Saturday, September 12, 2009

Time to 'Escape'

Things have gotten interesting around here -- and not really in a good way.

The two races I had based my training around were the upcoming Escape from the Rock (which is tomorrow) and the Anchorman Championships in October.

Recently, I started wondering why I hadn't heard anything about Anchorman.  I dug through e-mails and realized that I had never gotten a confirmation to the "I Accept" email I had sent in response to the invitation to the championships.  That concerned me, and with a little digging I found that that, alas!, I had sent my acceptance too late and I was NOT going to San Diego.  This took a little of the heart out of me.  Anchorman San Francisco had not been a good race for me and I was really looking forward to redeeming myself in San Diego, but it wasn't meant to be.

Then just a few short weeks ago another blow.  I had been psyching myself up over the past few months over Escape.  It was going to be my longest race since Lavaman, a test to how far I had come.  The bike was a short but grueling 13 miles, and with two runs (Swim-Run-Bike-Run) it was going to have a mileage of over 8 miles. Again I was to be disappointed.  Some kind of construction going on in the presidio has made them close the roads in the area to ALL traffic and the folks that run 'The Escape' had to pull the bike portion of the race.  Escape from the Rock Tri had been downgraded to a 'Splash-n-Dash'!  1.5 mile swim and 7 mile run with almost no hills!

These two disappointments seemed to do something funny to my head.  I found myself facing my workouts with less and less enthusiasm.  In fact, I missed quite a few.

Today, I've found the fire once again... Because... I signed up to do an Olymipic distance tri on October 17th.  This gives me a chance to build on and use the training I've been doing for 'Escape' AND replaces the race in San Diego!

That's right, I'm back in it :)

And tomorrow I'm going to do a really long 'Splash-n-Dash' :)  for the record -- the weather's CRAP :) should be interesting.

5 comments:

  1. Nice! We need goals to motivate us. Good luck.

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  2. i know what you mean - i consider it "training" not "working out" or "exercising" so i always need a race to be "training" for

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  3. Hey Shawn, nothing like the carrot of a competition to ignite the training fires within, nothing like a test or sompetition does it any better...way to get motivated and stay focused, keep us abreast of your hi's and lo's...
    warmly,
    Tim

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  4. Just found your blog through TriEric, glad I stopped by! Keep training hard! :) I'm hoping to do an Olympic distance maybe next year!

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  5. i like the swim..run..bike ...run format...be cool if they tossed in a final swim..but most people would drown...

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