A few years back, a friend and I were talking about long term goals. I told him that I didn't even know what I wanted to do. At the time, I was still struggling with "do I go back to IM or do I leave it alone for awhile?" He had this idea. He said, "Set a goal like this. When you hit X time at the Oly, do the 70.3. When you hit X time at the 70.3, do IM."
I thought the idea was brilliant. But I've accomplished my time goals since then. I realized that the Sprint and the Oly were far bigger than I had realized. There is a lot more that I want to accomplish at those distances.
After doing the 70.3 last year, I learned that I'm still not ready (or even want to) do the 70.3 and full IM again.
In training with Liz, we are just scratching the surface of what I can accomplish. I have really big goals for myself. In fact.....you know....some time down the road....and I mean significantly down the road, I could see going back to the 70.3. Because I think I could do some amazing things at that distance. In order to accomplish THOSE, I have to reach my goals at the Oly and Sprint distances. At the moment, those goals are a moving target.
You could look at it as though I'm really patient. Part of it IS that, but the other part is that I really enjoy short and intermediate distances.
I may have said this already. Our workouts, recently, have gone to a whole new level. I love it. I love it because I know what she did with me last year and how that corresponded to my faster times and stronger outputs everywhere.
I think about the training that we are doing. The enormity of what I'm trying to accomplish, hit me.
I'm competing at both the Oly and Sprint races at Nationals. Back to Back days of racing AT and OVER threshold.
That takes incredible strength.
Now, I've done this type of thing before. We used to have a race here in which you could do an oly and sat and the sprint on Sunday. The key words, once again, are "doing" the race.....not "racing" the race.
At Nationals, I'm planning on racing.
Besides the physical strength, I've been working on my focus. I know that I lose focus in races. So, I've been training in areas with lot's of distractions. I do my runs in areas of high traffic, kids screaming and chasing each other, horns honking.....so I can learn to tune it all out. Tune out the cheering fans on the sidelines. Tune out the other people racing.....and race MY race. Pay attention to MY body and what it is doing and not be concerned about anyone else. I've also been learning a new level of suffering when it comes to running. In the past, I've been asked, "Did the intervals hurt?" I would always answer, "Yes. Of course they hurt."
I was wrong. They didn't in the way they were supposed to. They hurt now. It's all about learning how to handle extreme stresss. It's about learning how to tell yourself NO when your head is asking to stop.
It takes time getting there. It's not something that happens overnight. Pain tolerance is learned.
I have a dress rehearsal coming up. A swim race next weekend and sprint tri the following weekend.
Let's see how much I've learned.