A stockpile of recent motivators (sorry it's been a while!): The magic of race registration

Sincerest apologies for already missing so many days between posts. I figured that wouldn't happen for a few more weeks at least! We've been doing some lower level renovations in our house and our main hub of computer activities was uprooted. But we're back in action again and I have a back log of reasons to either run, swim, or bike.

I think a few weeks ago I posted about having fallen short of my last summer's goal of completing an Olympic distance triathlon (a 1.5 kilometer swim, a 40 kilometer bike, and a 10 kilometer run). Last summer I completed three sprint events, where the distances for each discipline are half of the Olympic or "international" distance (so .75 K swim, 20K bike, 5K run). I told myself I had plenty of legitimate reasons for revising my goal--training time lost due to the move, busy life with two young kids, moon not in the right position, etc.--but as I tried to fall asleep that night, I thought about that goal and how it felt to have already given up on it.

After tossing and turning for a while, I eventually made my way downstairs at 1:00 am and found myself searching www.trifind.com for area races with the "full" distance. I was simultaneously shocked, excited, and terrified to find that the Chicago Triathlon (as in THE Chicago Tri) had not yet reached its registration limit. This meant I had no reason to not sign up. Well, that is, outside of the $180 price tag. The stars all aligned. The August 28th race date would give me 7.5 weeks to kick my relatively unstructured summer training into a more challenging gear, a timetable just long enough to be realistic without stretching out so long as to risk injury. And the price, as steep as it is, would force me to make race day worth it. I filled out the form, doubted and delayed, and finally hit "submit" at 2:30 am. I am once again officially a triathlete in training. *beam*

And so, my training now has that razor sharp focus to it that only a looming deadline can give. Before committing to this race, I had no real objective other than this vague sense of "getting back in shape," without really knowing what I meant by "in shape." Did I mean I wanted to race faster than I ever had before in my 17 years of running? Or did I mean barely better than I had been a week earlier? I've found, as I'm sure many of you have also, that the vague goals are always the hardest to accomplish. If you haven't figured out what your definition for success is, you can't recognize when you've arrived. And so, even though I'm sure ideally that focus should come from within, I turn to the extrinsic motivation of free t-shirts, goodie bags, and the sweet lure of potential age group awards that all come with organized races.  Somewhere out there is a woman who can drive herself to her own highest potential without the benefit of a large overhead digital clock and hundreds of cheering roadside fans, but I am not she.

So seven short weeks from now I will rouse myself from bed around 3:30 am to drive up to Chicago and set up my transition area by 5 am, churn the waters of Lake Michigan in Montrose Harbor, speed up and down Lake Shore Drive without getting stuck in traffic, and haul what's left of me by that point across the running path. Sound awful? In some ways. But there will be 8,499 other people next to me on that morning who have all made untold sacrifices to be able to dig down into themselves and see how tough is the stuff they find. There will be thousands more lining the course, screaming their support just when I'll need it. There will be a chip on my ankle that will record times I never could have accomplished alone. And when I flop into the grass in Grant Park, shaking, panting, and swearing I'll never do this again, I'll know I earned the right to feel proud of what I've done that day. And of course I'll change my mind and start planning the next race after a hot shower and a breakfast of peach crepes. Those finishers medals will do that to you.

So those scenes and more have been my motivation on recent mile-long swims from Ohio Street Beach, 50 mile bike rides to Elwood and back, and 10 mile runs like the one I'll do tomorrow morning at Waterfall Glen. When this training cycle is over and it's time to hang up the triathlete hat and return to being a mostly-teacher and also-runner, I'll get by on the memories made on race day. And who knows what promise I'll make for next summer? I love that within any sport there's always the opportunity to strive Citius, Altius, Fortius: faster, higher, stronger. Once an athlete reaches one stepping stone, whether it's a first 5K race or a half-Ironman, there's always another winking star just out of reach, begging to be considered. And that is how we grow.