I am going to have to get better at regular postings.
IM Louisville is getting close and I need all the Karma I can get. Writing has a calming affect when one is anxious. I find that writing adds clarity to any situation especially if you are trying to "sort things out". Ironman is an aggressive goal. To compete and finish I am going to have to deal with a lot of bumps on the way. In other words, nothing is ever going to go perfectly.
I think about my latest race. While doing the race I did not feel that it was going really well. The race was the Buffalo Springs Lake Triathlon. Buffalo Springs is just outside Lubbock, Tx. Being that it was late June, it was hot! I never felt entirely comfortable about how the race was going.
I was a little annoyed at the swim start in how I got pushed back in the chute even though I listened to instructions and entered at the right place at the right time. It was hot, windy and hilly on the bike (never a great combination). The run was for the most part unbearable. The road was so hot I thought my shoes were going to melt. I was pretty happy when the race was over.
After the race I got some water and rested 15 minutes in the shade and went to transition and got my little note pad (the paper kind) and wrote a couple of quick notes about the race. Nothing indepth just a few thoughts. Basically I wrote Rough race strong finish.
I immediately felt better about the race. On of my goals was to have a strong finish. So by writing a few notes I was adding clarity to an unclear situation. It is not so much that my race was "bad" it was that the success and or failure was buried underneath layers of heat and exhaustion.
On the drive home I continued to process the events of the day, nutrition, warm up, transition, each leg of the race became clearer. As I wrote my race reports the next day I continued to process and clarify. By the end I was much happier with my race than when I first finished. My swim was the fast 1.2 mile swim ever. I cut a minute and a half of my previous best. The bike was not my fastest but is much more in line with my training. I am training to go 112 miles not go 56 fast. The run was rough but I also realized that I did not take in enough water in the beginning of the run. I could have helped this by drinking more water in transition. In the last half of the run I was much stronger because I took time to hydrate more. I have learned something for the next race.
Success and failure is not measured in absolute terms. When we take time to analyze the details we can clarify the results. I did not win but I have a clearer picture of how to get there.
