Going for first
Setting my goals for this year was easy--all I had to do was pick up last year's list and change the "8" into a "9". First on my list was relocating my sense of humor. That didn't happen. I was mostly aiming to lose some of the sentimentality that I'd been carrying around since I had Axel. That was a doomed effort: if not worse, I'm no more thick-skinned at the end of 08 than I was at the beginning.
Next on my list were training goals--specific times for certain events, and a blanket-clause "first place" for everything else. Of course, I didn't meet all of those goals, though I did manage some second places.
Last on my list was finishing my dissertation, which hardly counts, because it's been on my list for a couple of years running.
This year, I'm simply reversing the order. First up is finishing the dissertation; second, going for first in my races; third, hardening the eff up. Conveniently, I'm already a portion of the way there, having gotten first in my age group in a local, extremely non-competitive 10K. The competition was further weeded out by the gale force winds and dumping rain, but I'll take it. Mychal got me new racing flats, so I also managed to take 2 minutes off my personal best, the same amount I took off a half-marathon two weeks earlier. (I'm not sure what that signifies, mathematically.)
Finishing the dissertation really means to me that I have to prioritize it over everything else (excepting, of course, a certain tow-head). In other words, training has been coming last while I bang(ed) out my final chapters. It's working--I'm most of the way through the damn thing, but I haven't biked once this year (!), and I haven't even maintained a weekly presence in the pool. This month that will be put to an even more extreme test--we'll all be in Ukraine, where snow covers the ground and the mercury hovers around 30ยบ and the Laney pool is a few thousand miles away.
It'll be difficult to meet my third goal here--htfu, that is, because this trip is steeped in all sorts of sentimentalities. I haven't been back to Ukraine since I spent a year there in 1990; we're going now to "make up" for the trip that was supposed to happen the fall Axel was born; we'll all be here together, the first visit to Eastern Europe for both Mychal and Axel.
Next on my list were training goals--specific times for certain events, and a blanket-clause "first place" for everything else. Of course, I didn't meet all of those goals, though I did manage some second places.
Last on my list was finishing my dissertation, which hardly counts, because it's been on my list for a couple of years running.
This year, I'm simply reversing the order. First up is finishing the dissertation; second, going for first in my races; third, hardening the eff up. Conveniently, I'm already a portion of the way there, having gotten first in my age group in a local, extremely non-competitive 10K. The competition was further weeded out by the gale force winds and dumping rain, but I'll take it. Mychal got me new racing flats, so I also managed to take 2 minutes off my personal best, the same amount I took off a half-marathon two weeks earlier. (I'm not sure what that signifies, mathematically.)
Finishing the dissertation really means to me that I have to prioritize it over everything else (excepting, of course, a certain tow-head). In other words, training has been coming last while I bang(ed) out my final chapters. It's working--I'm most of the way through the damn thing, but I haven't biked once this year (!), and I haven't even maintained a weekly presence in the pool. This month that will be put to an even more extreme test--we'll all be in Ukraine, where snow covers the ground and the mercury hovers around 30ยบ and the Laney pool is a few thousand miles away.
It'll be difficult to meet my third goal here--htfu, that is, because this trip is steeped in all sorts of sentimentalities. I haven't been back to Ukraine since I spent a year there in 1990; we're going now to "make up" for the trip that was supposed to happen the fall Axel was born; we'll all be here together, the first visit to Eastern Europe for both Mychal and Axel.
posted by aelis at 10:03 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home