Bored and Obsessed

I have been at work for several hours now and can not seem to concentrate. My mind only wants to think about training, racing, race calender, transitions, training, reading blogs, blogging about training, training, oh and how cool I think Endurance Athlete Project is. Did I mention training? I naturally levitate toward the outdoors and an active lifestyle so this office thing is hard for me. I would rather be a mountain guide, a pro athlete, or ideally a millionaire so I can do both of the above things but not need to worry about the paycheck, just the love of it.

After thinking about last night's transition clinic and watching you tube videos, in my mind I have how I want to set up my area. See my graphic illustration below.

The transition area for my Tri-4-fun will be standard elementary school bike racks, no order. First come first serve. I plan to have my bike pointed out. shoes laid in order of transition on my towel with my jersey between my bike shoes. Theoretically.....Run up to T1 step up on towel, dry feet, step into shoes, bend down secure Velcro and grab jersey. Put jersey on while turning toward bike. Grab bike, step out sliding helmet and glasses on. I am not sure I need gloves for a short course but if I decide tow ear them I will pre-place them in the pocket of my jersey.

Upon reaching T2, I can step out of my shoes, throw my helmet in the bag while racking my bike. Slide on running shoes, and go.

Upon my finish (under 1:40 I hope) roll everything up in my towel and toss in bag. Pick up bag, place in car, go get man food!

THOUGHTS?? ADVICE??

I am thinking like a SCUBA diver, we have a saying: plan your dive, dive your plan. In this case: plan my race, race my plan. However, it strikes me that there may be some elements similar to fighting in triathlons. When I used to compete in martial arts we always had a strategy for warming up and a strategy for the match. however, I used to impress upon my students and teammates that despite training, inevitably once you get punched in the face your plan goes out the window.

Not that I expect to get punched in the face, but I am sure that once adrenaline and fatigue are battling, I won't remember my plan. I will remember the man food part though.

On another note, I have been doing a lot of reading lately and am re-thinking next year's race season. I had planned to do a series of sprint distance races, but I was reading about how that is really better suited for those with a lot of fast twitch muscle. I have never really been able to be very fast, however I have had a history of being good at building endurance (of course I know even for longer events I need both). So I thought to myself that I might splint my time between the sprints and the olympic distance races in that same race series. Today, I read an interview with Lance ( I know him like that, no need for a last name where he spoke about how he did not want to compete in the olympic distance because of the speed some of those athletes can move. This makes me think is olympic too fast for me too. Of course, I am not racing in the elite wave, and I do not by any means plan to win as an age grouper. However, I do want to at least be competitive even if only as a clydesdale. If I compete in 6 races and DFL in all 6 it won't be very encouraging for me to continue. It may be closer to depressing.

I guess it is about time to get back to work or take lunch. I hope my boss isn't a lurking follower just to see if I post at work.