For months, I was concerned about doing the 70.3. I hadn't hit any goals that I wanted to hit for the oly (yet). I didn't understand the oly, and I thought it was a mistake to do a 70.3 until I started understanding the oly.
Then I started hitting the 70.3 specific training.
Now, I'm so so excited to do this distance because doing the 70.3 training is the best thing I could have done to better understand the shorter distances.
I thought it was premature of me to do it. Now, I know that the timing was probably perfect for me (personally). I'd spent the last few years doing sprints and olys afraid of moving to the 70.3 because I had yet to get the oly distance. It didn't occur to me that I had to go long to understand the short.
Things are starting to make sense and fall into place. I mean the things outside of power zones and other numbers. I was judging the 70.3 based on the oly. I can't do that. They are completely different races and require very different training. To me, in the past, the 70.3 was just a longer version of the oly. That's because everything I did was wrong. It really was wrong, but that tends to happen when you self-coach your way through a HIM.
I understand why, now, Coach says the Oly distance is the hardest distance. It really is. I understand what I need to do at the Oly distance....next year.
Every time I race or I train, I learn something different. I'm not one of those people who think every race needs to be a pr or a podium. Every race or training has value beyond the finish time.