2009 Review

Ok--this is a little overdue but I thought I'd get it out of the way tonight.

2009 was the first year since I started triathlon in 2001 where I wasn't trying to do as well as I possibly could. I have to admit that it grated on me at times. Especially when guys who have no business beating me do so. It's really hard when that happens to hang your hat on the "well I need to just chill out this year and regain my passion and then get back into it and then I'll kill you so don't get used to beating me now" excuse. I tried it once and hated it and just decided to do the best I could, even though i was way off my potential.

But I really needed to back off in 2009. After IM Canada 2008 I was totally fried. 2 IMs in 6 weeks. 5 in 45 months. all the sacrifice. In the med tent at IM Canada....I needed to chill for a year.


and so I did! I decided to train easy. Eat and drink what I wanted to. Do Sunday Fundays! Race sprints only when I wanted to. Especially try to race new races. and try something fundamentally different--and so the mountain climbing...

How did it work out? Well as I intimated above, there was a lot that really bothered me but at the end of the day i have to judge it a huge success. why? Not because of my results during 2009 (which were pretty damn good despite everything) but because I have the passion now. Because i am burning to be a very good long-course triathlete again and I'm clearly well on my way as I post this in mid January 2010!

But what of 2009 results?

OK--I raced 14 sprint/olympic triathlons. I finished in the AG money in all 14. I enjoyed 8 firsts, 5 seconds and 1 third. Of these 14 races, 9 were races I had never raced in before. I won my first Oly race and my first off-road triathlon. The most wins I had ever enjoyed in a season before were 4. Before the season started I had won 16 of 72 triathlons (22%) and after this season my career record had improved to 24/86 (28%). that's really not that shabby.

More-over, Anders and I purused our dreams and climbed some real deal mountains. In my case, Kosioucko, Rainier and Shasta and in Anders' case Whitney, shasta and Rainier and not Kozi.

I had an awesome time with my friends last year and really enjoyed backing off a bit from the IM grind.

Most importantly, I guess, is that I'm hungry again and very optimistic about my chances.

I have to declare 2009 a true success even though I was not that good of a triathlete--from a true IM perspective....but you really need to look out for me in 2010!