Slornow's and Wannabefaster's Summer Mentor Group - CLOSED (Page 73)

1. What are you most proud of so far this year/season? My performance at Outlaw. It was a really tough day, and I'm incredibly pleased that I managed to execute the race so well under the circumstances, especially when compared to some of the guys I know who really struggled, despite being what I would consider to be much fitter than me.

1a. Rate your season in terms of how you feel about what you accomplished. 1-10 with 1 being low. Probably 9. I got a glimpse of what I think I *may* be capable of, and although I probably couldn't have done any better in those conditions, it's given me motivation to keep working to improve.

2. What is your weakness/where do you see room for the most improvement? This is a tricky one. I think I need to improve most on the bike, as this has the largest impact on the race overall. (Getting all the way through an IM race without a crash would probably help too) But I am very aware that compared to many other people I'm just not capable of the training volumes/intensity that they seem to do. I've tried training harder and I just land up exhausted and broken. So for me it's all about finding the balance between volume/intensity and recovery. Working shifts probably complicates the issue...

3. Where have you made the most progress? Looking at my results for Outlaw compared to IM last year, I took 90min off my total time, and each section was pretty much proportionate. I feel like my run has improved the most, and my HM results definitely back up that it's improved. But I definitely haven't reached my potential yet.

4. Biggest dissappointment, if any, of the season? Probably the biggest thing was taking my eye off the ball at Outlaw and missing my target of 13 hours by such a small margin. I was focusing on not beating myself up about missing the faster target, and so stopped watching the clock. In general that was the right thing to do, but I'm fairly certain that if I'd realised how close I was with 3 miles to go, I could have got in at 12:xx.

5. Were there any things you learned during the season/year that were really key to racing/training better? Kind of an "Aha" moment? I realised that with enough recovery I can handle a much bigger training volume that I ever thought I could. My big training weeks were an absolute revelation to me. But it involved not really going to work for a month. Not sure how to work that into my "real" life. I also realised that consistency is much more important than anything else. I felt like I was struggling with getting going at the start of this year, and joined a mentor group that was focused on consistency. Making sure I did the training without stressing too much about what or how much helped me exceed my initial goals for the year.

6. What are your goals through the rest of 2013?  In terms of racing, I'm done. It's really starting to get cold and dark here now, so tri season is over. The plan from now is to get a really good solid off-season of training in. I'm planning to do one or two HMs and I really want to work on getting stronger on the bike. We're considering a late iron-distance tri for next year, which will give me a really long off-season, so the plan is to do lots of short, hard sessions to really get stronger. And then I can start building the distance up when the weather gets nicer again.

I'm still trying to figure out the best way to achieve my goals. I want to work on the bike, but don't want to neglect my run. And I enjoy swimming the most, so although my husband keeps telling me I should ditch the swim sessions, I really don't want to. I guess that's the challenge with multi-sport - balancing all three sports in the best way to meet your personal needs/goals. I'd love to get a coach, but I don't think the timing's quite right (budget, and personally). I think I'm going to need one eventually to achieve my long term goals, but I'm still improving quite a lot on my own. Once that slows down it may be time...

I think the point made about year-on-year improvements is very true. This is my 3rd year of training, and I just coped better than I have previously, both mentally and physically. I'm hoping that the improvements will keep on coming.

Oh, and I'm going to put next year's goal out there now, just because. I want to get under 12 hours at IM distance. It's another big(ish) drop from where I got this year, and faster than I had previously conceived of, but I think with the right training and a good day it will be very achievable. But we shall see...

Originally posted by mrajki

Waiting for the X-ray to come back but per my doc, "something is wrong in there" so until he finds out if its seperated or not which should be tomorrow, no swimming, for 2-3 weeks (even if it isn't seperated 5-8 if it is), he would perfer if I didn't run, and I can ride but stay off the aero bars and out of the drops. I really am not in the best mood right now.