Patience

In 310 days, the Olympic flame will be lit in Vancouver. And then I will have approximately three minutes and 27 seconds to prove to myself, my competitors and the rest of the world that I am one of the best luge athletes on earth.

Yeah….no big deal right?!!!

With the 2008/2009 competitive season more than a month behind me, I have returned to the part of all sports that athletes outwardly dread but secretly crave – off season training. Yep…. we’re the ones who, in our appallingly short amount of ‘time off’, continue to train so that we are ready to begin…well… ’training’. Us athletes never claimed to be clever, only somewhat brave and a tad obsessed! But we call that ‘commitment’!

Maybe it’s because surgery had me sidelined for the majority of last years season, or maybe I just feel at home when I’m surrounded by people who have the same sick satisfaction of pushing their bodies beyond a tolerable amount of pain, in the vain hope that they too will emerge the worlds best, but I couldn’t be happier to be back in the gym. I have a shinier, brighter appreciation for my health and the ability to train. Last season I rode the pines. I took my hits. I did my time. But now I’m back. And fiercer than ever.

This past season was, let’s say, tumultuous!! Last summer I underwent major bi-lateral shoulder surgery to repair the rips and tears in both my shoulders as a result of 15 years of luging and training.

The surgeries were a giant success and it seemed the hard part was behind me. I was wrong!

No-one ever sat me down and warned me that this metaphorical ‘Road to Recovery” was situated along side a cliff without guard rails and littered with potholes, and black-ice and road-kill and sharp switchbacks – all threatening my safe ascent to that final destination at the top – recovered! No-one told me that some days I would wanna shrug my shoulders, admit defeat and walk-away. Or that smiles and laughter were as common-place and abundant as tears and hair-pulling frustrations. I’ve experienced confidence and doubt in the same split second. And no-one ever gave me a guarantee that I could come through it. But I did. Here I am!

After missing the entire summer of training and the first half of the competitive season, I let my shoulders regain a passable amount of strength and mobility before returning to the team and subjecting them to the full gamut and demands of World Cup competition. It quickly became obvious that missed training and races had a measurable impact on my performance.

My races were solid and my form was top notch…but those precious, almost immeasurable thousandths of a second out of the starting handles that I was missing, handicapped me incredibly at the finish.

I felt like no matter what I did on the ice, there was a big iron gate chained around the top ten girls, locking me out of a group I knew I rightfully deserve to stand with.

That humbling lesson in patience sometimes felt like my best friend and sometimes like my worst enemy. Even though I knew that I was still recovering and that I should probably give myself a break, it was hard not to want things to happen faster than they seemed to be. In luge, everything is supposed to be fast!

I wanted to be back already. I wanted the ‘recovering’ to stop and the ‘recovered’ to begin. Sometimes I wanted to either rewind to Regan pre-surgery or fast forward to Regan post recovered. Because being stuck in the middle sucks. It’s incredibly lonely.

My shoulders were beginning to feel better but my ego and pride were taking a couple of hard hits.

So, with the help of an incredible support system, I made a decision to be positive. After all, I was able to race half of the world cup season, including the World Championships – a feat the medical staff were not convinced would be possible at all this season. And, still finishing just outside the top 10 and within striking distance of the top women, mid recovery, I knew I was going in the right direction. I just didn’t have the horsepower to get there a few increments of a second faster. But wait until I do!

And even though it’s not easy to surrender even a little bit of that competitive fire that burns fiercely in each one of us athletes I had to keep myself in check - it’s literally tenths, hundredths and thousandths of a second I’m battling for and that separate medals from the top 10, and the top 10 from the top 20.

It was easy to start wondering about all the what if’s and maybe’s in the next year to come with the Olympic Games tucked not so shyly around the corner. But that’s the thing, in life there are as many ‘what if’s’ and ‘maybe’s’ when everything seems ideal as there are when it doesn’t. It’s just how you embrace them.

Challenges are merely placed in front of us to help us grow and learn…not to stop us. Because without sour, there wouldn’t be sweet.