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<\/p>\n2017 was freakin’ epic.\u00a0 I finished an Ironman!\u00a0 I did my first official century ride!\u00a0 I went on amazing vacations and got a camper and spent a ton of time outside!\u00a0 We redid our kitchen!\u00a0 How the heck do you follow up something that crazy and grand?<\/p>\n
By doing less.\u00a0 \u00a0Oh yes, by one hundred percent absolutely positively for sure doing LESS.\u00a0 2018 is about doing less with purpose, intention, and focus.<\/p>\n
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This will be my junior year with Team Bicycle Sport Shop.\u00a0 Looking forward to training and racing with them again!<\/em><\/p>\n Racing\/training:<\/strong><\/p>\n I want to strengthen the bond between coach and athlete here.\u00a0 Yes, I am that person in both aspects, so this will take myself being kind, patient, and firm with… myself.<\/p>\n As a coach, I will schedule myself like I was scheduling another athlete.\u00a0 I will not put crazy sessions that make no sense on my list just to see if I can do them.\u00a0 I will not fill my week too full without good reason.\u00a0 I will consider both what the sessions mean to the athlete in the context of goals for the season and also what’s going on in life right then.\u00a0 I’ve been coaching myself long enough to know how I operate.\u00a0 I don’t do well undertrained, but I also need to watch my tendencies to want to do way too much and then disappoint myself by either failing sessions or burning out right before races.<\/p>\n As an athlete, I will HTFU this year.\u00a0 If coach does her job and schedules things better, it is my job to actually complete the sessions AS INTENDED.\u00a0 If I have 6×400 with a one mile warmup and cooldown, starting with drills and ending with stretching and rolling on my schedule, that’s what I do.\u00a0 And, I’m going to do my best that if it’s scheduled for Tuesday morning, I do it Tuesday morning because I put the session there for a reason.<\/p>\n I feel like this will help grow my experience as a coach and also my confidence as an athlete.\u00a0 If I could sum up my athletic goals in triathlon in a mission statement, here’s a go at it:<\/p>\n I am a strong, fit triathlete who is rarely injured because I have good stability from weight training and flexibility\/form work.\u00a0 I have the confidence because I complete my training sessions.\u00a0 In races, I take that confidence and head close to the front of the pack in most races where it’s appropriate to start the swim, and I’ve closed the gap between my decent pool swimming and subpar open water form.\u00a0 I continue to do well on the bike because I train and race with power goals.\u00a0 I leave the bike and can now chase down people on the run.\u00a0 As a coach, I will set reasonable goals for my athletes (me and Zliten), and include only the necessary training on their schedules to succeed.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Here’s this year’s plans so far:<\/p>\n Winter:<\/strong><\/p>\n Spring:<\/strong> goal is to get fit and then race a LOT of sprints to try to qualify to nationals. I want to shift my mindset at the shorter distances to actually racing for the podium vs getting my heart rate up.<\/p>\n Summer:<\/strong> cut off the racing with enough time to give myself an offseason before getting back to it for Nationals (if I make it) in August and then Cozumel in September.<\/p>\n Fall:<\/strong><\/p>\n Sept 30: Cozumel 70.3.\u00a0 I have some outcome goals here.\u00a0 First, sub-6:30 or better (PR).\u00a0 Second, I’d like to finish far enough up in the results I actually go to the rolldown for Worlds (as a super longshot, I’ve heard rumors of people being in 20-30th place and getting it).\u00a0 But honestly, I want to race this to force myself to figure out one of my biggest triathlon problems – I do not love hot weather but I’ve had my two best half runs in sweltering heat off of my two fastest bikes those two years (though I’ve also had some pretty critical explosions).\u00a0 I need to figure out how to succeed in the heat, be it training, gear, or just HTFU’ing.<\/p>\n After this, I’ll make some decisions.\u00a0 Ironman Waco 70.3 or Oilman last minute?\u00a0 A fall half marathon?\u00a0 Offseason?\u00a0\u00a0I’m not committing to anything after Sept 30th.<\/p>\n You will notice there are no marathons, no ironmans, no century rides, no 10k swims on this list.\u00a0 Will I haul off and randomly do a long bike ride because it sounds fun?\u00a0 Probably.\u00a0 But I’m keeping my focus (after Feb 3rd) on one thing: triathlon, and succeeding at the distance that my next race is at instead of random long base training for no reason.\u00a0 I’m running the longest right now that I need to run all year and that is super refreshing to me!<\/p>\n Less of this face in 2018, young lady!<\/em><\/p>\n Human Being-ness:<\/strong><\/p>\n As a human, I want to be a more patient and kinder person.\u00a0 I feel like in relentless pursuit of goals sometimes I get a little snitty and self-centered.\u00a0 I get annoyed by the MOST ridiculous things that shouldn’t even register on my radar.\u00a0 \u00a0I joke that I’ve gone from being a people person to an anti-people person – that grumpy 80s TV dad that just wants his underwear and his recliner and silence.\u00a0 However, in going from a state of fluctuating between mega-maniacal (DO ALL THE THINGS) to burnout, I’m definitely finding human connection challenging to enjoy more often than I’d like to admit.<\/p>\n I actually like people.\u00a0 I am actually probably more of an extrovert on the spectrum than an introvert.\u00a0 I love random conversations, and I’ll talk your ear off and listen to just about anything with a few beers in me (i.e. – when I’m finally relaxed and not thinking about the next thing on my TO DO list).\u00a0 Sure, I’m a little socially awkward at first with people, but I’m mostly comfortable in my skin as long as it’s not a “hi, will you be my friend” situation.\u00a0 It’s that my brain is so far up inside itself thinking about what’s next and goals and achievements that it’s hard to focus on anyone else.<\/p>\n Yep, my problem is that I’ve become a bit of a selfish asshole.\u00a0 The way I fix that?\u00a0 By committing to less and really and truly being IN when I do commit.\u00a0 If I can have more space in my life between TO DO, then I can actually enjoy these things instead of feeling obligated to do them.<\/p>\n Yes, I GET to have a great group of people in my life that want my time and attention.\u00a0 I’m not burdened by it.\u00a0 That is a very negative way to live and I’m going to leave that one behind in 2017 in the rear view mirror where it belongs.<\/p>\n If I had to pen a mission statement for this one:<\/p>\n I will do my best to be present in the situation I am in, instead of having my thoughts stray to the future.\u00a0 If I’ve committed to something, I will give it time and attention to the best of my ability.\u00a0 If I’m feeling overscheduled and overwhelemed, if I’m fumbling at life, I will take a good hard look at my goals and to do list, and I will prioritize until it feels reasonable.\u00a0 I will approach social interactions as a pleasure instead of a chore.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Food\/Scale:<\/strong><\/p>\n It’s nice to weigh a little less than I did last time this year.\u00a0 Obviously obsessively tracking my food and diet quality didn’t work.\u00a0 I seemed to only make progress when I actually let go a little and ate… dare I say… intuitively.\u00a0 I gave my body a break and trained INCREDIBLY minimally.\u00a0 Or maybe turmeric is actually the magic anti-inflammatory bullet, so obviously I’m going to continue to take that.<\/p>\n So, obviously I want to continue to take steps back towards my race weight, but I don’t honestly have much to say here that’s revolutionary.\u00a0 Just keepin’ on keepin’ on with what’s *slowly* working.<\/p>\n Self-enrichment:<\/strong><\/p>\n This is another place where my life needs focus.\u00a0 My eyes are now open to all the things I want to do and learn after a period of just being happy existing as a game developer and triathlete.\u00a0 But, in true form, I want to do and learn them all NOAW.<\/p>\n The last two years, I’ve had this giant, big, varied, scary to do list.\u00a0 I was trying to be a jack of all trades, master at none.\u00a0 I’m going to pull back and pick one focus this year:<\/p>\n 2018 is the year I focus on becoming a published author of a non-fiction book.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I’m pretty sure that’s my mission statement right there.\u00a0 Here’s the steps I envision taking next year:<\/p>\n The Lists<\/strong><\/p>\n Here’s where I break my mold of focus and intentions, because I am me, and I am not doing away with TO DO lists.\u00a0 However, I’m still trying to stick with the intention of planning LESS.\u00a0 I’m trying to keep the first list reasonable. I am also trying to leave off a bunch of fluff so I actually do the things I really need to do, like actually see a financial planner for eff’s sake.\u00a0 Focus.\u00a0 Intention.<\/p>\n The second list should be FUN!\u00a0 I will do these things as they sound pleasurable and enriching to me, not as TO DOs I need to check off.\u00a0 These need to be things I GET to do, not that I *have* to do.\u00a0 If my sewing machine stays hidden, that’s ok.\u00a0 If I post weekly recaps because I’m pouring my time and energy into my book, that’s totally acceptable.\u00a0 They are here simply to remind myself there are better ways to spend free time rather than Netflix and dorking on social media on my phone.<\/p>\n Now that this is done, we can do smaller, bite size projects.\u00a0 After a break, that is…<\/em><\/p>\n Adulting List:<\/p>\n Yep, a lot of this is carryover from this year that didn’t get done.\u00a0 Still want to do them.\u00a0 Will try again.<\/p>\n Mostly take the year off adulting because HOLY HELL we adulted pretty hard last year with house projects.\u00a0\u00a0Actually taking January ENTIRELY off any sort of TO DOs minus the normal cooking, keeping the house to the point where the cleaning service can do their thing, and laundry.\u00a0 I need a friggin break.<\/p>\n Fun List:<\/p>\n 2018.\u00a0 Let’s do this.\u00a0 But not too much of this.\u00a0 Because it’s the year of LESS.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/adjustedreality.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Feb6-2.jpg\")
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