Am I athletic?

I think when I was younger I was never really perceived as an ‘athlete’. This may because I was relatively ‘good’ at school and was awful at the athletic barometer: football (soccer for my North American friends). Back in prep (elementary) school, everyone played football and it was an expectation to play football. Unfortunately for me, my foot-eye coordination was about as good as a white girl dancing salsa. I think I went to football practice once before I was over it.

In high school, I did play a few different sports. When I was around 15-17, I played a lot of water polo. I played for both my school and for the country on the under-16/17 level (there was a small player pool). While I was decent at water polo, I was almost always the slowest in the pool or on land. I went to 5 or more training sessions a week, did conditioning and land training but my best 50 meter freestyle time was still just under 30s at 29:49 (to the millisecond yes). I fought tooth and nail for that time and honestly, it wasn’t even an official time so the timer could have been off by a millisecond or two. All my teammates easily swam 27 second or even a few swam 21 seconds if they were really pushing it. Why was I so slow??

Another day during land training, we had to run a couple laps. I think it might have totalled to around 5K. Once again, I was at the back of the pack where the only people I could beat were the ones who were a little more filled out in their body type or the newbies. And even then, some of those guys flew past me. (I definitely got lapped once or twice). Coach even came up to me one day and said, “Max, you don’t like running?” No coach, I hated it and I was immensely embarrassed that the team completely changed and got into the pool before I was even finished. Why couldn’t I keep up with them?

The day I really realized maybe I have some athleticism is the day of the annual 3K at my high school. I typically didn't do too well at this event (or any event) but since I was training pretty heavily for water polo I felt like I could do decently this year. I ended up placing 23rd, which was about 100 places higher than my previous best. But honestly, I still thought to myself that coming under 20 or even 10 would have been nice, considering some of my friends (and teammates) placed in the top 5. It really wasn’t until someone (who was a smart guy but I don’t think he really applied himself) said something to me that changed my perspective.

I said, “I am actually surprised I came under 25, I have never placed so high.” and he replied, “Max, you train 5 times a week for water polo. Of course you are fit.” Of course, in the moment I laughed it off and said an awkward, “I guess…” Me, fit? Really?

I’m not quite sure why, but I still think a lot about this moment. If I’m honest, I still don’t feel super athletic. I still can’t really run very fast and I’m not ungodly strong (I benched 90lbs and maxed out at 4 reps the other day, a bit of a hit to the ego loll).

Maybe we always compare ourself to who we are around. Maybe sometimes we need to take a look back and say, wow last year I could only run for 30 minutes but today I did 45 (even though your friend on Strava ran for 30km in 2hrs). At the end of the day, I did play water polo for Jamaica and I did run that 3k way better than I ever thought I could and maybe that’s all that matters 🤷‍♂️ 

Thanks for reading another edition of Two Steps Ahead! Always happy to hear your thoughts and replies (just reply to this email and I promise I’ll reply back :)

See you next week!
Max