Tag: goal setting

Triathalife

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Pinch me. Is it really the end of May, already? Time since January has evaporated. My words and posts must have evaporated, too.

This break from writing for inTent, was unplanned and has felt beyond my control. My training didn’t come to an end, but it often didn’t match my training plans during the 2nd half of the off-season. What happened?    My life.Triathalife

Triathlon training is a juggling act – the natural state of training in three different sports. And sometimes life throws in more, additional (curve) balls than it’s possible to juggle without something dropping.  This has been my 2014.

While managing family challenges this winter and spring, I missed workouts. Frequently, I easily blamed our ridiculous winter, pool closings, etc. But a good deal of time, my body felt fatigued and I just didn’t “have it” that day. I was in my head a lot, trying to figure out how to get re-inspired and questioning my motivation and my commitment to my goals. I was always hoping the worst was behind us and that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. But 2014 just continued like a roller coaster ride.

About a month ago, I changed tactics and decided to accept my circumstances as my new norm. I looked at the big picture of my life and my personal values.  Understanding my intentions as a parent, provider, and athlete helped.  I went through my calendar and emails that were waiting for replies and started pulling back from the number of things I was trying to do. It wasn’t easy; I like to help people. But being halfway involved wasn’t really helping anyone. Being realistic about the time I have available for my whole life, has helped a lot.

I grabbed a Triathlete magazine on a recent flight to visit my 94 year old grandmother. The Performance Paradox, by Matt Dixon was the perfect read for me to put all of my 2014 experience with stress into a healthy perspective.

[For amateurs]…the goal is to maximize sporting performance within the restrictions imposed by the need to maintain a balanced and successful life. After all, if you win your local Olympic-distance triathlon but  you get fired, or your spouse leaves you, or your house is repossessed, it would be hard to argue that the win represents “success.” Thus, for most of us, success can be more broadly defined as improving in the sport, performing at work, thriving socially, and nurturing positive relationships (with spouse, partner, children and friends).  With this outlook, the goal of the amateur triathlete should be to maximize training load as one part of a vibrant, passionate and engaged life.  …the full picture of your life inside and outside sport [is] your global stress environment.  The amount of training you undertake needs to fit within the constraints of that environment in order for you to be successful.

Unintentionally, I’d been balancing my global stress.  There were simply periods where my recovery was slower and where non-training stress was enough to create fatigue. This is my triathalife. My training is just “one part of a vibrant, passionate and engaged life.”

The Performance Paradox article was based on elite triathlon coach Matt Dixon's forthcoming book, The Well-Built Triathlete.

 

All in a winter’s swim

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Lap pool5:00 am: Wake up. Check the pool website.  Yes! The pool is open for morning swim. 

5:05 am: Tip toe downstairs in the dark. Praise the joy of a remote car starter. Oh, right…the car is covered in half a foot of new snow. First workout: shovel to and remove snow from car.

5:25 am: Car is clean enough.  I can see out the windows and won’t be “that SUV” that dumps snow on all the cars behind me. (not sure of the risk this early, but I feel like a good citizen)

5:45 am: Arrive at pool. Run out of car. A fellow swimmer has slipped and fallen in the snow. It is one of the pool’s “most experienced” swimmers.  She has someone helping her up, but I stay with them to make sure she’s ok.  She’s not hurt badly.  She shares that the most damage was to her pride. The first inspiring moment of the day: Here she is at the pool in the dark before 6 am.  There’s over half a foot of new snow on the ground.  There are only 4 other cars in the lot. She has dusted herself off and is heading in to do the swim she came to do. She just turned 87 and she is so AWESOME! (I make a mental note to be this awesome when I’m 87)

5:55 am: Enter the water. Wow! It’s so warm, almost hot. It’s like bath water, very relaxing, but I note that it feels problematic for the time I was hoping to get for my “cruise-finder” this morning.

6:05 am: Notice that my fellow non-flip-turn swimmer, Jeff, is becoming a flip-turner. I watch him somersault in the deep end several times.  I then witness him complete 2 very smooth turns in the deep end. I applaud. The second inspiring moment of the day: I am so impressed by his tenacity and by how well he’s executing the turns. If Jeff can be brave enough to try, maybe I will. He is so AWESOME! (I make another mental note to be this awesome soon)

6:15 am: 1000 yard warm-up complete. Dave’s ready with the stopwatch and the lap numbers at the far end of the pool. I go. The first 100 felt smooth, I felt good, but warm. The second 100 felt okay.  The third, I just felt sluggish and anything but smooth or coordinated. I start repeating in my head, “I’m a strong swimmer, I’ve got this, I’m a strong swimmer.” Things came back together. I felt more coordinated to the finish, but didn’t get much speed from my BTTW finish. I didn’t hold back. I was exhausted. Not as fast as I want to be, but spent.

6:25 am:  My 500 time was 8:40. 5 seconds slower than my time from 5 weeks ago. I feel very disappointed. My 100 split times told the same story as my feelings.  (1=1:34, 2=1:42, 3=1:55, 4=1:44, 5=1:45)I was hoping for a little progress. A sign that the hard work was paying off. Today, the sign isn’t going to come from my time.

6:30 am: I start my 400 yard cool down of choice. I know I need to shake it off. I know that I am getting stronger and feeling stronger. My disappointment feels like slime, like defeat. I focus on how the water feels moving over my skin and I keep moving.  I’m calming my thoughts. Like with all disappointing results, I shift into analytic mode. +5 seconds. It’s only 1 second per 100.  It’s not awful.  What did I really hope for? I didn’t know. I hadn’t been clear. I just knew I wanted “better.” Crap.

7:00 am: Drive home. I’m now in determined mode.  I want to ask my coach for specific interval drills to remedy this.  My speed/endurance needs practice.  I’m back into intent. This result isn’t a setback; it’s feedback.  What I do with it is my choice.  And I choose to harness it as motivation to get faster.  The third inspiring moment of the morning: This was becoming one of my fastest recoveries to date. I drive home, still thinking and analyzing. Still doubting my abilities and frustrated. But I also know that it’s in me to get faster. It occurs to me that this is actually the exact motivation that I need for my swimming. This is so awesome!

Now am: Sit down and look at split times. Finally, in hindsight I can figure out that a second faster per 100 would have felt like good progress to me. And this means I went out faster than I could maintain. With less disappointment, I can see that 4 of 5 100s were better than this target. I can also see a whole lot of progress since last spring. (I make a third mental note: remember that I do better when I know my goal, clearly. )
Here it is plainly: I will swim 1:43 per 100, for 500 yards. (I’m still working on when)

Breaking Good

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Breaking GoodRest day = Time to reflect on my first week with my new coach.

Right now, what I’m most aware of is the impact of change on my routine.  My training volume hasn’t really increased, but the amount of time it takes me to complete a training has increased, noticeably.

On the busy days when there was juggling of work and family schedules, it was actually a mental challenge to stay committed to the new plan and not fall back into habit. And it’s not like I have a ton of bad habits that I have to break. I was sort of successful in my first full triathlon season.  I got to stand on the podium after a few local races.  So, I’m actually breaking good habits…? Um, why?

More reflection. Let’s see…
  • What I’ve done in the past has been effective and has earned me what I have.
  • I have new goals.
  • They’re more ambitious than what I achieved last year.
  • If I use my same ways on my new goal, I’m likely to keep getting what I already got. I’d keep myself from achieving my new goals.  (I know I’m shooting for a crazy leap forward, not just improvement.)
  • And my coach is awesome. She’s competed so well at Nationals that she went to Worlds. Updated: she just won Rev3Venice Olympic – she’s crazy awesome!
  • And lucky for me, she doesn’t care so much about my fabulous history. She’s coaching me to get what I want, next. Everything she’s suggesting is focused forward.
  • Interesting stuff.

I’m like working with my new coach and I’m sure the workouts will feel more natural Soon. Right now I feel like I’m spending a lot of time trying to figure out what my new exercises are:”dead bug“, “bird dog“, and “vertical swimming“.  (I had no idea.) I’m also working on (finding) muscles that I had no idea were involved in swimming, biking, or running.  It’s awkward. I’m awkward.

Battling the frustration/change tests my resolve.  If I was to put a positive spin on this, I suppose that this internal dialog is confirming my desire to get to nationals and my willingness to adapt.  Darwin would be proud.

End: reflection.

My coach – preview

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whistle“There is hardly anything you can’t do if you have, and you nurture, the proper support systems.  Don’t lower the goal, increase your support.” ~Jim Hayhurst Sr

I have my new, big goal – competing strongly at the 2014 USA Triathlon Age Group National Championships – Olympic Distance. Now I need to increase my support and hire the right coach to help me achieve my goal. I’ve connected with Kelsey Abbot and finally returned my Athlete History form to her (after stalling for weeks). I sent her my goals, yesterday, and here’s her awesome response:

“I think top 25/worlds’ qualifier at nationals is awesomely outrageous–a challenge obviously, but if a human being can go from a couple cells to a human-like clump of cells to cells that function to cells that function on their own in 9 months and 1 week, then dammit, you can drop a chunk of time for an olympic in the same amount of time. I can work with you if you can accept the following: 1.) every race is different so times may or may not be comparable and 2) we can’t control where you end up placing because we can’t control how other people do, but we can turn you into a superhero.”

“1.) every race is different so times may or may not be comparable” – Yes, I’m flexible in my mindset to allow for the surprise uphill swim, random summer blizzard, or sneaky ninja ambushes. These races may not give me a PR, but they certainly make for great stories.
“2) we can’t control where you end up placing because we can’t control how other people do, but we can turn you into a superhero.”- YES!  This is a VERY important to me – because I’m not really motivated by besting other people. I am VERY good at focusing on my own goals and running my own race. It makes me feel smarter on race day to follow my plan. If I meet my time goal and don’t wind up placing well, I rarely care. (OK, If it’s close, then I do replay the day over & over and second guess everything for a few days.)

I don’t know if you watched the World Series, but here’s my analogy…In game 1, David Ortiz hit a grand slam home run.  Carlos Beltran reached over the wall and into the bullpen and caught the ball outside of the park. So, the result wasn’t a home run and David Ortiz still hit a home run.  My goal is to hit the home run.

Yup, I found the right coach for me.

updated: my coach is this awesome! Click here to see a picture of Kelsey winning 2013 Rev3 Venice Olympic Distance.

Step 1. Commit

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commit buttonI’m an advocate of thoughtful goal setting & planning.

Everyday I work with business  leaders to help them identify and develop meaningful and achievable goals.   This is the core of my  professional success.  I know this like I know the sun will come up later this morning.

And yet…here I am (again).  I’ve started another massive challenge just by clicking on a submit button.  Before giving myself the chance to think through the goal, potential plans to reach my goal, or even what the first step might be, I have committed.   I have “taken a flyer.”  I am now registered for the 2014 USA Triathlon National Championships – Olympic Distance.

It’s not the first time.  I have no doubt that it won’t be the last.  And I am even more sure that at some point during this challenge I will utter my signature phrase, “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

I don’t advocate “the flyer” with my clients, but it’s often an effective way for me to start a new personal challenge.  As a thinker, it moves me into action without the distraction of research, analysis, deliberation, etc.  It’s a move from the gut with a lot of faith that the details will come together once I’ve made the commitment.

inTent is where I will capture and share my experiences of all of the elements related to taking on this bold/audacious goal.  Welcome to the tent.