I am an athlete.... Right??

"Athlete" is defined as a person who is proficient in sports and other forms of physical exercise.  
Knowing the definition is one thing but knowing it applies to you it a totally different.  

See I was a sporty kid!

I struggled for some time on whether or not I was an athlete.  As a kid athletes were people who played basketball, baseball, football, or who were in the Olympics.  Athlete became a title I didn't feel applied to me.  But why not?  I danced.  I rode my bike.  I was found every warm day in the pool or some body of water.  I fished with my dad.  I could do a cartwheel.  I participated in a plethora of real and imaginary sports during physical education classes.  But I wasn't viewed as an athlete, not by myself or by others.  
 
Now here we are and the struggle to define myself continues.  But this time something is different... ME.  

I run, I bike, I swim.  I can go for 3 miles or 144 miles.  I have seen finish line after finish line.  I have fought back from injury.  I have yelled and screamed, and growled like a monster at 4am.  So am I an athlete?  

Others have started to call me an athlete- my friends, my family, my coach, my physician.  But I have never been one for defining myself by the words of others.  While it is nice to know the outside world views me as an athlete, they don't get to define me to me.  So am I an athlete? 

SRI TRI Bike

Well, yes Virgina, I am an athlete!

1st 25K Swim

It took me a long time to accept this title, but it is a part of me.  What might be interesting though is it is not a part of me because I have finished an Ironman, or because I ran a marathon, or because I swam a 25K.  These are not the reasons I see myself as an athlete, while they are athletic feats.  Instead I see myself as an athlete because I am out there running, or biking, or swimming, or doing Lord only knows what, and no matter training or race day, no matter poor weather or good weather, no matter pain or ease, I love it at the core of who I am.  Does it suck sometimes? YES, of course it does. But if I step back even in the moment of suck I am learning to be a better me.  

Moment of SUCK

Moment of SUCK

For me is was never about calling myself an athlete once I became "proficient" at a sport, it was about recognizing myself as an athlete because I loved the sport (or sports).  As I look back on the athletes who stick in my mind, I honestly can't tell you their number of games won or how many gold medals hang around their neck-- I can tell you what they looked like high fiveing a teammate or signing a baseball for a fan, I can tell you they take time to coach pee wee football or join a pick up game, I can tell you they come off the track with a smile more precious than any medal, and I can tell you that when they have a bad day they press on. 

I now accept my athlete title, it isn't for others to give or take from me, it is my title and I earned it my way and in my time.  The notches on my belt may look like they note only races but to me they are stories of the journey to who I am. 

I choose to define athlete as a person who commits to being better through sport of physical activity, who finds joy in this activity even when it gets hard, who gives back to others in their sport and life by lifting them up in support, and who knows the world is bigger than them in this moment but in the same exhausted exhale knows this moment is all there is.  That to me is an athlete. 


I am are continuing to raise money for the Navy Seal Foundation.  For more information please read this: Supporting the Navy Seal Foundation- Frogman Swim 

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