Each January, I vacate for two weeks to focus on my marriage, train in the sun and review my year. This year I have noticed some creep into my life. Not an actual creep but more like commitment creep! I tend to commit to something and then do it forever — partly out of loyalty and an unwavering need to succeed at my goals.
Some things have happened in the last year that helped me realize some of these things are no longer a Hell Yeah! It will be time to say goodbye to some things I have loved. Or change the terms. This step is scary and necessary. I am not one thing or the other, but rather a sum of my actions.
I grade my year as simply as my training zones. Instead of easy, steady, mod-hard and hard I use A, B, Average and Fail. And average is almost equal to a fail. There are usually plenty of excuses and none of them are good.
Unlike my business, my life doesn’t have an easily accessible spreadsheet to tell me how I am doing. Fortunately, I am surrounded with people who will not accept marginal performance in anything I do.
What did I learn about myself and triathlon in the last year?
- I can race a lot.
- I can suffer a lot.
- I can race injured over and over again.
- I need to stop doing all the above.
I was wrong last year. I started the year with an achilles injury and I never stopped feeling like I was turning the corner. I tried to turn so many corners that I ended up running in circles, or rather, hobbling in circles. I had a good year despite it (four podiums, one national championship) but I did not have a great year. I failed to qualify for Kona. Plenty of excuses…
I learned the first two weeks in January that I was willing to make the same mistakes again. For a person who prides herself on noticing patterns, the only pattern I have noticed is that I am an idiot. I managed to hurt my other achilles at the beginning of the year.
So here I stand (or limp) back at the place I started. This year I am releasing the excuses… and my running for a bit… and my racing… and my suffering. This is just the beginning. When you see me racing again, it will be injury free. And with no excuses.
