Lately I've been feeling lost in limbo. My focus has wavered as I've let the challenges of ski racing get to me. Taz the ski racer has always been 100% Taz the ski racer, has never wavered, rarely succumbed to self-doubt or looked to other pastures for greener grass, and has had her sights set far down the road, knowing that patience is the key. Last year was an all-time low for me relative to performance, the way my body felt in training, and, most importantly, mentally. It was a slump, a 365+ day athletic/career low, but somehow, for some reason, I plugged along. I guess I just knew it couldn't get any worse, and with the help and encouragement of my family, friends, and coach, I began to feel better, began to race better, and saw a spring return to my stride... Each day I trained, and I started to realize that the low was just part of the journey, that it wasn't a permanent state of being. It was encouraging to find myself clawing out of my slump. Now I find myself somewhere between where I was at my worst and where I was at my best, and while I'm am so proud to be on the rebound, I am plagued with pangs of impatience and frustration.
2010 is an Olympic year, the once-in-four-years event that athletes around the world aspire to take part in. Strangely I feel very conflicted about the Olympics these days it's almost hard to put into words... I remember being a young child skiing out the trail from my house imagining racing in the Olympics. Every step of my journey as a ski racer I have thought about the Olympics, wanting so much to work hard and ski fast enough to be able to take part in that experience. Of course I have sought much more from ski racing than just this one opportunity, but it has been a goal nonetheless.
At a time when resolutions seem especially relevant, I look at my life and realize that every day for many years I have worked towards my resolution of becoming the best ski racer I can be. Each day I've made many little goals in hopes that incremental success will get my closer to my larger ones. I am the kind of person who likes working towards something, likes seeing improvement and change as I do all I can to be the best I can be. I am a firm believer in setting goals, expressing them, and working hard, without excuses, in an effort to achieve them. It's important to me that I am true to myself when identifying a goal, that I want to achieve something not for fame or fortune or status, but because I am passionate about what I am doing.
Long ago I decided I wanted to give 110% as a ski racer. I didn't specifically want to be an Olympian, although I did imagine that as I whizzed down the ski trail as a child. To me the recognition one receives as an "olympian" is a title, a feather in one's cap, a distinguishing accolade. It says a lot about someones work ethic, talent, and athletic prowess. But it's about so much more than being able to say your an olympian.
With Olympics occupying a spot on my list of goals for some time now, I've thought a lot about what they really mean to me. If I ever get the chance to become an Olympian I want it to be because I deserve to be there. I want to have earned my spot on the US team, and I would like to think I could go and be competitive. If I get to take part in the Olympic experience someday I want it to be because I am a student of my sport. I don't want to be there to prove anything to anyone, and I don't want to do it for the recognition that it brings. I want to go because I love cross-country skiing, I have worked hard, and I enjoy the opportunity of testing myself.
With the Olympic hype in full swing, it is easy to lose sight of this, forgetting why it is a goal in the first place. The simple act of racing somehow seems to take on much more significance, and the daily joy of being fit and healthy seems to get swallowed up by this single goal. This has been hard for me. I want to be competitive with the best skiers in the world someday, and being named to an Olympic team would certainly be a step in that direction. At the same time, I want to be ready to be there. With the last distance race of the US National Championships concluded, it's hard to say what my future holds. I can see that I've come a long way, but I also have a long path ahead of me. Most of the time this journey is inspiring and fulfilling to me, but there are also the days when I feel lost and defeated. Failing to achieve a goal or meet predetermined markers of progress has been tremendously difficult and emotional. I have always worked as hard as I know possible in hopes that I could remove luck and hope from the equation, but the world just doesn't really work that way, and at times this is a brutal reality check.
With all these worlds behind me and nothing any more certain now than when I first began this post, I somehow feel much more calm. I am reminded to come back to how much I love cross-country skiing, how lucky I am to have the support of so many great people, and how fortunate I am to have had countless incredible experiences as a ski racer.
