Now that I've had nearly a month to think and plan about races this season, it's time to throw it out there to increase my accountability.
My first step was to pick my races which is tied closely to goal setting. We're looking at April, Rio Rancho, a modified sprint pool tri. June is Las Vegas (NM), an olympic lake. July is Cochiti, another lake, sprint or olympic, and in Sept we're back to Rio Rancho for another modified sprint in the pool. There's usually one in Elephant Butte as well, but that's not showing up on the calendar yet. (http://www.trifind.com/nm.html)
For goal setting, all I want to do is make it to the end. I'm not fast enough to set any records and my mental confidence in the water has waned. My current times are 30 to 31 min for 1500 yd pool swim, 15 to 17 mph avg on the bike, and a 9:30 avg mile running. With that, I just want a season of finishes.
Training for this involves alot of water time. While I'm strong enough to easily complete the swim distances in a pool, I've lost alot of mental confidence I used to have for open water. The mixture of the waves, people jostling, looking at a buoy and not feeling like you're getting closer, and a fear of getting too far from the shore to come back, all work against me. My intent is to get lots of water time so that I feel strong when these stresses hit me. I also want to duplicate stress in my training, so it's not such a shock in the race. I'm doing this with mixing up and extending my breathing and swimming underwater. When it warms up, probably around March, I plan to hit Cochiti lake alot and train there.
Biking and running are okay for me. Getting better in those areas is just going to involve time on the road.
I still plan on lifting and doing karate which won't necessarily help my tri skills, but I love those endeavors and so will keep on them.
Finally, I get to deal with human weaknesses. I developed a chronic pain in my hip about 5 months ago which I believe could be IT band syndrome, tendonitis, or arthritis. This significantly retards running training, but the pain has subsided alot, so I think I'm on the right road.
I've also developed a pain in my left shoulder which is likely arthritis, but could be tendonitis. This only hurts in swimming, and I'm not yet ready to back that down.
In the end, I'll measure success by one data point. Am I willing to get back into the next race and try again?