You trained hard. You tapered right. You visualized the race. And then... it didn’t go as planned. Things go sour. Maybe your legs felt dead, maybe the conditions were brutal, or maybe your mind wasn’t in the game. Whatever the reason, you crossed the finish line feeling disappointed, and that frustration lights a fire in you.

Perfectionism is sneaky. It disguises itself as high standards, motivation, and discipline. For many runners, perfectionism becomes a mental trap that leads to self-judgment, avoidance, and burnout instead of progress.

There was a torrent of rushing water pouring through maybe a fifteen-foot channel that I had to swim across to a slick boulder that I would then have to climb on top of and swim back. My mind swirling with ‘what-ifs.’ What if I get pulled under at the strong eddy line. What if I get swept down-stream to the bigger rapids? What if I get hypothermic?

I was frozen