Thursday, July 9, 2009

Pre-Race: Shawnee Mission '09

I haven't been very good about updating lately, have I? My apologies. Haven't felt up to writing, I guess. Not that I'm too busy, really . . . just have nothing to say.
Coming up on my fourth running of the Shawnee Mission Triathlon. It was the first race I ever did (and finished next-to-last), and so it's a special time in my race schedule, every year. I don't have concrete goals for this race, except that I want to be faster than last year. I have expectations: I expect that I'll be able to beat my swim, bike, and run times from last year. I expect that I'll have a better sense of how much energy to reserve for the run; I expect that I'll move up in the rankings, this year.
But the most important expectation is that I will enjoy myself more. Last year, about this time, I was starting to get really, really burnt out. I've guarded myself pretty well against that this time, I think. I've learned lessons from the last few years that have made this season go so much smoother--I think the most important one was having a "big-deal" kind of race, then taking a little time off immediately after to mentally recharge and refocus. That time off after IM KS has really made a difference in my training, this past month. I feel like I've been able to sharpen myself, and have held onto that objective in almost every workout. It's enabled me to have more of a sense of purpose.
This time last year, I wrote time goals for myself. But for now I'll just write the previous times I posted on this course and tell you that this year I will be much, much faster.
Swim: 1000 m in 22:29 (2:14/100 m)
Bike: 18 mi in 1:00:14 (18 MPH)
Run: 4.5 mi in 46:44 (10:23/mi)
Total: 2:12:12 (28/58, 2nd F 20-24)
I'm excited; I think I can do well. I look forward to giving a good report.

No comments:

Post a Comment