Benchmarks, Goals, Targets, and Dreams.........

Benchmarks, goals, targets, and dreams doesn’t really matter what it’s called, in order to have some kind of focus you need an end game for your triathlon season. All triathletes put in a tremendous amount of physical and mental training throughout the season, but we all need to have a goal that we are striving for. For some it is competing in a full Ironman or for others it is dropping the last 20 pounds they need to reach their target weight. Whatever the goal the most important thing is to have something you are working for and sticking with it.

This past weekend I participated in the Holloman Duathlon. I had been sick most of the week leading up to the race and hadn’t put in the training time that I had wanted to, but none the less felt pretty good the morning of the race. One thing that I’m starting to find out is that if you can build a solid base fitness level you can still compete even if you are not feeling your best. The organization for the race was a mess and many participants including myself were not on the pass list to get on Holloman Air Force base. For those of you that do not visit a military base often the process for getting on a base is pretty simple. Typically you can get a day pass with proof of insurance, driver’s license, and registration. Well, for this race you had to be on a pass list and my name didn’t show up. So the guard told me that I could not get on post and I had to leave. Well, since I had woken up at 4:00 am to get ready and drive there by 6:30 am this was not acceptable. After several calls the Sports Director for the race showed up and escorted me to the race. Once there I had to register for the race again, since they didn’t have my original registration, and then get my bike and everything set up. The process was disorganized, but I will say that the Post guards and Sports Director were very nice and in the end everything worked out.

I was glad to see many of my friends including John, Cody, and Rob, but I was surprised to see the number of top triathletes at this race. Just looking around I could tell this was going to be a fast race. Two weeks ago I had trouble keeping pace on the 5k run portion of the MVT race and wanted to see if I could improve on my run this race. As soon as the run portion started everyone took off like a bat out of hell including myself. I usually like to start fast, but only for the purposes of getting some running room and not having to slow down because a slower runner has cut me off. After about 200 meters I settle into my run pace and then see what happens. This race had several fast runners and they wasted little time putting distance between themselves and me, but my pace was steady and I had enough energy to race an even pace the whole time and finished the run portion in 4^th place.

I was excited for the bike portion because I was finally going to use my new bike for a race. My only goal for the bike portion was to keep a steady pace and see if I could make up ground on the fast runners that had a pretty big head start on me. The Holloman course is completely flat and very fast. I was able to push myself and eventually caught 3^rd place by the halfway mark and then put some distance between us. As I was feeling pretty good about myself I all of a sudden was passed by a blur of a rider!! It was a member of a female relay team and she was smoking fast! I tried to keep up but after 10 minutes she was nothing but a tiny dot in the distance. The fastest individual bike time was somewhere around 47:00-48:00 minutes, she had a bike split of around 42:00 minutes, just an incredible bike time!!! I ended up finishing third individually, but another strong triathlete Bobby Dominguez was closing in fast and if the race had been another 2k longer he would have caught me.

Overall, I was happy with the race and it reaffirmed what my goals are for the season. This season I want to compete in two Half Ironman races and not make a complete spectacle of myself and I want to build a solid fitness base too compete in a Full Ironman next year. In order to do that I probably won’t compete in enough races to be in contention for the Southwest Challenge Series, which I’m fine with, my age group has some great competitors and I’ll be cheering them on (Go Cody!).

So remember, have goals and work towards them. The triathlon season is long and you need to be steady and persistent. Frustration might set in early, but if you remember what you are racing for the frustration will pass and it will turn into satisfaction.