Over the last year or so that I've been training, in the back of my mind, I've always been waiting for that moment, when suddenly, it's easy. That ride where hills feel easy. Or that run that doesn't feel like a struggle. But recently, something occurred to me: it never gets easier, you just go faster.
That's not quite as depressing as it sounds at first. At one point, running a mile without stopping to walk seemed almost impossible. Now I do that without hardly thinking about it. I could barely swim one length of the pool two years ago. Last night I knocked out 2250 yards in an hour. But it wasn't easy. The whole point of training is to push yourself. And racing even more so. When I run a race, I want to feel like I left everything out there. That I gave everything I had. And so, it's never easy. To use an incredibly cliched line, "if it were easy, everyone would do it." If it were easy, it wouldn't feel like an accomplishment. If biking up the hill were easy, flying down the other side wouldn't be so much fun.
So, it never gets easy. That doesn't mean you don't get better. In fact, if you want to get better, then you should make damn sure it never gets easy.
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