Cali Here I Come!

Last week I received an email from my friend Keri. She planned to write a post contemplating what might happen when and if she decided that intensely training for triathlon was not a top priority anymore. She asked me and a few other competitive, women triathletes we both know the following:

If and/or when the day arrives where you can no longer race competitively (for any reason: injury, burn out, something else in your life gets in the way,etc.) would you still enter races "just to finish" or just to experience it (even though there would be no chance for an award/podium finish -- no nothing but you completing the race)? In other words, would you be able to be happy just being involved even though your results would be a mere shadow of what they used to be? Or, would you rather just walk away from the sport altogether?

When I got the email I thought, Oh my....how timely. This is exactly the question I am trying to answer these days.

My drive to train and race triathlon waned little for five straight years, beginning in 2007, when I first took up the sport.  It wasn't until last spring that my drive wavered a bit, and it wasn't until late summer, when I developed a stress fracture in my foot that I really lost my drive.   I stopped working with my coach. I stopped running for 10 weeks. I took up cross and did not get on my triathlon bike or road bike for nearly three months.

With the loss of my drive came a loss of self.  Who am I if I am not that Mary--driven, consistent, and unwaveringly obsessed with training and racing?  But I didn't seriously contemplate Keri's question. My drive might be missing, but I kept the faith  it would return if I just rested a bit.
I wanted my fire back. I did not want to ponder what might be if that fire never returned.

But tomorrow I turn the calendar's page to March, and my drive for triathlon hasn't returned. Not yet, anyway.

I spent a good portion of this winter depressed--and not just a little depressed. It became increasingly obvious that my lost drive wasn't just a temporary phenomenon; I was making a life transition. I began to contemplate new goals--goals that had nothing to do with triathlon. I planned my garden for the spring and ordered seeds, flats, and grow lights. I took (am taking) classes. I read. I wondered about going back to teaching. I wrote to my friend Liz, and asked her to help me make writing my daily focus.

Meanwhile, California 70.3 stared at me, the printed words on my calendar searing and definite. One day I'd feel determined and I'd go over my next weeks of training and think, I'm going to do this. The next day I'd feel tired and unmotivated, and decide to write, read or take a nap instead of getting on the bike. I'd read about others training on blogs and Facebook and the posts of my athletes in my inbox and think, that used to be me--so jazzed and focused and determined to conquer the triathlon world. That person is gone now. Will she ever come back?

I haven't done the training to compete at California 70.3
And I could still race it. I've been swimming a great deal, and I have a backlog of biking and running that certainly would allow me to finish the race.
And that brings me to Keri's question:
Would I still enter races just to finish?

I wanted that answer to be yes.
But that's not the answer. The answer is no.

I love the journey toward a goal. I love making the plan and executing, and on "race day" -- whatever that may be, whether it be triathlon or something else, I enjoy giving it everything I have and seeing where I stand.  With some goals the "race day" is more gradual--like with a garden, or with writing. But  no matter what the race day looks like, I don't want the arrival without the journey. I've lost my drive for triathlon, at least for now,  but I have not lost my drive.

This winter the journey has been about figuring out who I am and what I'm going to do if I I'm not training. The arrival of this journey is not racing California 70.3. The arrival is going to California and NOT racing it. It will be hard to watch it--and I will watch it because I want to cheer on Ange. It will be hard to watch in the same it is hard to watch an x-lover going out with someone else. But it must be done. Worse would be to race it, and spend intimate time with the x-lover that I have rejected all winter, and don't really want.

So, what now?

I felt such relief when the decision was made, and this week I have just been relishing that relief. And I know a few things.
I know I'm going to continue swimming, and I will go to Nationals in Indianapolis in early May. I know I'm going to get my seedlings going, and tear up the front lawn this spring to make a vegetable garden. I know I'm going to continue to write, and I'm 99% sure I'm going to apply to low-residency MFA programs this fall, for entrance in the winter of 2014.

I still have triathlons on my schedule, and I may do none or all of them. The only thing I know for sure is that I won't be racing big events, like a 70.3, unless I've trained for the race, and I'm only going to train if the desire to train for something long like that comes back.