To be able to be racing in Kona for a third time is an
incredible blessing. It is a rewarding experience that all the time and hard
work in training has paid off. I know I would never be able to make it to the
start line without the assistance from my friends and family. Among many things
this sport requires an extensive amount of time and it also isn’t cheap. There
are many people that pick up my slack when I’m lacking in one of those
departments. Thank you.
Qualifying in Muskoka last August was a trial in itself and
this last year of training has been one of the most frustrating and challenging
periods of my athletic career. Like everything it is multi-factorial, but the
main issue has been nagging injuries. I had an Achilles injury last winter,
followed by a hip injury that has never really resolved itself. Training has
had more ups and downs and lacked consistency than in years past. Given my long
time goal of contending for a podium spot for my age group, to say the injuries
have been frustrating would be an understatement.
On the positive side I’ve been able to swim consistently and
have had some great improvements, including a significant PR swim time at the Boyne City
With all of this in mind many people have asked what my goal
or expectations are for this performance. At this point I don’t really have a
goal, besides to finish with the best time I feel my body can provide me on
Saturday. I think if everything goes as well as it could I could perform a
58-60min swim, bike around 5-5:05 and if I ran under 3:30 I would be ecstatic. (For
comparison in 2013 I swam 64, biked 4:54 (206W) and ran 3:16). I’ll try not to
speculate on the opposite scenarios. Going in without a true “competitive”
mindset may be a benefit in keeping a more even and conservative race. We’ll
see if I can hold myself to that.
The biggest significance of this race is that I think it
will be my last Ironman race. This isn’t for lack of loving the sport, nor
enjoying what goes into it. I think the one reason would be categorized under
opportunity cost, from both a time and financial perspective. The second
categorized under an emotional strain category, both upon myself and upon
others.
Everyone chooses how they spend their time and the past year
I have found that the time commitments to “adulting” (category under which
house maintenance/improvements, work, bills etc fall under), running B-Nuts and
Hill Valley Farm and general “life” stuff, left less time for “living”
activities. I know “over-busy” is the American way, but I don’t want it to be
ours. The prioritizing of time management has changed and I feel triathlon
needs to take a back seat.
The nature of endurance training and racing is that it
requires a huge time commitment and is a very self-centered activity. As isn’t
uncommon for an athlete that excels the sport, it becomes intertwined with the
daily aspects of life. It is essentially required for an athlete that has big
aspirations. I’m not in the sport to be mediocre and I don’t as much enjoy
racing just to complete a race. I know that most of the time my mood is
dictated by my current state of training/not training. My family, and in
particular Brittany ,
live with the results of this and do an amazing job tolerating it. Brittany does the most
incredible job supporting my efforts and putting up with my mood swings. She
knows how I tick and happily goes along with my endeavors. But I don’t want it
to reach a point of contention in our relationship.
Having said all of that I’m not saying I’m done with
triathlon, only that I think I will step back for some to be determined period
of time. I’ll still do some smaller races. So for my time here on the Big Island
My bib number is 1997. This link will take you to the event
page and find the “live tracking” link.
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