pasmith congratulations on all of your hard preparation. From reading your logs I have been personally impressed by your dedication and inspired by your commitment. After all that hard preparation it is a very exciting place to be to be able to put it down and just perform. It reminds me of the following quote from Al Oerter, 4 time Olympic Gold Medalist, 2 World Records in the Discus.
“Just because you win gold medals or have some success in competitive environments does not mean you set out to do that. Competition in its best form, and as far as I’m concerned its only form, is a test of self.
When you can look at yourself honestly, during a competitive environment or right before an event, and say, “There’s nothing else I could have done to make me any better at this moment, just flat out nothing. There’s no running, no lifting, no throwing, nothing that could have made me any better.” Then no one else can ask anything of you. You can’t ask anything else of yourself. You are just as ready as you can be.
Competition then is a test of yourself to bring out the best if you can in a competitive environment. It’s not about beating people. When you set out to beat somebody, you get beyond that company, you get beyond that person, you get beyond that team and you win, then you’re pretty good. You won. Look what you’ve set in place. You’ve set in place a measure of another person’s capability. Who’s to say you can’t go two or five or ten times better than that?
You never measure yourself against anyone else’s capability-only what’s inside you. And if you’ve driven yourself to the point where you just flat out cannot be any better, that’s all you can ask of yourself. And when that happens, gold medals or whatever kind of medals, they just happen. Because you’re at your best.”
Thank you for sharing all of your workouts/training logs on the forums. I wish you the best of luck in Utah and look forward to hearing about it when you return.