Happy 2021!  (The 1st ever odd-numbered Olympic year!)

            News that the vaccine has a) been discovered b) approved federally and c) is already going into arms is astounding. This coupled with the fact that sport calendars are actually getting competition/qualification dates put into them!!! The pendulum has swung – momentum is moving with us once again. 

            The presence of a vaccine is changing everything and yet we still don’t know how it will affect the Olympic Games – it is a massive global event. It would be naïve to think that the Games won’t still require incredible steps of prevention and management. For now – the best thing that you can do – and increasingly you will get to do <wink> – is to continue to focus on your sport prep.

            Olympic competitions in July and August of this year will be amazing and hard fought – focus on that. How the Olympic games will unfold, and by games, I mean everything that happens around an Olympics that isn’t about your start time, performance and finish, remains – for now – unknown.

“Teleoanticipation” is basically the science of finish lines, and how their presence (or absence) influences us. @sweatscience

On Nov. 21, Alex Hutchinson wrote in the Globe and Mail about what sports scientists who study this topic might have to teach us about the coming months with respect to the pandemic, vaccines, our ambitions and our mental health.

It’s a great article and I’m grateful that Julie Labach, a runner targeting the Tokyo 2020 team, sent me note and shared the link. She found the article helpful and wow, so do I.

Among other things, the article discusses the intersection of how we physically and mentally plan –and pace ourselves— for finish lines. “Knowledge of an eventual endpoint (or telos) influences the entirety of an experience.”  Well, you can bet those sport scientists had some fun <wink> and did studies where they removed the endpoint and looked at performance during events and races that had no finish line.

No finish line?? Hmmm… isn’t that what makes all of this so hard? Not only is it impossible to know when the pandemic will be over, we’ve all been teased by false summits. After the freedoms that came with success of lowering the curve after the first wave, we’ve been confronted with more restrictions on the steep upward side of the second wave.

How are we to pace ourselves through this?? From the article, I’d like to pull out a few thoughts that helped me with this.

“It turns out that, if you ask yourself “Can I keep going?” rather than “Can I make it to the finish?” you’re far more likely to answer in the affirmative.”

And,

“Knowing that the end will come is clarifying; counting the hours until it comes, on the other hand, is paralyzing.”

On this last point I’ll add a quote from Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer. Speaking recently on the CBC National News she said “No pandemic doesn’t have an ending.” It’s a backwards sentence… but, phew! it’s good to be hear from someone who studies these things that this will all pass.

So, take heart; the pandemic will end –and remember—it’s to your advantage to focus on the moment you are in, the thing that you are doing. It is not advantageous to focus on when disruptions caused by the pandemic will finish. Stay in your lane and focus on the step your taking.

Take care and happy holidays. ‘See’ you next in 2021!

Marnie

The article, an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail by Alex Hutchinson, was printed on Nov. 21. 2020, titled COVID-19 is like running a marathon with no finish line. What does sports science say about how we can win it? Regrets – It is printed in English only.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-covid-19-is-like-running-a-marathon-with-no-finish-line-what-does/

<La version française suit>

Back in 2009, I shared a story with Team Canada as they were preparing for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Though 2020 is incredibly different, unprecedented in every way, my message linking laundry with success and happiness still resonates. (Stick with me… it’s not actually about my laundry. It’s about success). The message was this:

        The other day I was taking laundry from my laundry room and a sock fell; I kept walking…. ‘somebody will get it’.

        I must have walked past that sock 4 or 5 times. I even got frustrated waiting for somebody to pick it up. Eventually, I realized it was me; I was the somebody that I was waiting for. (Perhaps it should have been obvious since I lived alone at the time!)

        Well, success and happiness work the same way. Somebody is going to achieve them. No matter how great or how not-so-great the day. No matter how early or late in the season. No matter how fair or unfair the situation. Somebody is going to win.

        Don’t get caught waiting for somebody else – BE YOUR OWN SOMEBODY!

2020 has been an incredibly difficult year. Nothing has gone smoothly. While our goals remain the same, our plans have been dismantled, reconstructed, de-railed, paused and restarted again and again. I can imagine the longing you have for unencumbered training, regular travel and competition. Sadly, it seems very unlikely that the pandemic will be over or adequately controlled soon.