Yep. It's done and decided. Met with Coach on Friday for lunch and pulled the ($700!) trigger Friday night. A mere 28 weeks from now I'll be toeing the line at Ironman Texas. Next year is the year of the Double for me. ...perhaps I need a double right now, you say?! Ha, well...you might be right ;) I've always questioned the sanity of my friends who do more than one a year, and now it looks like I'm hopping right onto that crazy train myself!
After IMC, I felt certain that there was no way I could do an ironman every year. It was just too hard on my body, and I am neither a young athlete nor a natural athlete. It was also hard on me emotionally. The experience took a lot out of me, and I wasn't sure then that I could do that every year. Now, maybe that had something to do with what I had going on in my life that year, but it also had a lot to do with the overall approach to training and the sheer exhaustion that I experienced. But going through this year with Matthew, I felt just as certain that I absolutely could do an ironman a year. His training approach is just very different, and I've come out of this season healthy and invigorated rather than injured and burnt out. Not to mention setting PR's on every single thing I attempted. I told Matthew that he has set quite a precedent to live up to!
So how do I skip right over one a year into the Double? Well, when I was talking with Kayla about my plans for next year, I told her that I had just learned so much out of this experience that I couldn't stand the thought of waiting another whole year to gain more experience at this distance. She asked whether I couldn't just get the same experience out of doing halfs, and the reality is you can't. They simply aren't the same race. I think at one time I too thought that you could simply move up in distance, gaining the necessary experience that way. And in some regards, certainly that's true. But when it comes to racing a full ironman, the parallels between a half and a full fall short. I believe I've done enough halfs now that I know how to race those pretty well. I want to find that same breadth of experience in the full distance. I feel like this distance in particular requires experience to compete at the top level. There are some athletes that are just naturally gifted, and can come out their first or second time and pull it off. I don't fit in that category. And so I will do two in 2015. Won't know what the 2nd will be till May 16. :) But there will be two, one way or another.
More than anything else, I think that what I took out of this race, and truthfully, this entire season, is that I actually do have the ability to perform at the top level of my age group, and that my best race is still waiting to emerge. This is due in no small part to Matthew's encouragement and support, and his belief in me. I think before Choo, I really wanted to believe it, but then I would inevitably follow that up with thoughts of how crazy I was to think that. Now, with what I've been able to do this season, and with what I was able to accomplish at Choo, I *mostly* believe that it really is possible. And, you know for sure it's a truth - this thing is 90% mental. Like everything else in life, this stuff is what a self-fulfilling prophecy is made of.
So now it's back to some good old consistency. You remember, from my earlier posts this year - chase consistency. I'm much MUCH better at that now. Base, transition season, whatever you want to call it...I've never, NEVER, done this part right. That's why I told Coach that YES I wanted to continue coaching in Q4. I want to get this part right. I know for sure that the impact of Q4 on the next season is huge. And for once, I don't want to mess it up. And now with TX looming on the horizon, it becomes even more important. I think the thing that shocked me into reality was doing the math and realizing that 20 weeks out starts on December 29! What???!! So, it's been 4 weeks since Choo, and I haven't officially had any time off per se. I had two weeks of recovery, and then right back into some solid base training. Still no watch on the long ("long" being a mere 1-2 hrs!) weekend stuff, which actually feels kind of awesome. But already 6'30s on the speed workouts! (which dropped my jaw when I read them, and turned out to be relatively easy). But in a few weeks I'm off to Costa Rica with Kay, and so that will be my real mental break.
SO EXCITED for the coming season. Got lots to work on, and we now have the bogey in sight.
Happy training!
Kat
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