Monday, September 14, 2015
When Quitting is Not an Option!
On July 11th, I participated on a mile ocean swim at Jupiter Beach. For me, it was more kind of a practice to test my swim on open water. It was also a test of a long distance swim, since I never had done that much without stopping.
Before the event, everything was normal and keeping the same routine of training, I did not feel stressed or worried at all. When the day came and I arrived to the beach and saw the distance we had to swim, I started to worry hahaha!!. I was a bit nervous, but felt good about it. I started looking and thinking about the distance, and the more I looked, the more I got nervous.
I stayed behind the group of swimmers, because it was too crowded and didn't want to get stuck on the middle of people. Once I got to the first buoy, I panicked and got really afraid!!! millions of thoughts went through my mind in one second; "I don't have to do this" I'm not ready to do this" "I might not finish, it's too long, I might drown". Then, I stood up and decided to go back shore. But I remembered: I am not a quitter! and my coach came to my mind. I imagined him asking me my why did I quit? and just the no explanation for that question made me say to myself: you have to do this!. So I deleted those feelings and started swimming. A few minutes later, I had a lifeguard swimming next to me, because I was going on the opposite direction to the buoy (I was not checking for the buoys at that moment).
After getting back on the right direction, all the time I was very focus and thinking that I was there to finish no matter what. My finish time was 35 minutes, no too bad, but not what I wanted to accomplish. Just the feeling that for a bit I was about to quit and that actually I did finish, made me feel like my own hero.
The lesson for this: There is always an option, for me it was not quitting, because I would not deny the possibility of accomplishment without trying. When you think you are about to quit, you better think why you should NOT quit?
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