Winning and "losing"

Its been a while since I've written and I should do a NJ tri race report, but basically, it was fun to be there with DC tri, my run was crap, I spent a few days feeling bad about the fact I couldn't do 20 mph on the bike, I was mad at myself for not doing as well as my teammates, and then my friend Flip did a post on Facebook that made me feel better. I all I can hope is that one day I will feel I did good enough.

I'm sitting here watching Olympic swimming. A few things strike me right away. If Michael Phelps does not get gold in everything he will be seen as a failure. One silver, and he's not accomplished his goals. That is just not fair. Any Olympic medal is a success. Hell, going to the Olympics is a success. Why do the announcers not see this? Are American's so set on always being the best that second place is a disappointment? As I was thinking this, I realized this is exactly how I feel about my own performance. I'm never going to win my age group, I'm ok with that. But somewhere it went from just being happy to finish to never being happy with my times. I need to realize that just doing these things should be seen as an accomplishment. The better I've gotten the more I realize exactly how slow I am. Sort of like the more you know, the more you see how much you don't know. But that doesn't mean you don't know anything or that you haven't succeeded in learning. Getting to that place should be a great success because being there is a feat in itself.