Demoralized after River Cities

Focus - You did better than last year.

Now why on EARTH would you pull out of your next race? Just because you came in 6 minutes after you wanted to?  You are going to take your ball and go home? No, you don't do that. You suck it up and you get back out there. You work harder, you don't quit. Quitting is not an option.

(how's my tough love working? )

So, you had a bad day. It happens. It happens to everyone sooner or later.

You still improved from last year, right?

Suck it up.

Get back on the horse that threw you.

One thing I do know for sure. You'll never get better if you quit.

One of the best quotes that I have heard was from Brad Kearns. He said " Results happen when your motivation is pure"

You have to ask yourself why you are doing this. Is it only to beat your friends?

Oh no you don't, buckaroo! You don't just get to "quit!" Triathlon and life are like that - they can knock you down. What makes them fun is that each morning you get to start over with new expectations. Learn from this and mount a counter attack. Use this as your motivation to pick up the pieces for your next tri. I know somebody who's gone through a hell of a lot more hurt than you and I and this is what he has to say about quitting:

"Pain is temporary. It might last a minute, an hour,  a day,  a week, a month or a year, but eventually it subsides. Quitting is forever." His name is Lance and he rides bikes.

Fire up!!! 

I don't want to seem like I am beating up on you, but probably the reason your buddies are training less and improving more is your training plan. I looked at your logs. I didn't take long to see a flaw in your training. Your bike was 18 miles and you wanted to improve from last year. Your longest ride was 62 miles, a tour. The rest were in the 6 - 12 mile range all about 16-17 mph. If you want to improve you should turn one of your 12 mile rides into a time trial and get some speed going and turn another one into a distance day 40+. You are on your bike a lot but I don't see how you can expect to ride 12 miles at 16 mph all month then all of a sudden convert that into 20+ mph over 18 miles on race day.

Just my opinion.

I've learned some of these lessons the hard way as well. Even as a coach who makes his living in this sport... I'm not immune to anything, we're all human. I can say that I'm a triathlete/endurance athlete because I love the lifestyle, training with friends, racing and meeting folks all over the country that are just as insane with this lifestyle as I am. You had a less than desireable result and guess what? You will again. It's a part of being an athlete. My best race was when another cyclist plowed through me at 30+ miles an hour, shattering my shoulder blade, snapping my elbow in half, fracturing a vertebrae, broken knuckles with some nice head trauma thrown in for fun. Did I mention that I was pulled off the course fixing my brake that was rubbing? It should have been tough to swallow... train for a year for an IM and it's over in a heartbeat. That's life and that's the nature of athletics. Why was this my best race... I learned more from it than all of my other races combined. That was the first time I had that kind of perspective and I have to admit that only positive things have happened for me since.

You'll bounce back with better results and a better appreciation for it because you grow and learn from your experiences.

Umm... sorry, but from MY perspective you are a pretty impressive athlete yourself.  You improved 8 minutes and you are disappointed?  If it was me, I would be stoked.  If I improve by ONE minute I am stoked!

I can only wish I could bike at 19.5 mph, and a 34 minute 5k is a pipe dream for me at this point.  I understand that you want to improve, but I also think that you should realize that you are in a pretty da** good spot right now.  I guess I'm trying to say, be proud of where you are right now, even if you also want to get better/faster/etc. 

At a 19.5 mph average - you do realize that you're starting to get into the really fast area and that improvements will not come in leaps and bounds but in increments - measured by how hard and smart you're working.  It's pretty easy to take a slow bike rider and make them medium to medium fast, it's a lot harder to take a medium fast guy and make them really fast.  12 mph to 13 mph is not as big a jump in performance as 19 mph to 20 mph.  I think you should be happy that you improved, and to me it sounds like you improved quite a bit. 

As far as "guys you train with" - you can't compare your performance to other people, or how hard you have to work to see improvements with other people.  There will always be someone who is naturally faster than you.  By the same token, there will always be someone who wishes that they had your ability and speed.  My sister (who doesn't swim regularly as part of her workout regimen) can jump in the pool and blow me away.  Does this suck?  Yes.  But I am getting better, and one day, if I'm really lucky I'll be able to beat her in the pool.  Of course, this says nothing about what would then happen if she started swimming regularly.

If you're doing triathlons to stomp your training buddies into the ground, then figure out what you need to do to get there.  If you're doing them to get faster, figure out what you need to do to hit that goal.  Not what your training buddies need to do - which may be different/not as much/easier than what YOU have to do.  However, you do need to realize that there is an upper limit on your performance, and as you get closer to it, speed increases and better race performance is harder to come by.

Just my 2 cents, but if all you're wanting to do is beat your buddies, just wait for them to head for the swim start.  When they've gone, let a little bit of air out of their tires, tie their shoe strings together and turn their seats backwards on their bikes

Even if they still beat you, you'll be able to laugh you a$$ off later on when you hear them saying "Some cruel son of a @#$%^ ruined my bike and my run!!!!"  Keep in mind though, what goes around comes around.