2016: The Year of Me

As I mentioned in my December/2015 recap blog, if that year was for discovering my inner awesome, the end result is that ... I'm not. Which, okay, great. I thought that anyway. Thanks for confirming my lack of self-confidence, life. Appreciate it.

Luckily, though that chapter has been written, it's not the final one of the book. I still have the chance for this year to basically yell, "PLOT TWIST!," and turn things around. I am the one in control of my own destiny ... and therefore, 2016 has hereby been designated as ...


The Year of Me.

Yes, it sounds selfish, but hear me out. To become my best self (embrace last year's inner awesome, as it were), I need to do what's best for me. For my health. For my emotional well-being. For my physical body. I need to do this to best find my balance. I haven't found that yet, and I'd like to. 

To do this, as I also mentioned last blog, I hired a coach. I'm two days in and, well, I've already almost puked. Success ...?

In terms of triathlon-related things, I made it clear sometime last year that this would be the double-Ironman year, and so it shall be. Ironman Boulder on August 7, and Ironman Chattanooga on September 25 (also known as the TBD wedding anniversary). Therefore, I have a few goals related to this stuff as well.

- Finish two Ironmans, and at least one of them well. Boulder is the A race. We were tossing the idea of Chatt being the A (fast swim, fall race), but we have no idea how recovery is going to be from Boulder. That, and if I'm going to be racing an IM on my wedding anniversary, I'd ideally like to be able to race as much of the day as possible with my other half. So, since we can train the course and hopefully be able to heat adapt ... Boulder it is. Obviously we want to do well in Chatt too, but if I can cross that finish line with Brandon by my side, I'll be a happy T.

- Get a fast 5K again. I would say 5K PR, but I think I've had that a goal for the past five or so years and it doesn't happen, so yeah. Odds are good that it will happen at the BAA 5K (sea level!), and I have more hope now than ever that the record will fall thanks to the ColderBolder ... but I don't want to get my hopes up, particularly since I'm not specifically training for a 5K PR.

- Hit my potential in the half-marathon. I'm probably only going to have one chance to do this with a stand-alone (unless I choose a very late season (read: October/November) race), but I know for damn sure I can run better than a 2:09:44/2:11:59.

- Become the cyclist I know I can be. I'm already discovering that it's going to be harder to hit heart rate paces on the bike (greeeeat), but I know I can pound a bike. I occasionally have decent bike splits in shorter races, and I'd like to also have a decent bike split at a longer race. Which hasn't happened so far.

- Explore the fullest potential of my legs. Basically, this is what the last three points come down to. I know my legs have speed in them. I know that they do. I just need to figure out a way to harness it, while also having my lungs cooperate.

- Step up to average in the water. I will never say that I'm a good swimmer. I'm pretty bottom-of-the-barrel when it comes to flailing around. I can swim well enough to finish a swim within the cutoff and to not drown ... but that's pretty much it. I am not naive enough to hope for "good" in a year, but I'd at least like to get to "average."

I'm also hoping to get back into more regular blogging, but more importantly, meaningful blogging. Not the weekly updates like I did in 2013, or the set posting schedule of 2014. I've had a few ideas of stuff I've wanted to talk about for a while now and just haven't done. I need to just do it, damnit.

In relation to that, I actually started doing YouTube videos, called the MDot Diaries. They're horribly crude, and you get to truly see how awkward I am, but hey. It was a thought of something I should maybe do three years ago; I'm just getting around to it now. 

2016, here's hoping you're a good one, and I find out what I'm made of. More importantly, I hope I find it's something I can be proud of.