Last week I made the decision to discontinue the triathlon lifestyle to pursue a more balanced lifestyle. I've got a lot of items on my "list" that I have no chance of getting to while training at the level necessary to race in the pro ranks. This past week was the first time in quite a long time that I've been able to do whatever I wanted to without worrying about how it will affect my triathlon training. The feeling was like a weight lifted off of my shoulders.
Here's my "list" for the remainder of my 30s:
* Great husband and father
* More time w/ friends that make me laugh
* Stay on top of latest development technologies
* Vacations w/ family & friends in bad ass locations
* Handy man - work w/ tools, fix, and build things
* Mountain biking
* Football
* Basketball
* Learn spanish via Rosetta Stone
* Water skiing and wake boarding
* Salsa dancing lessons w/ Jen
* Cooking - Master breakfast & grilling first
* Certified sky diver
This past week I started to work towards a few of these items on the list. I played basketball five times last week and on Thursday while shooting around I hit 24 free throws in a row and 16 three pointers in a row. My shot seems like it's coming back nicely. I went mountain biking on Sunday and got a feel for the trails again. I fell a few times and ran into one tree but mainly because it was very slick out there. In hindsight we probably shouldn't have been out there because it probably wasn't good for the trail. No more riding on slick trails. I'm going to look into getting some knee, shin, and elbow pads because I can foresee myself falling quite a bit during the first few months. The problem is that I've got a really good cycling fitness base so can go fast but don't quite have the instincts and agility on the trails to stay upright. Fast + poor skills == biting it big time. My left knee is still a bit sore today. The only other thing that I started to work towards was becoming a better cook. Jen and I signed up for a weekend grilling class for next April at Johnson & Wales culinary school. I also asked my friend Brooke for some ideas as to which books he would recommend to learn how to cook. He recommended:
"How to Cook Everything" by Mark Bittman
"The Best Recipes in the World" by Mark Bittman
"The Barbeque Bible" by Steve Raichlen
This past weekend we also went out to dinner for Clarke's birthday and on Sunday we went to a party for one of our triathlon clients for finishing his first Ironman and having a great season. Next week I plan on putting all of my triathlon gear up for sale within the Charlotte community and then will post it to the masses on the web.
I started training for triathlons in August of 2004 after signing up for Ironman Wisconsin for September of 2005. Since that first month I've been continually setting tough goals and working hard to achieve them. After three years of training I qualified for my pro card and during the past two years was racing in the pro field with mixed results. Some good races and some terrible races. My notable accomplishments as a triathlete were:
* 2005: Finishing my first Ironman @ IM Wisconsin (11:47)
* 2006: Set a new Half Ironman PR at White Lake going 4:14 with a PB of 4:51
* 2006: Qualified for Kona at Lake Placid (10:01) and was 5th place in my AG
* 2006: Finished in Kona on a tough day for me (10:08)
* 2007: Training ride of 240 miles from Charlotte, NC to Charleston, SC in 11:47
* 2007: Set the M30-34 AG course record at IM Florida (8:49)
* 2007: Qualified for pro card with IM Florida performance
* 2007: Self taught IM swim from 1:03 to 53 mins in 2 years
* 2008: First year racing pro......injured and didn't finish many races
* 2009: Finished 3 day cycling weekend with 105 mi & 18.5k+ ft climbing daily
* 2009: 6th place pro at Eagleman 70.3 (4:02) and 5th place pro at RI 70.3 (4:03)
* 2009: Qualified for and raced at Ironman 70.3 World Championships as a pro
* 2009: Decided to discontinue the triathlon lifestyle to pursue other life goals
I'm proud of all of these accomplishments and the recent decision to drop all of my future triathlon ambitions was not an easy one. After taking my three week end of season break I realized just how much time I have available to me when I'm not in training mode. I've also realized that I'm not really enjoying the process as much as I used to. Since I have a wife and full time job I always feel like I'm rushing from one thing to the other and don't really have time to just hang out and relax. I've put activities that I thoroughly enjoy doing on the backburner because they would tire me out or make me sore for my training. Along with that, most of our vacation time was spent at races and the money spent throughout the years on triathlon are quite impressive when added together. All of these things along with our baby girl coming in March have led me to decide that it's no longer worth it for me to chase my goals with triathlon at the cost of the sum of these things combined. Some people have asked why I can't just do it for fun. Maybe I'll come back to doing it for fun when I'm in my late 40s or early 50s. For now, I've got a list of things that I want to learn and accomplish. Here is my initial list of things that I want to focus my time on over the next 5 years:
* Be the kind of husband and father that I aspire to be
* Hang out with friends more often :: play poker, cornhole, etc.
* Spend vacations with family or friends in badass locations
* Become more handy with tools and building things
* Mountain Biking .... backflip is on my list of ToDos
* Football
* Basketball
* Learn to speak fluent Spanish
* Water skiing and wake boarding in the summer
* Take salsa dancing lessons with Jen ...... for our vacations
* Become a good cook
* Become a certified skydiver
I think that list should keep me occupied from now until I'm around 38 years old. My goal is to get good enough at all of them to be about two notches below expert level.....so somewhere in the low advanced level. I think once you become an expert at something it gets boring.....at least it does for me. That's when I'll move on to my next list for my low to mid 40s. This blog is going to switch directions from being mainly about triathlon to living life after triathlon with the focus on overall happiness and balance.
STATS:
Swimming: 1,500yds in 1 session
Cycling: 0 mi in 0 sessions
Running: 3 mi in 1 session
Strength: 1 hrs in 1 session
Football: 1.5 hrs in 1 session
Total: 1.8 hrs
RECAP:
This was week #3 of my end of season break. The highlights of the week for me were poker night on Friday night and playing football on Sunday afternoon. Doing those two things alone were more fun than I've had training for triathlon in quite some time. I've been doing a lot of thinking about the future and my happiness lately. That will have to wait for another post. Aside from exercise I worked on the deck footers with Steve and we got all of the holes filled with concrete so now we just wait for them to set. On Sunday evening I replaced our over the range microwave because our old one was on the fritz.
The 2010 season is going to be broken down into 3 different segments. Early season, middle season, and late season. Early season will last 16 weeks, middle season will be 19 weeks, and late season will be 15 weeks. Before breaking down these segments it's important to know what my key races are going to be for the season:
* 5/16 - Florida 70.3
* 6/13 - Eagleman 70.3
* 7/18 - Racine 70.3
* 9/26 - Augusta 70.3
* 10/30 - Miami 70.3
Early Season (11/16/2009 - 3/7/2010)
* 3 weeks end of season break (unstructured)
* 13 weeks swim/run/strength focus
* Swim volume build to 30K
* Three spin classes for the bike
* Run volume build to 70 mi
* Run a couple of 5Ks and a 1/2 marathon (3/6/2010)
Middle Season (3/8/2010 - 7/18/2010)
* 3 weeks of unstructured workouts (baby girl is due mid March)
* 6 weeks of big bike volume (300+ mi per week) and overall volume at 26+ hrs per week
* Race Florida 70.3 then recover 7-10 days
* 70.3 Specific training for 2 week then race Eagleman 70.3 and recover 7-10 days
* 70.3 Specific training for 3 weeks then race Racine 70.3
Late Season (7/19/2010 - 10/31/2010)
* 1 week recovery from Racine 70.3
* 6 weeks of big bike volume (300+ mi per week) and overall volume at 26+ hrs per week
* 2 weeks of 70.3 Specific training
* Race Augusta 70.3 and recover for 7-10 days
* 3 weeks of 70.3 Specific training
* Race Miami 70.3
* END OF SEASON
During the early season period I plan to work my swim, run, and overall strength. If you miss the main swim pack you are pretty much out of the race so it's going to be priority numero uno for me to close that gap from 3 mins to ??. I'm starting off the winter in a good place and need to keep building upon that momentum. I'm going to leave my bike in maintenance mode over the winter due to lack of light and conditions. Instead I'll put in some big run miles and focus on strength in the weight room.
The middle season will start off with our first baby being born in early to mid March. I've mapped out 3 weeks of uncertainty around that to give Jen and me some time to figure out how to work our schedules. After that I'll be building my bike fitness for 6 weeks to tie everything together. I'll mainly just focus on getting in a lot of time on the bike and will start the 70.3 specific work directly after that. I've chosen to keep my races spread by at least 4 weeks this year because I got strung out on 3 weeks between last year. The 4-5 weeks in between gives enough time to recover from the previous race and still get in 2-3 weeks of 70.3 specific work before the next race.
The late season will start with one week recovery from the middle season races and then back into rebuilding the foundation with a 6 week big bike volume period of lower intensity training at high volumes. After that will be a couple of weeks of 70.3 specific work followed by the Augusta race and some more 70.3 specific work leading into the last race of the season......Miami 70.3.
I think the way I've laid out this season gives me a good mix of building the foundation for years to come as well as being race ready when it's time to race. Of course, this is just a road map for this season and will no doubt change as the season goes along but I find that it's better to have a plan and make adjustments than not have a plan at all.