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Keeping the Love Alive....

Thursday, 16 February 2017 23:10

By Meredith Atwood (triathlete.com)

What happens when the love for tri seems to be headed for divorce? ...

“I don’t want to swim today!” I see often on social media. “I hate running!” The whiny-type, belly-aching posts go on and on. Trust me, I understand—I really do. Sometimes, any one of our three blessed sports may start to feel a little less like dating, and a little more like a marriage on the rocks.

Tony Robbins, my favorite motivational dude, talks about the law of familiarity and how it can be a big issue in relationships. Basically, the more time you spend with someone and the more “familiar” they become, the harder it can be to keep the love alive. However, Robbins urges that if we treated each other in our personal relationships like we did in the beginning of the relationship, then there would be no end to the relationship. I think the same thing applies to triathlon. In the beginning, we give so much love and joy and focus to the new sport—because it’s new and fancy and exciting. After a few seasons, it can be easy to fall off the intensity, the drive and focus of training (and perhaps rightly so); however, this can lead to some loss of interest, and maybe some wandering eyes into other sports.

- Find the why. We all started the sport for a reason. I find it exceptionally helpful to go back to the reason I started triathlon in the first place, when I feel the law of familiarity slip in. I began the sport because I needed something for me, wanted to be healthy and loved something with a competitive edge. Most of all, I wanted to show my kiddos a healthy mom—and that is still my most inspiring why. I go back to that, and it often reignites the flame.  READ MORE