It's August and it's hot. It's nearly 100 degrees every day and if you're an athlete, you know it's preseason. While most everyone else is enjoying their last fleeting moments of beach trips, pool days, tourist-like activities, or any free time at all before school starts, you're already living on campus having three a days. So while basking in the sun in a bikini while sipping on a coconut with an umbrella straw sounds salubrious, here are the top 10 reasons why preseason for any athlete is better.
1. You don't waste any time sleeping.
Sure. You may think sleeping for long, uninterrupted hours is a good idea, but running life-sucking fitness tests at the crack of dawn is a much better use of time!
2. You learn to value your energy.
During preseason, energy becomes a very scarce commodity. You learn to devote it to important activities such as suicides, sprints, 2 hour practices and walking up the stairs.
3. You appreciate thunderstorms.
In fact, you are willing to perform a tribal rain dance if that's what it takes for a rain delay, (because let's face it, practice will never be cancelled because of rain).
4. You have the cafeteria to yourself.
YOU GET TO EAT AS MUCH AS YOU WANT AND WHATEVER YOU WANT. YOU CAN EAT 4 PORK CHOPS AND 2 BAKED POTATOES, YOU DESERVED IT. And you get to run it off later.
5. You are aware of the power of the sun.
We go ahead and double layer our entire bodies with sunscreen. The multiple, uneven tan lines on our legs, and all over our bodies, won't tell us otherwise.
6. You sweat a lot.
Somehow this is better than not sweating at all.
7. You become familiar with recovery methods.
Those hour recovery sessions twice a day in the training room, rolling through painful soreness, freezing your muscles in a hypothermic ice bath, massaging lactic acid from your legs up to your chest, aren't for nothing!
8. You listen to your alarm.
There's nothing more pleasing than a repetitive beeping sound to wake you up from a twenty minute power nap for the next session.
9. You learn to weep openly.
Overcoming the obstacles, passing fitness tests, having to walk to the cafeteria, learning that practice is not cancelled, these become things that are okay to cry about!
10. You get to be with your favorite people.
Who else would we rather spend 2 and a half weeks of dying physically, mentally and emotionally with??
The fact of the matter is, we love preseason and we wouldn't spend the last of our summer any other way, (at least for the most part).
