During yesterday’s market tumble, I saw this tweet from @lokibeat…

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/lokibeat/statuses/100660260204843008″]

It made me chuckle, but it also made me think of a couple of things triathletes and runners can hopefully relate to. First of all, the practical…

I prefer to think of dips in the market the same way I do water stops. At first glance, water stops cost me time in races because I walk them. But the truth is, water stops gain me time because I walk them. Walking the water stops gives me a chance to take in a lot more fluid than I could if I tried to run through them. That fluid is an investment in my total race. So I think of dips in the market as a chance to buy more of the same thing I was buying a couple of weeks ago at a discount. We’re talking about investing, not trading, right? It’s a ironman/marathon, and I’m not selling next week whether the market is up or down.

Secondly, @lokibeat is right…it is more about the trip than it is the destination. I think a lot of us enjoy the day-in-day-out training more than we do crossing the finish line at a race. Even on race day, when we say we “had fun”, we’re talking about the entire race…not just the finish line.

So chill out, walk the water stops, and take in as much fluid as you can while someone’s there to hand it to you.

And you might as well go ahead and make friends with the pain for now. You’ll feel better in a few miles.