This is my life

"I'm not like everyone. I don't live like they live. I don't eat what they eat. No donuts. No coffee with cream and two sugars. No morning papers. Its 6:52 am and I'm on my second meal. While everyone else is hitting the snooze, I'm hitting my stride. No coffee breaks. No weekends. No sick days. What do I do? I'm an athlete and yeah, its a job.Only the day doesn't start at 9 and it won't end at 5. It starts from the time I open my eyes to the time I shut them. It's not a 5 day work week. I live it 24/7... This is a job. This is my life."

What you do when nobody is watching is what counts...

There are a couple topics that are fighting in my head today...so first of all I will begin with something that happened this morning,something that has happened before, and something that will be happening in the future as well...

This morning everything was as usual-first some weightlifting and after that we got in the pool. But the coach had to leave earlier( that does not happen very often to her, but you know sometimes everybody needs to make an exception), so we started the practice with her but we had to finish it by ourselves.... Big deal! That does not make any difference to me. I will swim either if she is there or she isn't! But does everybody think that way too? No!

Let me start with a little pre-history. Last year in the summer my coach had to go to a competition out of the country with her daughter.So she wrote everybody all the practices we were supposed to swim for the next three weeks(I have the most amazing coach as I said before. Every day we have two practices, we are about 13people and she writes a different practice for everybody depending on the stroke you swim and the qualities you need to develop, and your weak places....). So she handed a bunch of practices to all of us.

Day one without her...as I said we are about thirteen people...and what was the sight at the pool-11people are staying in the corner of the pool giggling and chatting around and two are swimming... Well I hope there is no need to tell you I was one of the "enthusiasts" that were swimming. And who was the other one? He is one of my teammates. He is an amazing swimmer, and he is preparing for the Olympic games in London in 2012. Hope he makes it. He totally deserves it... but let me keep the story going... day 2...nothing has changed, besides this time people are getting late for the chatting corner...oh, how said...they maybe missed some important news! Hope they could make up with the missed news to the end of the "practice"...so that keeps on repeating on the next day, and the day after that...and like that till the day my coach returned.

And during that time they were always saying...how could we be swimming when the coach is not there. They explained how they did not have the motivation needed and all those stupid bull***t excuses! Needless to say when the competition came all of them swam way below what they were supposed to and see the boy I was talking about earlier did simply AMAZING! Are you still asking why we are swimming?

So today was something like a flashback from the summer described yesterday. I think my coach has just turned her back to the swimming pool when almost everybody stopped swimming and formed the well familiar chatting corner. This time besides me and my the other guy there were three more people swimming! One of them is also preparing for the Olympics and the other two...I was amazed they swam. They are brother and sister. She is about 12 and he is 9 years old. They could simply take the example of the chatting corner participants... but they didn't! So I am really surprised and proud of them, that they did not give in to the temptation of stopping.

So as the others were chatting, one of them told me " I admire you that you are swimming when Teddy(the coach) is not here". I wanted to tell her that to me it does not matter if Teddy is there or not, because I am not swimming for her, I am swimming for myself, because I feel the joy and happiness of swimming...The coach is not there to stay and observe and admire your swimming, so why am I supposed to swim for her like she is an audience and came to watch me... Sure I love when my coach is there and tells me what I am doing wrong but when she is not there I will be still swimming...

I have always been surprised when people act like that...and trust me most of the "athletes" I know are just like that! And you know that a true champion is measured by what he does when nobody is watching... and sure you are supposed to swim no matter who is at the pool, you are supposed to practice not only when the coach is there but even before she gets there and after she leaves if you really wanna achieve something... if you don't want...the there are plenty of restaurants you could go and chat!

A week that changed my life...

I haven't written in a couple days, but I have been pretty busy with practices and the course for personal trainer. So this week has been a turning point in my life! I am so happy I can not even put my happiness in words... Maybe you remember my previous post and how I finally dared to try and swim butterfly... yes...but I think I missed to mention that on Saturday I swam with flippers. So I thought that was gonna be as far as I could go...swim butterfly with flippers but it was still something that made me extremely happy...well the other day I swam butterfly WITHOUT flippers!! And it was just WONDERFUL... I just can not explain the feeling... I was pretty scared to try but my coach said "Go ahead" ...and I just listened to her and went ahead... and when I actually swam without the flippers I was swimming and smiling with the widest smile you have ever seen :) ... my coach said she never saw somebody swim and smile as wide as I did lol ... but for me swimming butterfly is something similar to a person that was told he was never gonna be able to walk again...and then suddenly out of nowhere he decides to try and guess what...he IS able to walk... that is how I am feeling now... I am feeling like a little kid that made his first shot in a basketball game or something like that.... but it is still an amazing feeling... :)

Other than the practices...the course is going so well so far... I am enjoying it so much! It is exactly what I want to do and what I have fun doing. I had a couple assignments this week to make up a couple workout plans and a couple diets for people with different goals...and I did pretty good, I am so excited :) There was also that girl in the gym that was doing flys, but she obviously was doing them wrong and my "teacher" told me to correct her and explain her how to do them... and I did that pretty good too :) not that it is that hard to explain somebody how to do flys... but for me it is something new and it is pretty exciting. On Monday is my exam and if I pass it good I will have my certificate for a personal trainer and then hopefully I will keep on learning and someday become the trainer I dream to be. :) You can't even imagine I already know how my own weightlifting gym is gonna look like, I have even made up the work schedule hahaha I have everything to the last detail...besides the gym itself...lol...but well in the future I hope I will have that one too.

So the summery of this week is that you never know how close you are to success when you are about to give up..so do not let the hard moments to let you down and make you give up on your dreams...just keep pushing until everything falls back to place.. because you know sometimes things should get to the bottom before they get back to where they should be...just be strong and hold on!

Keep that fire burning...

It's been pretty cold these days, so yesterday I decided to spend the whole Sunday at home. I dedicated the Sunday to reading some inspirational stories about people that overcame some great adversities in their lives. And you know what....I was amazed by these people. I've read billions of stories like that and I always think that there isn't anything else that could possibly surprise me...but these people always find a way to touch my heart and make me think deeper about life.
So as I was reading the stories I thought about people that meet obstacles and decide it is easier to just give up on life...and tell you the truth I felt really sorry about them. I do not understand it, how could it be better to quit on life and just exist but not live then to give all you've got and fight with life. I constantly see people that are giving up on their dreams just because someone told them they don't have chance to succeed, people that isolate from the world because a tragedy happened to them and they don't have the strength to keep on living. But how could you let your dream go just because someone said you are incapable of achieving it? You know people will always say things that will hurt you, things you won't agree with... but see it is NOT an obligation for you to take their advice or their words for a final sentence! You have a head on your body and most important a heart in your body that should lead you! Not other people's opinion.
I read about these people that lost their legs, arms and so on....and they never even thought of quitting on life! They kept fighting and they achieved great things, I'd even say miraculous things! Maybe when something bad happens to us we shouldn't spend the rest of our lives asking "Why?", but we should make our weakness our strength and be an inspiration to others. Tell you the truth when I stopped playing basketball because of the injury, I thought life was over for me and that there wasn't anything worth living for...I thought I was gonna spend the rest of my life just existing and never feel happiness again...but I was totally wrong! I used to spend my whole days reading stories about athletes that overcame injuries and still became the best, stories about people doing miraculous things just because they believed....believed in themselves! And I remember a person that told me... that is wrong, you can't find the motivation from the outside it should be inside you...but I disagree with this. Yea surely you can't get motivated if you don't have an inner motivation but sometimes in life everybody gets to the point when you need that sparkle from the outside that is gonna light the match and set you heart on fire. And I think that is what I was looking for... and I think I found it! And I do not want those cold days in my heart back again so I am making sure I keep the fire burning in my heart! So whatever comes to you in life... do not give in... find the sparkle and keep the fire burning!

Written words cannot do justice to the power and significance of the story....

http://rosstraining.com/blog/2009/08/03/carry-on/

I am just speechless... Make your own conclusions...