Impostor Syndrome

Life's like a movie, write your own ending.  Keep believing, keep pretending. -- Jim Henson

Being is like pretending. -- Mira Sorvino

I suffer from impostor syndrome.  It's not all that uncommon for people in my line of work - I'm a professor.  There are many jokes, memes, etc., about impostor syndrome in academia.  It's just a thing.

On the off chance you're unfamiliar - impostor syndrome (according to Wikipedia) refers to "high-achieving individuals marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud."  Regardless of evidence to the contrary, I wonder whether I know enough, write enough, am smart enough to be the professor I am.

I also suffer from impostor syndrome with respect to triathlons.  OK, maybe I'm not high-achieving athletically, but sometimes I still wonder whether I'm really a triathlete...despite the fact I've finished x triathlons.  When I hang out with other triathletes, sometimes I wonder if I really belong there.  It's really the same feelings I have in my professional life.  Weird huh?

So an interesting thing happened yesterday, my two pretend worlds collided...and weirdly enough, I feel a little like less of an impostor because of it...which I have to say is unexpected.  And a little bit cool.

I won a big teaching award yesterday.  In receiving my award, the provost of the university was laying out my accomplishments and mentioned that in my spare time, I do triathlons.  Then I got my plaque and while shaking hands with the university president, he remarked how impressed he was.  In a world where I feel like an impostor for teaching, I got mad props for doing triathlons.  Weird, huh?

And then, because what else would I do, I put a few snaps of me and my award on Facebook.  And then all my triathlon friends remarked how awesome it was that I was a great teacher and that they weren't at all surprised.  Even weirder?

Anyway, I realize that impostor syndrome doesn't serve me well in either sphere of my life - clearly I need to do a better job of accepting the external evidence that I'm doing just fine.  I deserve to be there.  I belong and I succeed.  And maybe this weird juxtaposition will give me a little boost along that path.

Two. Months.

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.  Rabindranath Tagore

Well.  There are two months to Ironman Louisville.  And I'm freaking out a little bit...because that's what I do.  But I also need to remember, I'm a butterfly.  I need to count moments - and there are plenty of those between now and the race.

Of course, I need to make the most of those moments.  I am doing my best to follow my coach's plan - including practicing my fueling and acting like an athlete...which is NOT in my normal nature.  I'm a fantastic eater when I'm not training - fantastic meaning I like to eat.  :)  But when I'm training, I really don't like eating and it's not really working out for me so well.  So one of my goals for long workouts is to fuel like an athlete.

What am I eating (or at least what am I supposed to be eating)?  Picky bars, gels and chews, bananas, and sports drink.  Doesn't sound horrible, right?  Except after a couple hours of this, I either want a cheeseburger and fries or NOTHING.  Nothing at all.  Food doesn't even sound good.  But no fuel means the engine doesn't go.  And so...I get to spend the next two months (and any number of moments) practicing how to eat.  :)  When you put it that way, it doesn't sound so bad.

Cheers! (or Saturday on the Cap Trail)

Ultimately, it's a sense of camaraderie and friendship with local people that is core to my journeys. -- Tim Cope

Yesterday I had a long brick workout on the schedule, so we went down to the Virginia Capital Trail.  It's great because it's off the road, has potties and store stops at reasonable intervals, and ... what I realized yesterday... it's where everyone is.  Because...sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name...

Seriously.  Over the course of four hours I kept running across people I knew or people I've seen on the trail before.  Sometimes we met with a little lift of the hand, other times we said hi to each other.  One time, getting passed by a lady I swim with at masters, we chatted for a minute, before she sped off.  Then on my brick "run" along the same trail, I ran into another guy from town doing his own brick run.  Again, it was just a "hey, how are you, dang it's hot"...but that level of interaction is exactly what I like.

I train mostly by myself - in part because it works best for my schedule, and in part because I'm an extroverted introvert...that person who can do the whole public thing, but then I seriously need to be ALONE.  And for the longest part of my tri career (the part that happened already - I expect to keep doing this craziness for a good long while, but anyway), I was totally alone.  Well - not totally alone - I played on Beginner Triathlete.  Those were my tri friends, my people, my tribe.  But they lived in my computer, except for rare occasions when we met in real life, which was always weird, but I made some friends that way.

Now I live in a real live tri community, with real live people and real live friends.  In fact, probably half of my friends that are local are triathlon-related.  I am active in my triathlon club, I talk to people at Masters and at races, but I still mostly train alone.  And that is good for me.

But it does get lonely - even for an introvert.  Which is why the Capital Trail is perfect for me.  I can ride and run all by myself (or with IronSherpa, who rode with me for part of yesterday but also rode alone so he good for faster for part of it).  Even though I'm alone, though - my friends are there.  We say hi, we lift our fingers, we wish each other a good ride, we recognize that everyone is suffering through the same heat and humidity...and then we are on our own way.

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got. Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot. Wouldn't you like to get away? Sometimes you want to go Where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same You wanna be where everybody knows Your name.