Now What?

Now that I’ve reached my goal which pushed me to train for the last 6 months – completing the Pumpkinman Sprint Triathlon, what do I do?

Leading up to the triathlon, I had a goal, a sense of urgency that got me out there and training. I was counting down the time until I had to perform and it helped to motivate me – getting me up at 4:00 in the morning to ride and walk. Now that it’s over, I’m finding some of the urgency is lacking. Add to that the unknown of the new area since we’ve moved over the weekend and my motivation is almost nil. Sure I still want to ride, still want to walk, still want to lose weight, but the urgency is gone.

I had planned on taking the week following the triathlon off anyway so it’s not that I wasn’t planning on taking a break, I’m just finding it harder to convince myself to get up and ride in the morning. I read Elizabeth Waterstraat’s column today on No Excuses (read it here) and I have to decide to remove the mental excuses and get back at it. I still have a very long ways to go to get anywhere near healthy. Sure I finished the triathlon and that is a great achievement, but there is so much more to be done.

I need to learn to swim properly, I need to work on actually being able to run, I need to work on my riding so that I can conquer the climbs without stopping to rest. I would love to be able to handle a decent century ride without being the slowest person out there. These are all things I have to work on and it’s time to start.

Part of what I need to do is to look at myself critically and decide which area to address first. I know I can work on the running, but from many of the articles I’ve read it would be a good idea to shed some more of this weight before I do that so as to help avoid injury. The convenience of a close pool was something I took for granted now that I don’t have one. I should have spent more time in the water leading up to the event than I did. This is something I’ll need to work out logistically speaking so I am going to delay it for a bit as well.

That actually leaves my favorite activity, riding. Maybe the other reasons are just excuses for me to stay with the bike rather than swimming or running, but right now I’ll let them stand. My goal for the next month is to ride at least 3 times a week. I need to identify a fairly safe route near the new house to accomplish this. If nothing else I do have Saturday and Sunday when I can ride in the daylight hours, and now that I’m living near Blue Diamond and For Apache, riding towards or even to Pahrump seems like a very doable goal.

So, now what? – Get riding, that’s what!