LO4 – Commitment: Showing perseverance and resilience

This season has been a long and hard one. However, I am still not done. This season has been going on for an entire year. There were the covid and injury disruptions, but it was nevertheless business as usual as I tried to make the most of an uncertain period of competing. I definitely had to persevere more than I thought I knew how. Who has a year-long season? It seems quite ridiculous in hindsight, but time has passed so quickly amidst all these fluctuations. This season was about working myself into race shape, and I have made great leaps and bounds in that respect. I am quite happy with my fitness. However, the lack of actually running the distance and racing may come back to bite me, although I intend to make the best of that too. In short, I am very tired, but I am trying to remain positive. Particularly because I can see my break so close in sight. I did have goals for this season but haven’t been able to race as of yet. Hopefully, I can in the near future, but my goal for that is just to have fun, trust in myself and see what I can do. I am working on being kind to myself and realising that I actually have had a hard time of it: an extremely extended season that made me very tired, the uncertainty of covid, and a very painful injury. This season has proven to me what I already believed to be true – I see things through to the end, even if less than ideal. I do genuinely feel proud about what this situation has revealed to me about my character. I can persevere through challenges; I can stay committed. Further, I recognized in myself a need to be kind to myself and not put too much pressure on myself. Sometimes I take myself too seriously, which can be quite detrimental to my mental well-being. Sport is mentally taxing, but this season (by which I mean the past few months, not the year) I have grown in being more aware of my thinking and allowing myself to stay calm and happy. Looking toward the future, I am excited to finish off this unconventional one-year season strong. I am also very much looking forward to my break.