Course Correction

I've always been an extrovert. It was my primary defense mechanism  when I was picked on pretty heavily as a kid (today they'd call it bullying). I've more than once been guilty of speaking before I put thought into my words. But I also have an introspective side, and I've been doing a lot of thinking about my season and something a few of my friends have mentioned to me.

When I first got into triathlon, I had just two goals; I wanted to lose some more weight, and have a way to ride my bike competitively because I wasn't fit enough for road bike racing. Somehow during the past two seasons my goals changed away from just the enjoyment of competing and training, to what I can get out of it (Sponsorship, etc). If I'm going to reach those goals I set all the way back when, I need to simply let go of everything else as a goal, and focus on just the enjoyment of being outside, doing a sport that I love.

That's not to say I can't enjoy some perks of my efforts both in terms of activity and blogging. Just last week I was able to redeem 1000 points on earndit for a $100 Bonobos gift card that I turned into 2 awesome pair of shoes. I also redeemed another 300 points for some Bulldog skin care products. If you aren't using this site, especially as a man, and you work out with a GPS or other tracking device, you can rack up some serious free stuff. And now that they've added challenges, there are even more chances for people doing high mileage training to earn some great free stuff.

And I still hope to be a member of Team Rev 3, though admittedly the competition seems to be more fierce than I had anticipated. More than 600 applicants, including a lot of amazing athletes and even the spouses of pro triathletes as we witnessed in today's announcement of Rich Allen's wife as the next member. Only 1 in 30 will make it, but if I do, I'm going to use the support I'm given to focus clearly on those original goals I set way back at the beginning of all this.