Don't Stop Believing...

.... hold on to that feeeeeeling!

Things click right now!

I think, I am still flying high from Sunday's race... It's hard to explain, why I would still talk about this, but I think I leaped.... And that makes me happy right now.

For the longest my triathlon races looked like this: 
I tore up the swim, raced my heart out on the bike and the proceeded to flake out on the run.

I knew, I did it and I was giving myself a pass for it, since... "I am not a runner!"... Go back to race reports from last year and you probably find this exact statement. As long as I knew, that I gave my all on the swim and the bike, I just didn't care how the run went. I cared that I lost tons of places on the run all the time, I knew that I had to improve my running, if I ever want to be competitive in my age group, but you know... "I am just not a runner!".

Looking back, I was especially dissapointed in myself with my run at the Hickory Knob race last year. It was the last race of the season and I had major back issues, but once I was running and my back losened up, I still wasn't pushing it... So I sat down with Coach Katie and we talked about my off season goals and the focus would be on getting my running up to par.

While she was writing the training plan that would get me there, I was the one who actually had to do the workouts and more importantly start believing in progress. I have been running since 2008, which isn't a very long time. But some people started running yesterday and they are already better runners than I will ever be. I had to come to terms with the fact that this is going to take time and maybe, it just takes me a little longer than other people?

Without a race like Mitchell wrecking my running progress, I soon saw improvements in my runs earlier this year... In my paces and in my heart rates stats. The little progress here and there started boosting my confidence.

Then the bricks got added back into the training plan and I noticed that I had some of my best runs right after I biked for 60 or 70 miles... And I thought, maybe I should just quit running standone run races... Joking.

To make a long story short, I think I finally see all my training to start paying off. On top of that, I think this progress really had the biggest impact on my self confidence and me starting to believe that I can actually run well and fast (for me) during a race...

I can't wait to see what's in store for me...

This week's workouts have me hopeful, that I am not yet at the end of my rope. I see all the girls (ladies) racing in their 40's and 50's and still improving and I just hope that I will be lucky enough to be there with them a couple of decades down the road! ;-)