Leif Baradoy

I’ve been attending the Saturday Oak Bay Bikes group ride for the past few months. While things can get a little sketchy in large groups, overall I have had many great Saturday morning rides. I’ve met a number of awesome people, swapped stories, and ridden hard (sometimes fast and dirty too). Even the sketchiness helps accustomize me to the joys and dangers of drafting.

I was chatting with a rider today and he spoke about how he feels that he started too late in his sport and is working hard to catch up to people who’ve been practicing and training for years. Nevertheless, in spite of his age, he has had some good achievements in his sport, including second place at a provincial championship. “Not bad, old timer,” I said.

So, How old was this guy? Grade 11, which makes him about 16 or 17. Crazy!

I was able to connect with this guy in conversation because I have had the same thought about my position in regards to triathlon, namely, that I started late and this reality is less-than-ideal (here, gentle reader, you should feel sorry for me becuase I don’t live in ideal reality. You do, I suppose).

I strongly encouraged this rider to keep pushing himself, but I was cautious not to make light of his perspective (which is easy for an old fart like me to do). He expressed his feelings genuinely, so it would be bad form to dismiss his concern as “the silly thoughts of youth.”

Anyway, I have set aside thoughts that I am too old and too new to triathlon. I deem these as, at base, excuses and instantiations of fear. They aren’t productive for me to dwell on or give credence to. There are hundreds of reasons to cite for why I won’t excel, but none of them are in-and-of-themself reasonable. I choose to meditate on why, and how, I will excel. And Being in my late twenties (nearly 30!) is no excuse for me not to excel in triathlon.

Anyway, I hope to see the young cyclist out at the next ride. I recently had an Olympian tell me that she has dealt with the same thought/ false excuse of being too old for her sport (rowing). This was before she qualified for Beijing! Now, she’s got her mind and training set toward London 2012, and she’ll be even older then! My point is that I was inspired and encouraged by this athlete to set aside my bull shit thinking (although there is likely more BS lurking within). Anyway, I hope, in my small way, to pass along this encouraging and, at-ground, more real perspective to others. (Shout out to Marco Olmo.)

So much of high performance sport is dedication and refusing to let false excuses derail or hinder development. I don’t mean to suggest that “through the power of positive thinking” (to use an oft quoted phrase that I bug Laura with) anyone can achieve at high performance sport. I am simply emphasizing one of the mental elements that I see at play in the mind of many athletes.

Anyway, keep paying it forward, but not in the cliche Hollywood way. If you can, be good without being lame.

Enjoy the emergency.

By the by, if you’ve not seen this video by Andrew McCartney, recently posted on Simon Whitfield‘s blog, then do so now).

With under a month left to go in my second semester of graduate school, I am starting to feel the pressure of finishing strong on this round of my studies while moving forward in my training.

I have the good fortune of regularly training with an amazing and accomplished group of high performance triathletes, so every group session inspires me toward my best.

School requires a similar effort, so the next month will require a lot of focus and commitment to excel in both areas.

Lately, I’ve made some progress on my swim stroke, which gives me reason to celebrate. For months, my coaches have worked patiently with me to help me understand how to improve. I’d make adjustments, but nothing seemed to change. I was told to be patient and keep it up. I did. Finally, in the last couple weeks, something clicked. I’ve made some noticeable progress in my swim technique and speed. Of course, I am currently far from being first-out-of-the water, but nevertheless this progress is extremely encouraging.

More generally, my work with the PT Performance Training team is going really well. There are so many group sessions where the energy of my teammates helps me to keeping pushing my pace or dig deep to rock another hill set. My whole experience with Noa, and the high performance athletes she trains, has been amazing. I am hungry for race season to begin.

I’m still detailing my race schedule for 2010, but I have my eye on two big races: the 2010 Kelowna ITU Triathlon Premium Pan American Cup (Canadian National Championships) and the ITU Age Group Triathlon World Championship in Budapest, Hungary. This is my first year racing in the ITU and I look forward to learning a great deal and meeting some of the new challenges posed by the draft-legal race style. I am honoured to race some of the top triathletes in the world. I intend to show up with all I have and give my best effort.

Oh yeah, Laura and I (along with our dog, Luthor) are moving at the end of the April. We’ve found a completely detached suite that overlooks the water in Cordova Bay. Goodbye upstairs neighbours who keep us awake! Hello bright new space to live, love, and study in!

By the way, if you’re interested in the evolutionary origin of glossolalia or in Walter Benjamin’s invocation of messianic eschatology to highlight the always-present possibility of a revolutionary terminal event then chat to me in late April after I’ve written papers on these matters!

Until next!