reflections

If you recall my post "wisco a-go-go II" where I predicted a
Swim of 65min
Bike 5h35
Run 3hr25
Total 10:15
you probably wont be too surprised that my feelings of satisfaction with Sundays race were coloured by a sense of disappointment in my performance. It seems terribly arrogant to say that despite picking up the shiny goods, and earning the right to compete in the world championships next year, I could not see far past the fact that I’d failed to achieve my stated race targets, in perfect racing conditions.

Even during the race I was aware that I was behind the pace required to hit these, and coupled with the general feeling of not ON the game for this one, contributed to some pretty negative internal dialog.

Rather than being able to join with Steven in celebration of both of our great performances and upcoming trip to Hawaii, I felt terribly depressed. That is until the point in the awards banquet when, as I was called to collect my trophy my race time of 10:33:37 was announced as a new F30 age group course record. I was curious – perhaps I’d mis-heard, so later I checked the race website for course records and discovered that this was actually the case. The fastest ever female age grouper over the course was 10:19:28 in 2007 (perfect conditions that year too). So, I’d been targeting to smash that by 4 ½ minutes. Certainly possible, given that she achieved this with a 65 min swim and 3:34 run, but that’s not what I would call ‘smart goal setting’.
I read on.
A 3:25 marathon would have given me the 7th fastest ever run by a woman (including Pros) over the course and a 5:35 bike split is more comparable to the top half of the pro field than a realistic target for myself.

These are all attainable goals, but my big mistake was failing to appreciate the level of performance required for each, let alone to bring them together, and bring that level to my race. For a start, I would have used race wheels, rather than choosing the white DT Swiss Monchassueral on the grounds that they look very nice on my bike with blue tyres on!

So, on reflection I’m significantly cheered by this, and have taken in a very valuable lesson in perspective when it comes to goal setting and expectations.