Resetting Expectations

My first tri of the season is less than four weeks away and I find myself having to adjust my expectations. This tri is the same venue as my very first tri two years ago.  I signed up since some people from work signed up and decided it was a B, maybe even C race.  I'm trying to keep my A races as my 70.3 in July and 13.1 in October though if the 70.3 goes well I have a secret goal of sneaking in a late season 140.6, but I digress.....

When my training looked solid like this in February, I started thinking about crushing my Sprint PR.

After all, I have a couple years of training and racing under my belt.  Should be a piece of cake, a painful piece of cake, but you know what I mean. Then life happened and my consistency went down hill.  Adding the weeks since the end of February and my chart now looks like this.

First a dip at the end of February, beginning of March for my trip to China.  Then a "normal" week, then three weeks of low volume due to knee problems.  The big spike in April was hiking and skiing, hardly any sbr.  Now I'm building back up and happen to be traveling this week and next as well as taking it easy on the knees.  I'm trying to reset my expectations to a "C" race for fun.  In some ways, that takes the pressure off.  In another way, I know I'm going to try to crush it anyway if I'm feeling good.

In other news, my first Oly of the season is the following weekend and it's at the same venue as my first Oly last year.  Let the season begin!

2011 Report Card

I had a draft blog post about goals for 2011 and never finished it.  I didn't have many and I didn't review them at all.


Goals:
Swim - be able to swim without too much shoulder pain  ------------> not doing too good or bad here - B
Bike - Average 23 mph for a sprint and 22 mph for an oly bike leg --> D. no sprint, 20.4 mph at an Oly
Run - average 8 minute miles at a sprint, 8:30 at an Oly --------------> C. no sprint, 9:01 at an Oly

NOLA 70.3 Goal
swim - 2:30/100 = 53 minutes  ----> cancelled N/A
bike -16 mph (oly pace - 20%) ---> 19.4 mph  - A++++
run - 2:15 (hm pr + 20%) ---------> 2:15:06 at NOLA - A

NOLA Stretch Goal
swim - 2:20/100 --> cancelled N/A - I did 2:15 for, my private HIM but it was a pool swim
bike - 18 mph ----> 19.4 mph
run 2 hours -------> might have been possible if I biked slower and took in more nutrition


So my A race goals were met, while my general "get faster" goals were not.  This reminds me of the quote "A goal without a plan is just a dream".  I went looking for the author of that quote and didn't find it.  It may be a variation of this quote.

A goal without a plan is just a wish. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

I had a solid plan for NOLA and exceeded my goal despite my nutrition failure.  I'll follow the same plan for my HIM this summer.  I'm thinking about changing from Racine, WI 70.3 to the Door County, WI HIM one week later.  I think the course will be much prettier.

On an unrelated note, we had our first snow today.  Now Spring can arrive :-).