Reflections

So, as posted yesterday, my race season has come to a somewhat inglorious end as I languish at home feeling unwell when I should be heading down to the Outer Banks to run the Half Marathon this weekend as my last race of the season.  Ah well....

Looking back I can say that this has been a really good triathlon season for me and I have greatly enjoyed it.  It's not that I'm winning races (or even sniffing the podium!) but I continue to learn, get faster and to take on longer distances.  If I had to list some of the more notable achievements I would say:

• Really improving my swim - both technique and endurance (and, of course, they are related).  I attribute this to great coaching by the Puppeteer and my willingness to finally put in the time at the pool - I actually started looking forward to my swim sessions! 

and, because of that:

• Finishing my first Olympic distance race (White Lake)
• Finishing my first Half Iron (70.3 mile) distance race (Rev.3 South Carolina)

and, best of all:

• Encouraging my friend and colleague Crawford to come over from the UK to compete in his first triathlon (Outer Banks) - he's hooked!
• Finding some wonderful new friends and speedy training partners (hi Compass, Snort, Fratboy and the rest of the gang!).   It has been great not only hanging out and training with you guys, but also watching so many of you race so fast and reach so many milestones.  I'm in awe of how talented so many of you are!

What a fun year it has been!   I'm now looking forward to a little rest and preparing to come back stronger and faster next year (although I guess that I do actually have one more race - the annual "Gobbler 5k" in Nags Head on Thanksgiving morning with the girls).  I haven't planned my season yet, but I know that at the very least I am signed-up for Ironman 70.3 Raleigh and that will be one of my "A" races.  I will post my off-season plans soon.

Finally, I thought that it would be fun to go to www.trainingpeaks.com to look at my training totals for this year to date.   If anything these numbers are a slight under-estimate, as not everything made it on to Training Peaks, but here they are:

Bike:     2,389 miles
Swim:   158,393 yards
Run:      488 miles

Plus walking, strength work, flex/stretch etc. 

I'm off for a nap to start prepping to up these next year!

Finishing Rev3 SC

Crawford "bringing it home" on the Outer Banks