’t be able to do it, but that’s not because we have had enough it’s because our bodies have had enough. but our desire, passion and motivation will not die! That’s who we are as athletes. Just last week I was chatting to my great mate Matty White (Ex pr triathlete) one of the mentally toughest people I know, I made a 1 dollar bet with him that he will be doing competitive sport again within 2 years, he is 47 years old and can’t come to terms with slowing down. Only recently competing in HYROX as a professional as he won’t even accept age group competition. He seems to think he can just turn it off and stop doing competitive sports, well I call BS and made that bet. I will be right, you can’t turn off that flame.
But what can you do? You can change direction, do different things, and find different motivations. That is what I have been moving toward lately with being a Coxswain and Coach; I’m finding extreme sporting satisfaction in seeing others succeed (those who are serious and doing the work). At our rowing club, we have a brilliantly motivated couple working their asses off at the moment, technically a bit of work to do, but mentally and physically they absolutely nail it. I look forward to racing against them and being beaten by them. Don’t worry, I won’t throw any race, and when/ if that happens they will have deserved it 100% and I will have complete satisfaction as I have helped in their journey towards their success.
After all of this, what I’m saying is, that enough is never enough; if it’s in your DNA you won’t find satisfaction outside of your sport, but you can find satisfaction changing your “Modus Operadai” and focussing on a slightly different direction. Accept your body is slowing down, accept that you cant win all the time, embrace that, and encourage and promote those around you who are better! why? well, it might just be because of you they have a “Modus Operandi” to compete!
Capre Diem!
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