Well, that’s been quite an interesting year hasn’t it?
This post takes a brief look back at a year like no other in the life of ZigZag Alive, with thanks to all the wonderful people I’ve had the pleasure to work with through all the ups and downs.
At the very start of the pandemic back in early 2020 I wrote a post about changing our perspective, amidst all the uncertainty, loss and disruption, to :
a deeper valuing of how our active lifestyles ground us and the quality of our coaching relationships
a broadening of ambitions and challenges beyond single events and competitions
and a softening of our focus, to be kinder to ourselves when things don’t work out
I think these have been constants throughout this past year, really coming into their own as those I’ve coached have faced sometimes difficult challenges and gone on to do extraordinary things.
I’m wary of singling out any for special mention - every client I have worked with has been a delight and I feel very privileged to have been with them on their different journeys. There are some common themes that I think give life and colour to the deeper, broader and kinder perspectives.
Finding a Way through Light and Darkness
Several athletes I’ve coached this year inevitably came down with the virus. We are still in the dark about the possible long term effects or of the best ways to recover. If anything, everything points to how different we all are and that there really doesn’t seem to be a common pattern of illness nor one single path to recovery.
Fairly early on in the year one of those I coach came down with the virus. With so little known about the after effects, he and I shared our cautious approach to recovering and gradually building up fitness in this blog post. It worked well, though he then had a recurrence of an old injury (I can’t help wondering whether triggered in some way by the illness).
Once again we patiently built up the training, step by step. This photo shows him at a super challenging mountain bike event in the Surrey Hills earlier this month - The Dirty Santa Xmas Trail Ride. What a great way to finish a difficult year of ups and downs. Light and mud, twisty climbs and drops (and a beer). Brilliant!
And also vaguely connected to light and darkness and finding a way through to great challenges, one of the many super memories I have of the year came at Summer Solstice. As Coach in Residence at the Outdoor Swimming Society I’d been suggesting we create a theme around the longest swim on the longest day of the year: no pre-determined distance, a celebration of whatever is “long” for each person.
The idea caught on and the OSS did a fabulous job of generating a special buzz - a dedicated FaceBook page full of stories of people preparing for their longest swims in lakes, lochs, lidos… (I’ve run out of 'l’s but you get the drift). And a super commemorative Log Book compiled for everyone who took part.
One group that went long and is now featured in the Log Book was some super friendly dippers I regularly meet up with here in my home town. A few of us set off to swim from a distant harbour wall all the way to “our beach”: for some, way further than they’d done before; others jumping in to join us at different points along the way to achieve their longest swims too.
Adventurous Adaptions
The idea of broadening our focus beyond any single event or competition, many of which were cancelled or held in uneasy uncertain limbo, came into its own for an intrepid solo swimmer. Last year she set herself the amazing challenge of learning to swim to complete the Dart 10k. As it happened the event was first put back to this year and then cancelled altogether - so what should we do?
Together we came up with the idea of creating our own solo event: an 8-9km swim down the River Adur, passing beautiful Lancing College.
To help build up and add some variety we also mapped out a series of what we called Stepping Stone events: looking out for special swim adventures such as a Swim Trek trip to the Lake District and another on the Thames.
And best of all? On the day I got to accompany her all the way down the river in my kayak. A few cheerers on the bank and from bridges we passed under - otherwise this super brave, determined swimmer and me alone in a beautiful river (together with a few disinterested swans).
And you can read all about another client’s account of a whole year of adventures, freshly posted on the Stories page. It’s quite a journey!
Kindness
So what do we do when things don’t go to plan, despite adaptations and reshaping the challenges? I think there’s a special quality of resilient kindness, keeping a focus on what really counts and a self-compassion, that I’ve seen through the year particularly in the following.
A long anticipated solo Channel swim had to be rolled over a second time to this coming year to be sure to be ready. A newcomer to triathlon realised that the training to prepare for a big event couldn’t be made to fit in with the demands of her new business. Another prepared for an ironman, keeping a steady focus despite pool closures, travel uncertainties and restrictions. Just three weeks out he came down with something - we’ll never know what - and pretty much struggled from start to finish. Not the free flowing, strong, in-his-element experience we had prepared for - though what extraordinary resilience to make it through.
Another deep memory of the year was working with a former youth champion swimmer. She had been turned off the sport, more recently gone through debilitating treatment for cancer and now wanted to set herself a big open water challenge to regain a sense of strength and health. Early on we realised how her ingrained competitive mindset of needing to swim set distances and intensities was getting in the way - despite knowing it would take time to first recuperate and then gradually build up from a low base.
This blog post from June outlines the approach we took - prioritising and giving value to very different measures grounded in her well being. In the end she came to decide that the time wasn’t right for her full on, mammoth challenge - yet the Instagram photos of her grinning from ear to ear, relishing a new way of enjoying swimming and the connections it can enrich are another high point in the year for me.
Looking back I think there are lessons from all of these and other stories of clients I’ve worked with through the difficult year: about being kind and compassionate to ourselves whilst at the very same time stretching ourselves to our limits and beyond. Helping people surprise themselves with what they can do continues to be a driving force for my coaching. And even when things don’t work out as we had hoped or envisaged there’s almost always something rich in the connections made along the way.
And Into 2022
What does the year ahead hold for us? At the time of writing we’re back to a very uncertain landscape. Will all the events that longer term and new clients have already booked be able to go ahead?
Despite the uncertainty I am very excited by the great challenges that those I’m coaching are setting for themselves, whether making new starts or reaching for new heights, whether they go ahead as planned or to be creatively reshaped. We take into the year ahead a super energy and excitement to discover what can be done. And a knowledge that deeper, broader and kinder will see us through the most challenging times.
We also have a very exciting swim centre based around a super 45m pool: one to ones already underway, squads starting in the New Year and much more to come.
A big “thank you” to all the wonderful swimmers, cyclists, runners, duathletes, triathletes… who have let me share in their wonderful journeys over this last year. Even greater adventures lie ahead for us to discover.
And I’m really looking forward to welcoming new clients, each with memorable stories to be created. Get in touch if that’s you or someone you know. And in the meantime, here’s to a happy Christmas and New Year.