I was always told I was a game-time athlete.
I was lackadaisical in a practice setting, a middle-of-the-pack kind of guy. I frustrated coaches as they saw raw talent backed by minimal effort and excuses. I was looked up to by the younger athletes for being able to “show up” just at the right moment. I never worried about recovery or nutrition.
By the start of my senior year spring track season, I had already been recruited to run in college. I had a mean 800m dash and held 8 school records.
Then I ran against my high school arch-rival.
This kid was a top runner in the country in the 800 and 1600. He trained hard, raced harder, he was STRONG. He had a regular lifting routine and never wavered in his preparation. For our team to even have a glimpse of a chance to beat this elite team, I had to beat him in the 400, 800, and 1600.
I LOVE individual sports like track because results are objective- everyone knows how good you are and the real skill is being able to show up consistently. My specialty.
In each race, he ran right with me until the last 50 meters… and SMOKED me.
I hated losing. I had an internal conniption, then justified it by thinking “he’s just faster than me” when the truth was he simply worked harder off the track.
He complimented me on my pace and told me “I actually made him work for the win” and to “keep training hard!”
I fucking hated it.
I still think about this moment and how it affected my mentality. I started with a coach who pushed me harder than I could push myself. I would wake up before school to work out early, on top of practice and leading the team’s training sessions. I finished with a great senior year but was not as successful as the previous season. This only supported my belief that putting in the work was irrelevant. I failed to realize that training culminates over time and results are not nearly as fast as we wish them to be.
I went into college as a top prospect and leveled out. Injuries and excuses conveniently held me from 5 am practice and team lifts through the winter season.
I quit the team by my first spring. I realized I didn’t have a love for running like the others, I had a love for racing that became an obsession with not losing- I was too afraid of losing, so much so that putting in the work seemed worthless if it didn’t always end with standing on the podium.
Then I got into lifting. Powerlifting. My girlfriend and close friend had convinced me to follow in their footsteps and take on the challenge. I was HORRIBLE and compared myself to others in the sport, often looking up how those in my weight class fared. I considered competing and realized I wouldn’t be standing on a podium and dumped the idea.
I continued to train with no thoughts of competing until I was “competitive enough”. Powerlifting training gets demonized because of long rest periods and hyper-palatable foods often associated with it per social media. HOWEVER, the training is HARD. When training for strength you’re constantly edging a fine line between picking something you’re capable of and getting crushed. It is genuinely scary having a weight you’ve never held on your back before. You almost have to flip a switch in your brain to allow you to attempt to let the bar crush your spine AND THEN actually squat down toward the floor not knowing if you can stand back up. You have to be vulnerable and understand that even the slightest deviation from the technique you’ve practiced leading to this point could potentially end in catastrophic injury. It’s a high-stakes game.
The change in training made working hard unavoidable. But I would still undershoot my lifts early on- I’d leave a little too much gas in the tank (sometimes out of fear of getting crushed).
The real change came from simple banter between my girlfriend and me… We can call her G. G is a successful female powerlifter with a much higher DOTS score than I. This particular night we went back and forth making fun and comparing relative strength and she said: “You have the ‘it’ factor, that ability to be at your best when you need to, but the reason I’m competitive and you’re mediocre is that I push myself to the limit off the platform, and that’s just the truth”.
A hard pill to swallow from someone so close, but G was potentially the only person who could force me into a mental change I desperately needed.
She scheduled her life around powerlifting, she still eats and sleeps so she can lift in the morning. To prove her wrong, I had to prioritize my work just as she did and to a higher degree. And I did, I copied her schedule, prioritized recovery, and watched my ceiling grow. A year later at my first big competition, I won my weight class. I had WORKED to be on the podium and no one could argue otherwise.
Another reason I love individual sports like powerlifting is that you are a product of the work you put in. I take pride in the work that leads to competition.
I wish I had been able to turn my fear of failure into a desire to train and be the best athlete possible. There is still time. I have set goals that need to be met before I leave the competition for good, and I needed to learn this lesson the hard way to be able to push myself to train as hard as I do today.
