Putting it All Together

Can you spot bambi?

had one of those runs yesterday that made me think, I went HOW fast in Kona?  Seriously, your grandma could have passed me running on the trails yesterday...couldn't get the HR up and had to keep walking.  So I got to thinking, natural thing to do on a trail run right?  With my (vocal) trance music literally putting me in a trance and clearing my mind this is what I thought...

I am not an awesome, swimmer though I used to think since I grew up a swimmer I was, biker or runner.  This is true.  When people ask me, "which discipline is your best?"  Now I may have a favorite, but that too is going away, I really don't have an answer.  I'm just a good plodder. Mark affectionately calls me a semi truck...once I get up to speed I can go like that all day long. When my running was really slow, I really preferred to swim and bike because it's what I was good at.  But as my running progresses, I enjoy that section of the race more and more as I get passed less and less (no correlation to happiness at all, right?!).


And then watching the SPECTACULAR women's race at Ironman Melbourne, you realize that you must be solid (OK spectacular in the case of Caroline Steffan) at all three disciplines, you can have no real weakness or you will get eaten alive by the gal that can run a 3:05 marathon.   And in the age group arena, the fastest swimmer definetly didn't win the race. 

I have certainly had my fair share of days where I could not put it all together.  This past year in Las Vegas was one of those days.  My most vibrant memory of that day is having 2 miles to go on the run and hearing one of my friends names announced as she crossed the finish line...from the same age group.  Not my brightest day for sure!  But it drives me to continue to improve on all 3 disciplines.

So thinking like a relentlessly positive person just know that you just need to be a good plodder to have some success.  You may not be the best insert S/B/R here and that is A OK.  Put a lot of effort into putting it all together on race day and then hope for a little or a lot of Race Day Magic to make for an awesome day out on course.

Less than 3 weeks out from the first race of the season, here's to a having it all fall into place.  It's what I've been working on.