Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Is it loud in here?

Rollerski Season is Here


At the end of last season I met with my coaches to review the year and make adjustments and suggestions for the coming season.

One of the things we discussed was getting rid of my ipod. If you spend more than 10 minutes around me its easy to see I am addicted to my tunes. I generally do everything from buying groceries to studying for exams plugged in and training was no exception.

The debate about training with music is valid on both sides. One on hand my tunes provide me with some motivation when I'm tired and company when I'm training alone. However, on the other side, its easy to not worry about what's in your head or what's supposed to be in your head if you've got some sweet beats keeping you company.

So for the last month I have been trying without success to ween myself off my headphones. A couple weeks ago my poor little abused ipod died. Suddenly their was silence, and a lot of it. Then there came this explosion of thoughts. Everything from did my pole always sound like that to I wonder if I could find a way to make my coffee taste like peanut butter.... productivity at its finest.

The point of this isn't that the world is really really loud. A couple weeks ago I met Lisa Rogerson a great sports psychologist who is going to help me deal with some of the race anxiety I experience. We had a long conversation about what I think about when I race and train. It was a little tough to describe what I was focusing on when all my memories come with a sound track.


So that has been the goal for the last few weeks. Shifting out all the random pointless noise and finding the functional thoughts. Or at least enough of them to be able to explain to Lisa what is going on in my skull. I have a funny feeling some blank stares may occur.


The process has been alleviated by some welcome distractions from work. This weekend I helped coach a shooting camp to some of the older Foothills athletes in Canmore. These kids rock my socks and I had a blast trying to keep up with them all weekend. This is only added to by our awesome Jr development group who are extremely keen and have been kicking my butt mountain biking through the mud pits in Canmore.




Foothills Shooting Camp




New stock is almost done. Dave Bradley has been piecing together an amazing bamboo stock for me and to be finished this weekend. Pictures soon!

By the way, should you ever loose your ipod access check out http://www.hypem.com/ a wicked site combining blogged music from a bunch of different genres.


Betsy Out!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's surprisingly not so boring being alone with yourself once you make the leap.

seanhill said...

I think it's time for a life update? Resolutions/new year game plan maybe?