Nationals Reflections

It's no big secret- I tanked at Nationals. That has to be the biggest drop I've suffered in a placing my entire career, from 2nd place at North Americans, to 16th at Nationals only a few weeks later. Of course I'm hurt, of course I'm disappointed, and of course I'm saddened, but admist the influx of text messages, tweets, facebook messages, and emails out shock, outrage, and support, I began to sit back and try to make sense of it all.

As competitors we strive for perfection. We spend hours upon hours of our time on our bodies- in the gym, on the elliptical, on the stepmill, in the grocery store, in the tanning salon, in the kitchen, back in the gym, in the nail salon. We fine tune our hair, our teeth, our nails, we eat strange foods, we manipulate our bodies through water and sodium, we starve down, we eat up, we push and we pull- and we work tirelessly to achieve this "ideal", to win a card, to stand on a stage and have a panel of people say, "We recognize you for what you do."

So when we stand on stage, and suffer a third or fourth callout, it's a hard blow, no matter whom the athlete. We ALL work hard. We all sacrifice. And we all want that damn pro card.

But the fact of the matter is, you can work your ASS off (literally) and at the end of the day, the cold hard truth of our sport, is that the future of your career is in the hands of judges. Not in your own. You can do every little damn thing necessary to put the best body possible on stage, and it could STILL not be enough, no matter how good you are. That's a harsh realization, but a necessary one. It makes no sense to sit there and wonder, or to sit there and bitch about the judging or complain about your placings, because no matter how much you complain or whine, it simply is. It won't change. As soon as you set foot on that stage, it's out of your hands, and in the hands of the judges. And we all know that- don't we? I mean we all enter shows with the knowledge that we only rise and fall when the judges allow us to.

For a control freak, such as myself, this can be maddening. Part of what I love about this sport is the control and the structure. I operate well with a routine. And I've beaten myself up so many times in my head over the last two days wondering where and how I went wrong with Nationals. I had such high expectations for myself. I know others had high expectations as well. So how did I fail to deliver?

Thinking like this will drive you mad, as it was beginning to do to me. Because the bottom line is- I did everything I could. I did EXACTLY what the judges instructed me to do post North Americans. I ate my orange roughy. I sucked down my asparagus. I did my cardio and I did my plyos. I did more plyos. I ate more chicken. I drank super dieters tea and took my fat burners and pummeled my butt out on the treadmill and on the track and I did all that I could do to put the best Allison possible on stage on the 16th. So what more could I have done? Aside from perhaps being a bit darker with my tan and improving my makeup a bit.....nothing. So why do I feel like such a failure?

I think when we suffer setbacks like this, we need to sit back, dig deep and remember why we do this, and I know we all have different reasons. But returning to the root of what led you into the sport can be an eye opening, and spiritual experience. That's what will hold you through during the rough patches, when the judges fail to reward you, or when you step on stage at less then your best. Our sport is humans judging humans, and the human eye is subjective, so how can there ever be consistency in our sport? There simply can't, and the sooner you accept that fact, the better.

There needs to be a beauty in the journey, a dedication to the lifestyle, and a love of the challenge in order for you to see yourself through bad placings or less then perfect showings. Being an athlete is not just about winning- it's about losing as well, and it's how we handle the failings that define us. Some of us are handed success, some of us earn it quickly and with little ease, and then there are those of us that have to grit, dig, and scrap for every bit of success that comes our way.....

Apparently I'm just one of the gritters, diggers, and scrappers. In the end I think I'll be better for it. Because when I do get my pro card (and I will, because I won't stop until I do) I will appreciate it that much more, because I'll know every sacrifice, every toil, every ache, and every pain it took to get me there.

Nothing worth having comes easy.

Nothing.

Pro cards included.

:)