From Veteran to Rookie

I couldn’t help but laugh as I jogged out on the field to bring water bottles to my new teammates.  Here I was coming off what could have been considered my best bobsled season and instead of being at the Olympic Games I was running water out onto a Rugby pitch.  I was three days into my new found rugby experience and was already learning to put my ego aside and be patient with myself.   I have been considered a veteran in the sport of bobsled after an eight year career, but now here I am starting back at ground zero and being called a rookie, a word that I have not been called for close to a decade.  A rookie in rugby and what feels like a rookie in my new life.

I have beat myself up literally and figuratively over the past few months.  I now work on taking each day as an opportunity to find out what I want to do next.  And I try to take each practice as a learning experience.  I often find myself getting wrapped up in the idea of how I ‘should’ be doing instead of slowly enjoying the experience.  It is interesting how much sports can parallel life.  I can become overwhelmed with the idea of what I want to do with my life rather than being patient with the process and taking things one step at a time.  It is 100 percent the same in rugby.  This is a brand new sport that I have never been involved in, so regardless of anything I have accomplished in track and field or in bobsled I am a rookie.  I can, however, transfer over the athletic skills I have learned from 28 years of sports to help me progress just as I can use the contacts I have created to jumpstart my next life plan.

For now I am going to enjoy performing my rookie skits, completing my rookie ‘duties’ and you better believe if I am asked to run water out on the field I will be sure to get it there the fastest!