Banishing Negativity

Iceman is tomorrow. Tomorrow. The day after today.

The scant amount of time I've spent on blog posts recently has seen me whining about how I'm not ready for Iceman, how it's going to be a disaster, etc. If I had been writing more there would have undoubtedly been more of the same.

Yesterday, I got an e-mail pep talk from someone who has always been very encouraging, and it really made me want to get my act together, as far as the negativity is concerned. So I thought about the facts:

• I don't have as much training as I wish had, and I've lost a lot of fitness since the beginning of the year.
• I've been sick all week long and all I've done is go to work and go straight to bed when I got home. I haven't had energy for anything else.

But here are a few more facts for me to chew on:

• Through two seasons of mountain bike racing and what's now my third season of cyclocross, I've never, ever had a DNF, even when I've been absolutely miserable. When I've felt humiliated, demoralized, beaten and battered, I still haven't allowed myself to quit. I know, deep down, that I never would unless I had a really, really good reason, such as a major injury or major mechanical.
• My legs and my stamina might not be in the shape to conquer this race, but they're certainly in good enough shape to finish this race. I haven't doubted for a second in all of this that I can finish.
• I have a really nice bike now.
• This morning I feel better than I have since last Saturday. In fact, besides a slight headache and an occasional cough, I feel almost normal again.

The e-mail I got told me to "banish negative thoughts, focus on the good stuff." So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to remind myself that what happens in this race is almost exclusively up to me. I'm going to remember how much I've always wanted to do this race and let myself enjoy the experience.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go pack for Traverse City.