Since the Age Group National debacle I had some decisions to make regarding my 2012 race schedule. Did I want to add a couple more Olympic Tri's to try and qualify? Did I want to say "screw you nats" and do more 70.3's? I struggled with this during my blog absence in January.
I finally had a nice long chat with Coach about what was going on inside my head and where my motivation was. We both came to the conclusion that I should go back to my triathlon roots. So what does that mean?
I started out doing tri's because I've always been an athlete. I played soccer, basketball, softball and most importantly field hockey all throughout my childhood. I captained my High School field hockey team. I played hockey in college and excelled until injury took me out of the game. After college, I started running again and played club hockey. But triathlon was a completely new challenge for me. I did my first tri in 2005 and as they say, the rest was history.
Being a triathlete keeps my uber-competitive spirit engaged, keeps me fit, sane and is a nice break from my 'real' tv job. When my friends started racing tri's as well it was even better. I didn't care how fast I was. I wanted to improve, sure, but biking in X amount of time or running an X pace wasn't of any concern.
As I've progressed I've become more in tune with getting fitter and faster. I invested in a Coach, got the coolest tri bike around, took on an Ironman and now? I'm going back to racing certain races because they sound like fun. NOT because I could potentially qualify for Age Group Nationals. My goals are still to improve my times and put out a 100% effort in each race and if I qualify then awesome. If I don't, then it's cool. You never know what kind of competition will show up on race day. There could be girls who can smash the run with 6:30 min miles and would blow me out of age group contention by a long shot. I can't control that. What I can control is my training, my consistency and my attitude.
So no more whining about not making nats. I actually stopped whining about it weeks and weeks ago but was just to busy not whining to write about it :)
So here's an updated look at my Race List. The first half of my season is packed and I like it that way! I'm racing with friends and am psyched to clear the tri cobwebs off with the TriRock Sprint and Harryman Olympic. Rev3 Quassy is an awesome race and that will be my A goal of the early season. My late season goal is still on par with the whole "Smash 4 Hours or Bust" plan for the Philadelphia Marathon.
As you can see there's a big gap between June and September. I'm gonna see how I feel after Quassy before I sign up for another 70.3. I may want to add either Timberman or the new National Harbor in DC to my plan... or I have a couple of fun sounding olympics on my radar. So stay tuned!
March 25th - Central Park Duathlon
April 15th - More Half Marathon
May 5th - TriRock NY Sprint
May 19th - Harryman Olympic
June 3rd - Rev3 Quassy
September 30th - MightyMan Olympic
November 18th - Philadelphia Marathon
Hope everyone had a great weekend of training!
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