Monday, June 30, 2014

On Hard Decisions and Painful Truths

It's been a month.

You'll see exactly why ... probably on Wednesday ... when I post my monthly recap, but let's just say it hasn't gone as well as I would have liked.

There have been a lot of reasons for this. Some are of my own creation; some came out of nowhere that I wasn't even expecting.

Needless to say, if you pay any attention to that race calendar to the right of this post, you'll notice two omissions - Beyond the Horizon long course on August 16 and the Minneapolis Duathlon on August 24.

Both Brandon and I were hoping to race both those races, but we'd be forcing them. As it is right now, I know I'll be forcing TriRock in a few weeks as well as Georgetown to Idaho Springs (although that one was a train-through anyway). And probably Harvest Moon, but I really hope not.

I don't like this. In fact, I kind of hate it. Still doesn't change anything.

I got out of my early season racing happy and exhausted and ready to start training. The exhaustion overtook everything. I'm currently in a phase where I hate my day job and it makes doing anything other than coming home and flopping on the couch with my computer look entirely unappealing. I've been in this phase probably since right after Colfax.

I thought I was ready to train heavy. I really did. Yet ... I really haven't been.

Why is this? Few reasons:

- Never done what is essentially two racing seasons before (early block; late block). I didn't realize how much racing what is a typical full year's worth of races in two months would wipe me out. 
- Due to his job, Brandon hasn't been able to train/race much. Since we've been together (Dec. 2007), this is the first year since 2008, before he even got into triathlon, that we haven't trained and raced together. Sure, I've done a handful of races without him, but 90% of our races since the end of 2008 have been together. This year? He may not even do a tri.
- The above has messed with more than I ever even considered it could. It's hard training when my training buddy has no reason to train. I know I could - and probably should - find more training partners, but Brandon is my TeamBabyDino teammate and partner for life and we've essentially taken this crazy triathlon journey together and it's hard to travel the path without him.

We dropped those two races because he knows he won't be ready for them. He feels like they'd be forced. I agree. The only reason I haven't dropped the other races on my schedule (Vegas is far enough away that it doesn't count right now) is because I've already signed up and paid my money. We were waiting on Beyond the Horizon as we weren't even sure if it was going to go on (heard they don't have a lot of entrants and it might be cancelled) and we just hadn't gotten around to registering for the du.

It's hard to swallow, but it has to be enough. If I look inside deeply enough, I know that even Harvest Moon is going to be rough on me. I'll finish everything because damnit, I'm stubborn enough and I know that I can, but the results won't be as good as I was hoping for. Those goals I made at the beginning of the year for my tris? Out the window. Completion is good enough right now. 

I'm in the middle of learning some painful, awful lessons right now. I'm just thankful they aren't bad enough to derail me off this triathlon train; they're just going to make me be a lot smarter about things in the future.

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