One more posting from the tri forum. Again, it captures my feelings about tris quite accurately.
I know I've been absent for a pretty good chunk of time and I'm sorry for my sudden departure without any explanation. The short version is I needed time away from tris and anything tri-related. The long version follows. Thanks so much for your concern through PMs and inspires. You guys rock!
All is well over here in the sense that nothing is majorly wrong, I guess. I haven't done much of anything (tri-specific, at least) since the Oly in late June. It took me a good three weeks to get back on my bike for a short ride. And after that amount of time off, it had to be short to be surviveable. Geez, it's amazing how much fitness can be lost in such a seemingly short amount of time! It's like I was back at square one.
Since then, I've only been back on the bike a couple times, with no scheduled runs or swims at all. Part of my reasoning was that I'm going back to sea level with no bike for two weeks, so whatever I build up before then will inevitably be lost. So why try, right? Yeah, not the right attitude at all, but it seemed like a sufficient justification at the time.
Anywhos, I felt (and now I know for sure) that I was still jilted by my last tri experience. I don't usually hold on to things for nearly this long so it was kind of weird to have this feeling of crappiness hover around me every time I thought of tris. I needed a positive experience but wasn't about to commit to another hellacious form of expensive torture without being absolutely sure it would do the trick of cheering me up.
And that's where volunteering changed everything. A few friends and I had signed up to volunteer for the Boulder 70.3 Ironman race held this morning a while back after we had a blast at the sprint early in the season. Although the actual volunteer experience wasn't nearly as good this time around from an organizational standpoint (some of the coordinators were absolutely infuriating and incompetent), the athletes I interacted with made getting up at 4 am well worthwhile. It was so much fun and exciting and totally restored my faith in triathlons. The positive vibe felt in transition and before the race start was what I had forgotten about tris. And I missed that. So that's why I'm posting back to the group. I miss you guys.
So yeah, I'm back, albeit slowly and probably going to work on building a base for next season or possibly a late-season race, but I'm excited to get back into things. That hasn't happened in a while. I'm also seriously considering joining the tri club out here to get in some swim workouts with instruction since I feel like that's where I need the most coached help. The bike and run I can fix on my own, I think, (that, and I'm really intimidated by the routes they do so that'll have to wait), but my swim form needs some outside assistance. And the tri club seems like the most cost-effective way to fix that.
And that's that. As always, sorry this is so long, but I figured a one-line explanation wouldn't be sufficient to explain my absence.
All is well over here in the sense that nothing is majorly wrong, I guess. I haven't done much of anything (tri-specific, at least) since the Oly in late June. It took me a good three weeks to get back on my bike for a short ride. And after that amount of time off, it had to be short to be surviveable. Geez, it's amazing how much fitness can be lost in such a seemingly short amount of time! It's like I was back at square one.
Since then, I've only been back on the bike a couple times, with no scheduled runs or swims at all. Part of my reasoning was that I'm going back to sea level with no bike for two weeks, so whatever I build up before then will inevitably be lost. So why try, right? Yeah, not the right attitude at all, but it seemed like a sufficient justification at the time.
Anywhos, I felt (and now I know for sure) that I was still jilted by my last tri experience. I don't usually hold on to things for nearly this long so it was kind of weird to have this feeling of crappiness hover around me every time I thought of tris. I needed a positive experience but wasn't about to commit to another hellacious form of expensive torture without being absolutely sure it would do the trick of cheering me up.
And that's where volunteering changed everything. A few friends and I had signed up to volunteer for the Boulder 70.3 Ironman race held this morning a while back after we had a blast at the sprint early in the season. Although the actual volunteer experience wasn't nearly as good this time around from an organizational standpoint (some of the coordinators were absolutely infuriating and incompetent), the athletes I interacted with made getting up at 4 am well worthwhile. It was so much fun and exciting and totally restored my faith in triathlons. The positive vibe felt in transition and before the race start was what I had forgotten about tris. And I missed that. So that's why I'm posting back to the group. I miss you guys.
So yeah, I'm back, albeit slowly and probably going to work on building a base for next season or possibly a late-season race, but I'm excited to get back into things. That hasn't happened in a while. I'm also seriously considering joining the tri club out here to get in some swim workouts with instruction since I feel like that's where I need the most coached help. The bike and run I can fix on my own, I think, (that, and I'm really intimidated by the routes they do so that'll have to wait), but my swim form needs some outside assistance. And the tri club seems like the most cost-effective way to fix that.
And that's that. As always, sorry this is so long, but I figured a one-line explanation wouldn't be sufficient to explain my absence.
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