The Pain of Suffering From A Loss.

Cece does not usually watch the NBA  finals. She much prefers college basketball.  But this year, she got caught up in the back story of the HEAT...particularly the story of Lebron James as told by Magic Johnson in a pre-game show.

Magic said, "Last year after losing in the finals, Lebron James stayed in the house all summer because he was disappointed by his own performance.  This year , he is so determined to win because he does not want to feel that pain and suffering again."

After the HEAT won the NBA championship, Wayne Wade said, "We had to go through all that pain and suffering to get where we are today."

What happens when we are disappointed  in ourselves?  We could be disappointed in our athletic performance or job performance or a multitude of things.  Lebron did not come out of the house for months. Cece often puts on weight.  Others get depressed or beat themselves up. Some surrender and quit.   What happens to the psyche when we have trained and trained or practiced and practiced and planned for success..... and we fail to reach our goal?

Cece has been thinking of this a lot lately.  She loves to watch the Olympic Track and  Field events and as a matter of fact has a friend who is attempting to qualify.  She envisions the starting line and all those elite athletes waiting to hear the gun.....they have all worked so hard  and dreamed  so big!  They have  trained for this very moment.....but the reality is  that only one person will win.

How do all those other athletes, that did not win, handle the defeat?  What do they say to themselves?  Do they try again in the next 4 years?  Train harder?  Try new training methods?  Get a new coach? Or do they give up?

For Cece, she has had to readjust her goals as she transitions from an endurance cyclist to a sprinter!  "Rome was not built in one day" is her new motto!  She has plenty of time to develop her skills.  She does not need to hurry or push too much.

She has a competition coming up toward the end of July.  She is doing what she can to improve her skills, and lose more weight.  It is a road race.  She has never been in a road race....but she has watched plenty of them in the Tour!  She will keep training, will talk to a few friends about the road racing strategy and then come race day, she will just do the best she can and see if she can come out the other end.