Confidence and Power!

Tues. I tried my first real bike crit. For those of you who don't know what a crit is, it is riding and drafting in a large group of cyclists. It can be very dangerous and crits are famous for crashes. This is the reason why I had never tried one before. I had been warned against it and always told that there was too much risk. I've done draft riding within a triathlon but it's been smaller groups and unfortunately a lot of elite triathletes do not have very good technical bike skills.
So I was unsure what to expect but in the end I am so glad I did it. Within the hour I learned a lot. I started off fairly cautious and a little unsure. I very quickly realized that in order to survive in the pack above all you needed CONFIDENCE. There was no time to doubt, hesitate or change your mind going threw the turns otherwise you risked crashing or losing the pack. Both very undesirable consequences. I learned to trust myself and was also forced to trust others while always being on the lookout.
Along with confidence the other quality I tapped into was POWER. And I don't just mean cycling power although that's a given. This is what I mean. In the past in many different situations I have tended to give my power away. Whether it was being too nice, or letting someone go in front of me, or allowing someone to take my power away in a relationship by not standing up for myself. All of us have given our power away in an unhealthy way at times, some of us more than others. Anyway, the first couple of turns I was really cautious. I wouldn't use all my power, mostly out of fear; so then I would have to sprint to catch the group off the corners. After doing this a few times I built up the confidence to just go for it threw the corners and not break. By doing this I stayed in the pack and didn't give any of my power away and didn't have to waste time and energy catching up after. I thought this was a great analogy of what so many of us do in life. Instead of just using our power, we give too much of it away and often feel drained or burnt out and then need time to recover. "Keep your Power" became a mantra of mine throughout the whole crit and it payed off.

Lost in Meech Lake...

This incident is a bit embarrassing but definitely funny. Today my friend and I managed to get lost in Meech Lake. We were swimming with a big group of ppl or rather we started out with them. We went in a direction where I hadn't swum before. At the second beach there is actually a second island far out in the distance. Nevertheless, the instructions and directions seemed straightforward. I have to admit that I was not sighting at all. I was completely absorbed with keeping up with the high turnover stroke of my friend. At one point I actually thought, "isn't it nice to not have to sight for a change..." Lesson: Always sight! Anyway, at one point we stopped because all we could see were trees and there appeared to be no connection to the beach anywhere. It was extremely misty. A beautiful peaceful sunny morning actually and I have to say I didn't mind being lost for a while. I knew we would eventually find our way back. It was nice to be completely surrounded by nature. So we stopped for a while to see if we could see any other swimmers. We saw no one. After we had tried a few directions we eventually found our way back. So I ended up doing an extra long continuous swim this morning. Then directly to the track for a hard running workout.