The Feeling that Helps me Keep Going

Everyday I wake up at 5:30 am, I go to the gym to do 30 minutes of cardio followed by 30 min of a machine weight circuit. I then go home to have breakfast and drive to a middle school where I temporarily teach 5^th graders about the wonders of the brain. Class starts at 8:30 and ends at 9:20. At the end of class I rush to my laboratory where I work (when I don’t teach I get into work at 9:00am). I spend the day working on my own project and supervising/training two undergraduates in two different research projects. I finish work as fast as I can, between 4:30 and 5:00 only to rush home to eat something while I change into my gymnastic outfit and drive 35 min to the gym. I make it to the gym sometime between 5:30 and 6:00. Workout ends at around 9pm and I head back home to spend some time with my husband before collapsing in bed to do this all over again. 

I will lie if I said that keeping this routine is easy, is not. I need help from lots of people to make this possible. My husband helps me the most in the morning, waking up and pushing me to complete my morning workouts.  At the gym, Scottie, the other coaches and the girls of TAG help me to keep up the good work, encouraging me to push myself during training. But perhaps the greatest force that keeps me going comes from the thrill I get once every so often from getting a new skill. Ever since I was seven and I got my first kip I have been chasing that feeling of excitement and personal pride that I get every time I achieve the impossible (or at least what I thought was impossible).

Couple of weeks ago I experienced that feeling when I caught my first non-spotted shaposhnikova. Just last Saturday I experienced it again after landing a double layout into a resi and after catching three Tkachevs in a row. I love feeling the adrenaline rush going through my body, my heart begins pounding, and my mind is going crazy thinking about the fear and at the same time pushing itself to focus on the skill I am about to perform. Finally I decide to go for it, I breathe for one last time and then in less than half a second everything is over:  I look around and find myself first, alive and second, either standing on the floor, the beam or grabbing a bar. The time seems to go really slowly (this is the moment that other people recall as –“you should have seen her face after landing, it was precious”), but for me this moment is it!. I did it!!! My heart keeps pounding but now is all jitters and laughs. Now is celebration time!... This is the reason why I love this sport.

When I find myself having one of those days in which no matter how much support I get it is almost impossible for me to keep my head up, I try to think about this feeling. I convince myself that as long as I keep pushing myself I will continue to experience this feeling whether it is from landing a new skill or by sticking a routine, working hard is worth it!!.