The season is over; long live the season!

Triathlon season is finally over. Originally, I'd planned to be done over a month ago, but Club Nationals was just too good to pass up. There are always opportunities for more races, including a local cross country triathlon that includes a 5 mile canoe paddle that sounded intriguing. In the end, I just decided it was time to stop for the year to focus on weight loss and building up my body for next years races.

The only problem with stopping racing cold turkey is the fact that I need goals, both short term and long, term to keep me motivated. So with triathlon season over, it's time to start road race season. These races will give me a chance to measure my progress, give me little goals to shoot for, and most importantly keep me motivated to work on the portion of triathlon I mostly dislike and am not good at.

I also know that my running will be the area most directly impacted by my weight loss. One of my anonymous readers has been absolutely right to chastise my diet over the past couple weeks. It's clear that I haven't taken my weight loss or nutritional plan very seriously. Frankly, I've been lazy, and that can't continue, especially with the season we have planned for this year.

I've been able to get myself started again with now 48 hours of solidly sticking to my plan for how I want to spend my food points in a healthy manner. I started recording my point usage this morning, and between that, getting on track with my running (I'm going to repeat week 4 of the Couch to 5k), and a little encouragement from Rach when I feel like I'm slipping, I'm going to be successful towards my goals.

Our first race of the fall is Paddy's Road Race; a 3 mile road race on 10/17. Last year, we did this race in the pouring rain, and I came away with my first sub-40 minute 3 mile race. The race was almost a month before I started the blog, so I don't have a race report. But I do have a photo from the event.

I was wet, but not cold. Blubber is an excellent insulator

I wound up at 39:46 on what felt to me to be a little bit of a hilly course. I bested that time a little over a month later at a very flat race in Plymouth, and I'm sure to beat both of those times this year.

The other race we've signed up for so far is the Lowell 1st Run. My poor performance in this 10k last year is what motivated me to lose much of the 25 pounds I've lost this year, and helped me realize I would need to train a lot harder to finish Timberman. I have a time to beat in this race as well, and with nearly 3 months to train and lose weight, I intend to smash it.

There will probably be 3 more races mixed between those two; a halloween race, a thanksgiving race (perhaps a return trip to the Feaster Five or America's Hometown 5k), and a Christmas themed race of some sort. They'll all be 3 milers or 5ks so I can use them as milestones, not big huge endurance efforts.

All of this will keep in mind that I'll be slowly starting to build miles towards our June and September 70.3 and 140.6 efforts. Running is the area that needs the most work, so it's where I'm putting the most effort. We'll be working out an off-season plan that allows me to maintain

Notes:

- It turns out my run at Club Nationals this weekend was actually my best run at any triathlon yet. I had a 3 mile run last year at Nantasket, and beat that time by almost 6 minutes. My next best was the 5k run at the Season Opener this year, and I would have come in under that time as well for a like distance.

- On the plane ride from Charlotte to Myrtle Beach on Thursday, I sat next to a triathlete who was competing in the Long Course national championship, and we talked triathlon the whole flight in. It was definitely motivating to hear him talk about the races he'd done and how excited he was to be competing in this event.

- On the way towards home during the flight from Myrtle Beach to Charlotte, I sat next to a lady reading her week 6 Weight Watchers book. We started talking and it turns out the tall man next to her was her husband who had lost 100 pounds this year through eating right and walking. He was once 350 and is now 250. And while I didn't ask his age, it was clear he was in his late 40's or early 50's, and looked a lot more comfortable than I was sitting in my cramped airline seat. He'd gone from a 3XLT to an XL shirt (he's a tall guy like myself), in just 11 months. If he can do it, I sure as heck can too.