Humble Pie

The people I think are the most admirable in the triathlon world are those who are humble about everything they have accomplished in the sport. The ones who aren't posting on Facebook about how many miles they just biked, how fast they did their long run, or the stat to every single leg of their most recent race. The ones whose blogs have matter-of-fact, useful race reports that may or may not recount their splits, instead of a race report full of bravado. The ones who do the work quietly and consistently, the ones who don't NEED to call attention to their training and performance because their results say it all. On way more than one occasion, I've been guilty of the faux-pas I just mentioned. When training for my first few Ironmans, I had FAR too many status updates on Facebook about all of my athletic accomplishments of that day. I felt like I needed to talk about everything I was doing to get noticed, get attention and admiration - and honestly, my results were pretty mediocre. Nothing that commanded the bragging I was doing. In the age of Facebook, blogs, Twitter, it's hard not to get caught up in shameless self-promotion. But as I notice the habits of those around me who I do admire, I'm trying to make positive changes in my habits and the way I carry and represent myself to emulate the behaviors I find admirable and not get sucked into the braggart role. This has required many large helpings of humble pie.

Case in point: recently I was introduced to someone who is also involved in triathlon. We chatted for a bit about races and what we did in 2011 and plans for 2012. She was quiet and very modest about the races she had done while I yammered on and on about how I did X, Y, and Z races last year and what I hoped to accomplish this year, blah, blah, blah. Well, later in the day I Googled her to see what AG she was in, etc. Annnnddd, she's a pro triathlete. I felt pretty stupid. And at the same time, felt so much respect for her - she could've easily said, "I'm way too fast to be training with someone like you" or "Do you have any idea how fast I swim/bike/run, do you really think you could keep up with that" etc, etc, etc. But she didn't. She didn't let on one bit about what a pretty kick-butt triathlete she is. And there are other triathletes I've met through my tri club who, in their first Ironman and/or first year of doing triathlon, qualified for Kona. Their FB pages were quiet on those days where they won a race or placed really well in a competitive field - the only activity was the virtual congratulations by others who had caught wind of their accomplishments by either being at the race or hearing it from someone who was there.

So, this blog, my FB page, all a work in progress. If you look at my race reports from 2011, you can tell I vacillated between including my splits and omitting them - they aren't the most important thing in the race report (I think the learning experience of the race is definitely more important) and if people really want to know, they can just check your profile on Athlinks.com. But, it's kind of nice to have the splits in the race report so when I look back, all the info is right there. I hope that if I continue/slip up and exhibit some of the aforementioned undesirable traits, that someone will call me out on it. You'd be doing both me AND everyone else a favor.