“I am not as awesome as I think I am.”

This is the thought I had around the 70 mile mark during the cycling portion of my season ending race. Man, did I ever suffer. My training leading up to the event told me that I

would have a record day. I did, but I expected so much more.

I always do.

A few weeks before the event, I went running with my good friend Matt Marriott. Matt asked what I thought my bike split would be. I told him what my training had told me and I gave him an awesome sounding split. I really thought I’d pull it off. As it turned out, the projected split was a gross over estimation.

The moral of my story is this – I need to be more realistic about my race day estimates. Do you ever mull over an events result from previous years as you approach the event for the coming year? I do. In fact, if Milliseconds tracked my

computer’s I.P. address they’d see that I stare at results more then I train. I often find myself comparing myself to the top dogs with the false hope that I could pull off a result somewhere near their previous result. I’m often humbled. Maybe I should get off of the computer and on to the bike more often.

Before an event, my lovely wife Glenna, always asks me my projected splits. In our six years of marriage, she’s learned a lesson about my optimism; that it often doesn’t turn out like I dream. As a spectator, she has suffered just as much pain as I did in those early triathlons. She has watched many projected times come and go. There has even been a time or two where she’s waited HOURS beyond what I thought. Somehow, where still married. She quickly wised up and now asks for two predictions – what I think my splits will be (i.e. dreams) and a more realistic time. I call the latter the “worst case scenario.” She calls it “Alex’s likely time.” Glenna is a happier spectator these days.

So, how can I be more honest with myself? I guess the fun of the sport is that we can try to hit these dream splits. I’ll enjoy my pre-race inflated results. However, I’ll try to keep them to myself in the future.

Yours in Tri,

Alex McKinley