You’re not dreaming. You are in fact, reading a post of my 2009 races; a recap, rather. Yes, it’s March 2010 and 2009 was so last year, but I didn’t really have a chance to do this at the beginning of this year, so here it goes… I friggin’ ran too much in 2009.

LOL. Yes, I just realised that right now. The volume of events I did and the sparseness of my training (except for the one marathon) probably led to why my (left) knee rebelled against me weeks ago. Oh, and sometimes in the evenings, on particularly cold nights, I have all these tingly sensations in my legs. I suspect that they’re trying to tell me to stop the running madness. >_<

That being said, 2009 was also one of my more successful years, in terms of training and running. In 2009, I achieved a “Personal Best” three times — twice in running half-marathons and the other in a marathon. Before ’09, I would just do a half-marathon and marathon a year (since 2005 anyway; prior to that, I’d only have 5k or 10k races). So, in 2009, I ran 4 half-marathons and 2 marathons. That’s 104.8 miles of race mileage and it doesn’t even count my training mileage. Quite a bit of running, yeah?

You can probably say my left knee is a casualty of overuse (and again, sparse training in-between months), but I kept thinking in my head that I could have probably avoided it if I stretched more  and/or did more strength training exercises and/or kept up with my training.

Then I read this article (see left), and I felt better. It’s from the USA Triathlon Life magazine (Winter 2010, Volume 13, Issue 1). What I got from the article was, no matter how careful I trained, chances were, I’d still suffer some sort of injury (it’s not a guarantee, but injury is essentially, inevitable!). The real challenge is how I deal with the injury and the process of bouncing back. The writer has actually been waiting for 20 years for his “perfect” season of training that would lead up to his “perfect” race but came to a realisation that the perfect, pain-free, problem-free race doesn’t exist. There is adversity and there will always be.

Adversity is not a means of dragging you down, but an opportunity to build you up. In all my decades of racing triathlon I suppose this might be one of the most important lessons I’ve learned: that the perfect race and the perfect season is completely imperfect. That life is not about fearing adversity but of confronting it and conquering it and becoming a better person because of it. Adversity, in a funny way, is in itself, perfection. – Jeff Matlow (USA Triathlon Life, Winter 2010, p.130)

Wasn’t that special? A few words that will keep me level (and kinda inspiring me for my 12 mile run tomorrow). I hope that you click on the article thumbnail and read it in its entirety. Better yet, print it (on recycled paper) and post it close to your training calendar. Then, when you’re feeling like you’re about to give up, take a gander at the article and hope it brings you to the same realisation as I did.

p.s.,
I found it mildly ironic that the article’s photo has a wooden puppet clutching its left knee. rofl.