My first tri season is over. I raced 5 tris, including an olympic, three sprints, and a 70.3. Not bad for my first year. One more race to go... a marathon in ten days... and then I can really put my feet up (literally) and take some much needed time off.
As I sit here, with a painful lower back, achilles tendonitis, plantar faciitis, and something going on with my tibia - most likely posterior tibial tendonitis... I wonder, am I really cut out for this? My love is running. Biking is okay, swimming not so much. But, because of running, I have been dealing with injuries since February. And that's just this season - prior years have been riddled with injuries as well.
Sometimes I wonder if I will ever like swimming, if I will ever be good at it, if I will ever look forward to going to the pool. It seems very doubtful at this point. On one hand, I think: I hate swimming, I will never be good at it, maybe triathlon just isn't for me. But on the other hand, I think - man, if I could only swim like I can run... maybe I'll make some major gains over the winter... just imagine if I was competitive in the swim portion of triathlon... stick with it.. it will get better. Depends on the day, depends on my mood. As I said in a previous post, it is human nature to like the things we are good at. Maybe I will like it more when (if) I get better at it.
I am looking forward to next season. I have already lined up two 70.3's and a full Ironman. I certainly hope that I get better at swimming over the winter. I'm a little sad that this season is over... however I'm really looking forward to being able to take it easy for a bit, heal up my leg injuries, and hopefully be even stronger for next year. My coach told me that the entire month of December is to be spent in the pool. Literally. No biking, no running. Just 6 days a week in the pool. I guess it's one of those "make friends with the enemy" deals. Yikes. But maybe, just maybe, 6 days a week in the pool is what I need. Maybe I'll have one of those "breakthroughs" that everyone talks about that I have yet to see. Let's hope for a miracle...
Sorry for all your injuries the break away will do you good. The pool is tough and hopefully spending a nice chunk of time in it over the winter will break up your funk and hopefully you will learn to like the swim. Make the swim workouts fun, change them up, do a lot of technique work, drills. Hopefully you will have a good swim partner that can work with you so you can go through this together. Keep us posted. By the way, who is your coach?
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