Michael: One Down

Younger woman’s eyes
Wander in my direction
And I am blinded.

Monday, December 20, 2018

With the postponement of the Xterra Crystal Cove trail race this last Saturday, my racing season came to an abrupt end and has given me just a little more time to reflect on my accomplishments and goals than I had wanted or anticipated.

More time than I wanted because I don’t enjoy long gaps between races as I don’t like to allow myself to get either to up or down on a past performance. I prefer to have a race pretty near on the calendar so I can tweak a training and racing plan around what’s next.

And what’s next is the challenge of running a 50 miler in under 8 hours January 12 in San Diego. That’s close enough to sharpen my focus through winter and keep me both away from too many Christmas indulgences and from basking in a pretty successful 2018.

In 2018 I ran 13 races ranging from 1 mile to a 50k. That was the plan on my first year back from the states after living in Panama for three years. Ironically, the only race where someone older finished in front of me was the State Street Mile in Santa Barbara. The irony of that is when I was in high school the mile was my forte and as a sophomore I only lost one mile race in league competition, although I also finished a disappointing 3rd in the league finals. Now I can’t even place in a mile race. That’s something I’d like to change.

But I’m not going to bend this upcoming year toward that end. This year I’m going to start with a focus on longer races. Then after that I’ll up the speed work a bit and hope that pulls me under the 5:37 I did at State Street.

But that won’t be the main focus of picking the pace up a bit in March. I’d also like to think with some intelligent training I could go back under 20 minutes in a 5k.

Even more of a delight would be to be competitive in a few more duathlons. I only ran one this year but it was by far my most enjoyable racing experience. Saddling up my old Gumby Guru tri bike was a blast. Yet another irony of the postponement of the Xterra race is that it allowed me to transfer the cost of that race to another one of their events so I’m now entered in a March duathlon. I’d like to do at least three this year.

Whether or not I can have as successful a year next year as last won’t be so much dependant on wins and losses as reaching my goal times. So many factors determine finishing place in any given race that there’s no point  worrying too much about that. If I train the way I should, do as I expect, and enjoy myself for the most part, I’ll be content.