A rationale for hallucination

My rationale for hallucination

I have a goal - to finish the 2009 US Open of Triathlon under 2:00.

Go ahead…

Laugh at me, mock me, scorn me, criticize, cheer me on…do whatever you need to do.

I finished the Open in 2008 in 2:29:22, no, that is not near to 2:00, it’s not even close. So what is my reasoning in setting the goal that I have?

1st reason: Read the quote above by Michelangelo… I don’t remember when or where, but I do know I heard that from my grandmother, a woman who was swimming or walking an hour everyday well into her 80’s before the bastard of pancreatic cancer took her prematurely in 2006.

Point being, I may break 2:00, I may not. However, if I do not set it as my goal, I will most certainly reduce my chances of doing as well as I would with such a lofty goal and fall guilty of achieving a lesser goal questionably worthy of celebrating.

2nd reason: This one takes a little longer to explain and it will sound rather like a bad excuse, but here it is…

• My splits at the 2008 Open were as follows:
o Swim 33:01 (2:12 per 100m)
o T1 1:54
o Bike 1:07:38 (22.05 mph)
o T2 1:27
o Run 45:24 (7:18 per mile)
• As for the swim split, I had not actually swam for the 6 weeks leading up to the race, certainly I can do better this year with a regular schedule and the help of the coach I have picked up since last October.
• As for the bike split, I began riding a road bike in January 2008, again with no regular schedule, and had been commuting upwards of 50 miles a day, 2-3 days a week, up to and including the week of the race. Certainly I can do better with a schedule and a true taper.
• As for the run split, just like the swim split, I had not run for the 6 weeks leading up to the race, and in fact so shocked my system that I suffered a rash of plantar fasciitis in the days following. This year I plan on actually running in the weeks preceding race day, once again following an actually training schedule.

Excuses aside, my plan for a sub 2:00 looks as follows:
• 20:00 swim
• 60:00 bike
• 40:00 run

Actually, that’s my original plan, transitions absorbed somewhere in there.

Thought out a little more since training has begun this year, it’s starting to look more like this:
• 21:00 swim (1:24 per 100m)
• 1:00 T1
• 61:00 bike (24.44 mph)
• 1:00 T2
• 36:00 run (5:47 per mile)

So there it is, or at least there part of it is. I will update as necessary with progress or changes in the distribution of time, but the goal will remain constant at 2:00.

P.