Training to achieve a target means dedicating a lot of your time to achieve it! For an athlete who wants to succeed this is something normal but add to it school or work commitments and it turns out to be a very tough challenge. I used to argue that if one concentrates 100% on training his/her performance will improve dramatically. It took me three years to realise that I was not right!
Way back in 2000 after finishing my A-Levels I decided to stop my studies and dedicate the next three years of my life to triathlon. Things didn’t go according to plan due to various reasons. I am not going into detail, but I would like to share my experience in what I later realised was a very bad balance between body and mind.
Dedicating all the time of the day to triathlon was certainly not a healthy step to take as regards my physical and social development. My mind was just concentrating on what my body was doing – train to improve in triathlon, nothing more. Rather than improving, my level of performance deteriorated, whereas the level of stress increased to the point where it became unbearable: so eventually, I decided to quit the sport. That was probably the hardest decision of my life to date but I couldn’t keep doing something which was not taking me anywhere. My self confidence went down, and my self respect was not at its peak either.
Nowadays looking back I feel that concentrating on one target in my life proved to be a mistake because I neglected other important factors which, for a teenager, are much more important!
In the last months I found again the desire to go back to triathlon, but this time with different targets and a different lifestyle.
I am studying to become a teacher and I have other important commitments which keep my mind and body occupied with other targets and not just sport. I am looking at triathlon from a different lens than what I used to do three years ago.
Yes, I am training hard to improve but I am making sure that I am enjoying it. Stress will always be present since I am training to improve and win races, but I learned to control it. I am approaching the sport with a balance between body and mind. I learned to appreciate that life is not just triathlon and this not only helped me to succeed in other aspects of my life but, as an athlete, I am feeling much stronger than I used to.
Sport is important and so is education. I learned that not only is it good to be involved in both, but you can also be successful at both. It is important to promote sports to our young generation because it can help both their physical and social development and keep a balance in their lifestyles.