Curve Balls

We’ve all heard and used the saying – “she was thrown of curveball”, “didn’t see that curveball coming”.  It’s a change up pitch that is hard to hit; it’s an unexpected event  -  you know you’ll get one sooner or later, and will likely get many during a lifetime, but you never know exactly when it will come at you or what it will look like.  In the past couple of months, I’ve had a couple of curveballs thrown my way and plenty of time to reflect on them.

One curveball I was “thrown” happened during a big race weekend recently in which one of the races was a 1 mile open water swim.  It was an incredible race and I had been looking forward to it for months.  The opportunity to board a boat with about 100 swimmers, ride out in a lake for a mile, jump off the boat into the water to join an additional 150 swimmers for a race back to shore. The conditions were perfect.  Fabulous experience.  So long story short, I’m standing at the edge of the boat ready to jump in when I look down to put on my goggles and realize that a key goggle part is missing and they are unuseable.   Uuuugggghhh!  I had two choices of how to deal with that curveball – ride the boat back to shore, or race for a mile with no goggles.  Easy choice, but not any easy task.

Essentially I swam the entire way with my right eye closed (to protect it from the beautiful sunrise shining right into my unshielded eyes) and most of the way with my left eye closed (believe it or not, 68 degree lake water on unprotected eyes starts to feel a little “frosty” after about 15 minutes.  The hardest part was navigating the start with so many people in the water and really not being able to see due to all of the splashing.  I finished with a decent time.  I finished with a sense of accomplishment – that I didn’t step out of the batter’s box when the curveball came in, I dug deep and finished the race with a great pace all things considered.

The other recent curveball I experienced was really not thrown my way, but thrown straight at my dad….an out of the blue, stunning, OMG diagnosis of Stage 4 cancer.  The kind of curveball that leaves a knot in your stomach and so many thoughts in your head.  The kind of curveball, that due to its strength  could take a strong batter down.

I’ve learned that curveballs don’t define us, how we choose to handle the curveball does.  My parents have always taught me how to face problems head on; to hang tough.  Even in the face of the worst curveball ever, my dad has shown a grace and fortitude at which I marvel.  I can only hope that my kids learn the same from me.  It’s important to be able to handle whatever is thrown one’s way.

Curveballs…..we hold our ground, assess the pitch quickly and do our best to hit the ball – sometimes it will be a home run, sometimes it will be a 3^rd strike resulting in the game losing out….most often, though, it will be a decent hit that we can be proud of.

Good Enough

Over the past few months, I’ve used phrases like ‘”it will have to be good enough” many, many times.  When one says “it will have to be good enough”, it implies that there is something better.  To me, it has always implied that possibly the best effort was not put forth.  Here are the recent “good enoughs” uttered by yours truly:

“I’ve fallen short on my training hours the three weeks prior to my first triathlon of the season.  Up to about 3 weeks ago, I was training very consistently….it will have to be good enough.”

“I cannot spend one more penny on equipment this year (even though many people have been prompting me to make my bike/myself a little more aerodynamic) and I already have a decent, safe bike….it will have to be good enough.”

“I didn’t have much time to practice my transitions (in particular changing the way that I transition the bike to the run)……my current T2 will have to be good enough.”

“I’m really tired and my knees are aching….not sure I can fit in my full 90 minute long run this week……60 minutes will have to be good enough.”

So in the midst of these good enoughs and many more, I raced in that first triathlon of the season and I found out that “good enough” can still be pretty great.

Although it rained in varying degrees for the entire event, the weather was good enough that 340 like-minded people were able to put their training to the test and complete the ½ mile swim/20k bike/5k run successfully.

A woman that I know who recently suffered great personal loss found joy in the fact that she was good enough to beat quite a few women in her age group.

I found that the training and equipment that I told myself would have to be good enough actually was good enough.  I came in 2^nd in my age group of 30 women and achieved my goal of completing the course in less than 1:20.  I really enjoyed the entire event, camaraderie, and felt strong at the finish.

Good enough can be pretty great.