Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful. ~ Mark Victor Hansen

So it’s been six weeks since I wrote about goal setting, six weeks since I published my own goals. It’s been an interesting six weeks. Here’s a progress report:

Goal 1: Drop 20 pounds by race day.
I have dropped a few pounds, about 5…enough to know that I should just keep on going. It’s always a balancing act. Eat too little and I don’t train well. Eat too much and I lose nothing. So I keep on with this goal.

Goal 2: Rehab my back and slowly increase my running time. My back is fully recovered! Yay! But I hit a snag on this one. A couple weeks ago I somehow injured my left knee by hyper extending it. It is still very sore, and although I have had a few good runs, it’s mostly still torture. So I modify this goal to include rehabbing my knee and continuing to work on getting the run under control.

Goal 3: Slowly expand my training time per week and complete 1-2 races.
This is a new goal and the pace of rehab will determine my efforts here. I start swimming this week and thus far the riding has been great, so my race(s) may include an aqua bike if my knee is still sore and/or a 5K or super sprint triathlon if my knee heals. Either way I know the warm up races and extra training are necessary right now.


I check in with you now because we are one-third done and there are now 12 weeks remaining before the race. It’s really time to get serious about this idea if you are going to. You need to start practicing each event at least once and ideally twice per week. You need to be sure you are adding more time per week to your workouts. You need to focus on improving your cardio fitness and strength. Companions to this added training are extra hours of sleep and healthy eating. Too much play and too much crazy eating will eventually undermine even your best efforts.

In the end we all set goals and work to achieve them. Sometimes we are successful. Sometimes we need to revamp our goals to reflect changing priorities or changing reality. A setback is only failure if you let it be so. We all experience setbacks and make mistakes. It’s what you do next that says everything about you.

It’s time to take stock, reset your priorities, deal with your setbacks, and make some new measureable goals for the next six weeks.

I believe that if life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade... And try to find somebody whose life has given them vodka, and have a party. ~Ron White

Sleep, eat well, stretch, hydrate, train safely.
Safe journey. Wind at your back.