Pages

Thursday, January 3, 2013

It Wasn't Supposed to End Like This


I’ve been a procrastinator all my life.  Whether it was studying for a test, writing a paper in college, or meeting timelines at work, I always seemed to wait until the last minute. 

Every time the clock ticked down in the final hour before a deadline, I always asked myself why I let it happen again.  Some people say they do their best work under pressure.  Others say they like the stress. 

My rationale?  Life always seemed to let me get away with it.

Over and over I was convinced that “this time” I really waited too long; over and over everything turned out ok.  No matter how much of a crunch I was ever in, things always turned out great.  I always came away with an A on the test, wrote a great paper, or efficiently finished the project with high quality. 

Life never taught me a lesson as to why I shouldn’t procrastinate, so I just kept doing it.

As my Schmeis35for35 year went along, I wasn’t procrastinating with workouts, but was waiting way too long before attempting some of the goals if I wanted to finish with a good number. After all, with just 2 weeks left in the year, I still had 13 remaining to accomplish and hadn’t even attempted 7 of the 35. 

Luckily, everything always works out for me, right?  Let’s take a look…

My left knee had prevented me from doing as much running as I wanted this year, but that was no excuse for letting the calendar turn to the end of December before making a push for any of my running goals.  Not only did my procrastination cost me even attempting a few of the goals, but it also forced me to run in conditions that were less than ideal for the ones I did try.

As an example, I ended up attempting my goal of running 1 mile in 5:30 on Christmas Day…after a big Christmas meal…in 28 degree weather…with significant wind.  Those aren’t exactly ideal conditions for a blazing time.  I would have preferred to approach this much more like a space shuttle launch…wait for the perfect conditions, delay a day if necessary, and then give it a go. 

The weather though showed a winter storm with 6 inches of snow expected on December 26th so I had no choice but to try my mile attempt on Christmas Day.  Here it was…


5:43.  Missed it by 13 seconds.  I went out too fast and couldn’t maintain the pace…a definite rookie mistake that never would have happened if I had actually tried it a few times before.  But I procrastinated and didn’t try it before…and now the clock ran out on me.

I’m confident after my performance that I can do a 5:30 mile in reasonable weather, but being confident doesn’t count.  I didn’t get it done.

Next up was the 400 yard swim.  I already accomplished 4 of my 5 swimming goals and only needed to swim the 400 in less than 6 minutes to sweep the category.  I was around 8 minutes to start the year and then tried it again in October and went 6:02.  Since I was so close, I always knew in the back of my mind I would get this goal done but kept putting it off for some reason.  Next thing I knew it was late December and I hadn’t tried it since the October attempt.  

I finally gave it another shot over the holidays and went 6:06.  Ugh…not only did I not make it, but my time was worse than before.  I hadn’t been swimming that much and had lost a little fitness in the pool I guess.  Now my procrastination left me with only one final chance to break 6 minutes…on December31.


You’ve got to be kidding me.  6:01…6:01…6:01.  I missed it by 1 second.  I’m beyond disgusted…so brutal…like getting your heart ripped out.  My turns were absolutely terrible, my stroke felt slow, and I just didn’t get it done…missed it by 1 freaking second.  F-me…so disappointing.

All I wanted to do after the swim was go home and crawl into bed, but there wasn’t time to dwell on the near miss.  With only a few hours left in the year, I needed to head from the pool to the high school track to try my ¼ mile and ½ mile running goals for the first time. 

My legs pretty much felt like jelly after kicking with everything I had to make the 400 yard swim time and now that was all for nothing.  I couldn’t help but think I would be much better off running with fresh legs but there was no time for that…there were no more days left in 2012. 

I needed to do the ¼ mile in 65 seconds and the ½ mile in 2:30.  I thought my best chance to get both would be to just try it all at once.  In other words, I would run the half mile but try for a super fast first ¼ mile and then attempt to hang on to the finish.  If all went as planned, I could knock off both of the goals with one quick run. 


66 seconds!  My quarter mile was 66 seconds!  I missed this by 1 second too!  Ridiculous.  It was cold again outside, my legs weren’t fresh, and needing to do a 2nd lap definitely held me back from going all out on the first ¼ mile.  Why did I wait until December 31 to try this?!?

To make matters worse, you’ll notice I didn’t even run the 2nd quarter mile lap.  I had instructed Sue to call out my time as I went by the ¼ mile mark so I would know where I stood for the 1/2.  When she was silent, I assumed that meant I wasn’t even close so I just stopped.  In reality, I still had 1:24 to do the 2nd lap and had just done a 1:06 first lap.  It would have been very doable but I didn’t even try it.

I was initially upset at Sue for not calling out the time but now realize I have no one to blame but myself.  In nearly every sport, you’re taught to keep playing until you hear the whistle.  You never assume a call is going to be made…you keep playing.   It was as if I forgot all those lessons when I stopped on my own.

I was so pissed off that I lined up on the track again a few minutes later determined to make both goals.  This time I took off as hard as I could, made it about 100 yards, and had to come to a screeching stop as I slightly pulled my right hamstring.  It was one disaster after another…

With my head held low, I hobbled back with Sue to the car in disgust.  We were hosting a NYE party later that night, but I didn’t feel like celebrating. 

Instead, I sat in silence on the ride home with a blank stare on my face.  I wasn’t thinking about the 22 goals I accomplished in 2012.  I was thinking about the 13 goals I didn’t accomplish and why I waited so long to attempt them.

Finally, after 35 years, procrastinating cost me. 

It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

Schmeis