I stole that from Mindi, and then personalized it a bit. About a month ago she wrote a blog that mentioned a bracelet she wore, it said “Excuses are for Fat Kids.” It leapt out at me because I realized that I make excuses about swimming alllll the time. I’m too tired to have a pointful swim workout so I should just rest… Just showing up to practice counts as a workout… There are too many people in my lane, I can’t swim… My shoulder feels funny so I shouldn’t swim… Swimming off the clock is too hard, going by rest intervals is good enough… I didn’t swim as a kid so there is no way I’ll ever get fast. And I have a ton more where those came from. I totally don’t do that for biking and running, and surprise surprise I am kind of good at them.
Since reading Mindi’s blog and adopting my own “excuses” awareness last month, I have done more swim workouts and pushed myself harder in the water than I ever have. And it’s working! I’m kind of improving! So. No more excuses… They are for bad swimmers, for fat kids, for participants. Not for athletes!
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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 at 9:43 pm and is filed under training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Those sound like my excuses. You are (or were
)) my excuses twin sister.
You are on your way to being an awesome swimmer. Believe it and you will be it!
Love it! I am definitely needing the inspiration right now to find ways to get my butt in gear. I’ll take this one with me!
I went out for my long run Sunday. For some reason I read this in the early AM. I laid in bed while the weather was nice and though it would be OK when I went out (around 8:30AM). It was for the first 8 minutes and then, downpour. I was close enough that I could have turned around and went back home but instead I just kept muttering “excuses are for fat people” (I modified it a bit). I put in another 11 miles and the weather was OK for most of it (cleared up after 20 mins and rained hard for the last 2 miles). Thanks for the motivation.