anniversary of my first tri - new expectations
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1321 days
trigirl97 posted 3 years ago.
I have to be honest and say I struggled with this between my first and second years in the sport. The first 'A' race I did was the Danskin women's sprint tri in 2002. Heading into the '03 race, I was sure I would kick some butt. Even with a huge bike volume going into the race (had ridden the MS 150 from Houston-Austin the month before), I didn't do as well as I expected. My overall time was only a minute faster.
The lesson I learned was that I hadn't trained in the right way. In other words, I thought just because I was a year into the sport I should be so much faster. But after reviewing my training journal, it was clear to me that I hadn't done the right things...I didn't structure my training in the ways I needed to improve.
I think this is constantly a struggle for us mid-to-back of the packers. Yet, I have learned that I must be realistic about my finish times given the volume/type of training I have done. Just because I had another year notched on my race belt didn't mean I would automatically be faster. It was very disappointing for me but I'm hoping I have learned from it and will post better times at my 'A' races this year.
My advice would just be to set realistic goals, do your best & have fun!!
"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go." ~T.S. Eliot
trigirl97.blogspot.com
This weekend will be going back to the triathlon that started my addiction. It's interesting how the expectations are different. Last year I didn't give a crap about my times, it was all about finishing the race. Technically each race was a PR, because I didn't have anything to compare it to. Now I'm heading back to Albuquerque to the Jay Benson Tri and I have a time to compare it to. I'm not the slightest bit worried about finishing it, but I do want to have an huge improvement on my time. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to do it much quicker as I have a road bike this year and running a 5k isn't a big deal (it most definately was last spring). However, I wonder where these expectations are going to take me later in the year. I'm usually pretty good about keeping the "only compete against yourself mentality", but there will come a time sooner or later where I can't "beat myself" and I'm hoping I can keep emotions in check. I have a couple of races that are new to me this year (so I pull off the "yeah I finished it"), but I'm repeating just about every race I did last year
For those of you who are growing out of the newbie phase...how are you dealing with this?