Hmmm. A bit high. OTOH, I ate like it was going out of style yesterday. I gave myself one day of overindulgence and today I'm back to good habits.
I have this small problem. I'm competitive with myself in a way that is probably unhealthy. I suspect that if Connor's birth had dragged on or required medical intervention or was in any way worse than Claire's birth, I'd probably have nine kids by now trying to GET IT RIGHT and BEAT MY LAST TIME at childbirth.
If I had been two and a half minutes faster on Sunday, I'd be content now. I'd be searching the web for century rides that look like fun and researching proper ways to train for riding 100 miles in a day. Instead I'm sitting here thinking "if I had just started the swim to the outside and front, I could have gotten a clear line. If I had pinned my timing chip on instead of relying on the velcro, I wouldn't have had to stop to reattach it. If I hadn't stopped to cheer for Barb Van Winkle in T2 I would have been five seconds faster there. If I had taken Powerade on the bike instead of Nuun, I would have had more energy going into the run. If I had ignored the pain on the run and just kept running no matter what, I could have been faster. If the car hadn't broken down in Pennsylvania, I would have had more time to train in advance. If I hadn't been taking my kid to an oncologist three days before the race, I would have been more mentally prepared."
And then I think "if I only swim once a week I can keep up my level of fitness without hating it so much. Everything else I can stand. Everything else I kind of enjoy (when the weather is perfect and I'm well rested)."
And then: "If I signed up for MORE races, I wouldn't feel so much pressure to do well at this one and wouldn't obsess so much about comparing my times one year to the next. I could do the Bethesda super sprint in April pretty easily, and the Celebration Tri on the same course in June, and maybe find one on a different course in July to do, maybe the Hagerstown tri with a pool swim (that's nice), and oh, heck, I could do the Patriot's triathlon THIS year with no problem--750 meter swim? Easy."
Dammit, triathlon, I just can't quit you! What the hell is wrong with me?
2 comments:
Take up knitting.
This is why I will do only ONE marathon! If I only do one, I can't compare them, and I'm fine. Though I find myself thinking -- if my knee isn't completely normal by October, I'll have to walk half the marathon (or more), which won't be satisfying at all, and that will leave me wondering what I *could* have done, and once I've done all the training it's just a matter of maintaining, which means I won't have to go through the brutal middle section again... Ack!
A friend of mine observed in one of her races that if she'd been in an older age group she would have had a high placement, or if she'd been just a few minutes faster she would have placed. Or maybe it was qualified for something else, not placed -- either way. I forget. But she concluded, then, she needed to get either older or faster, and *one* of those is inevitable -- so she's all set. ;-)
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