Saturday, June 14, 2014

Results

It's been a week since I started flying several feet off the ground over my Esprit de She triathlon results. I am showing no signs of returning to earth. It was, to put it simply, an enriching, rewarding and damn right awesome experience.

I trained hard. Honestly, I worked my tail off to prove myself. I have high expectations, and even higher goals. Most of the time, I have no intention of actually reaching them, which made it even more special when I did it.

I make it a point to set goals that stretch me. Most of the time, a little too far, but that's the point, isn't it? So this year, I talked to a few of my friends about my training and what I hoped for at the finish line, and when I took everything into account, I mentioned that I thought I could possibly take 10 minutes off my time from the previous year.

Now, let's be clear here: that was a realistic goal only if all the stars aligned and everything went my way. The chances of that happening were somewhere between slim and non-existent. And yet, somehow ... well, I'll just let the statistics tell the story.

Here is how things have stacked up over my three years participating in this event:
 
2012
2013
2014
Swim
23:27
23:12
19:06
T1
10:53
7:55
5:27
Bike
1:12:00
1:01:12
59:33
T2
5:26
3:43
2:25
Run
46:16
42:26
40:48
Total
2:38:00
2:18:27
2:07:17

We're timed on five things: how long it takes us to complete the swim, transition from the water to the bike course, complete the bike portion, transition from the bike course to the run course, and then, finally, finish the run. All of that added together gives you the total.

So, between 2012 and 2013 I took almost 20 minutes (19:30, to be exact) off my time. A lot of that work was done in transitions, but I did better in literally every discipline. Fast forward to 2014, and you see some realy work happening. More than four minutes faster in the water, more than three minutes total faster in transition, and real gains on the bike and run, too. (Plus, take note: there was a headwind in both directions on the bike!) I finished 11:10 faster this year than last, and a full half hour and change faster this year than two years ago. That's a lot of improvement in two year's time.
The moral of the story, if there is one, is that sometimes you can stretch far enough to reach a goal that seems impossible. Sometimes you can give yourself things that seem ludicrous but turn out to be so very worth it. Sometimes you owe it to yourself to believe you can.

And then, sometimes, you just do it.