The Athlete Travels Too

I saw this line in the sand on my walk this morning and stopped to photograph it.

Maybe because I've been thinking about the boundaries I'm not willing to cross, and how far the person I've become can travel beyond the familiar.

I think I used to imagine the edges of this version of me were somehow closer to home. My kitchen. My gym. My food. My routines. The familiar structures that made all of it easier.

So when I started travelling again, there was a question I genuinely didn't know the answer to. Would I still be her?

Would I train when the gym wasn't mine?
Would I keep tracking when the food wasn't easy to track?
Would I keep moving when my familiar routes disappeared?
Would I keep making choices that served me while eating out, sharing accommodation, catching flights, competing, being tired?

Not could I. Would I?

I've had plenty of opportunities to find out. And somewhere along the way, I've realised I'd been asking myself the wrong question.

I thought travelling would test whether I could maintain my routines. It turned out to be testing whether I would maintain my relationship with myself.

Because routines don't always travel. Sometimes the gym session changes. The food is a best estimate. And the body says no and the right choice is to rest and recover.

I've learned that flexibility doesn't mean abandoning my boundaries. I can adapt without becoming someone else. It turns out the edges of who I've become are much further out than I first thought.

The athlete travels too. Not because all her routines come with her. Because SHE does.

And perhaps that's what all those ordinary choices at home were building in the first place. The purpose was never to become really good at following a routine. The purpose was to build a life - and a body - that allow me to go places, compete, travel, stand ankle-deep in the Pacific Ocean on a Sunday morning before my last event at the Australian Pickleball Championships and feel very much alive.

This morning, I do.