Off Topic Thursday: National Championships!

I realize my Off Topic Thursdays have been very athletics-focused lately but that’s been a bit part of my life lately. After my last triathlon race of the season, I thought I would be able to change topics for a little, but there’s more.

My friend Paul got it stuck in my head when that race was over that I might have qualified for National Championships. I doubted him at first, because of the small size of the field but the more I read into it, the more I kept thinking that I might have really qualified for nationals.

I was in an elevator with my mom when I checked my email and saw that I’d qualified not only for Olympic National Championships but Sprint distance as well! I guess my second-place finish at a race in June was enough to get me through for that distance. We talked it over during dinner and I realized I did want to go. My 2019 season went so much better than I could have ever imagined and I look forward to seeing what I could accomplish at the Olympic distance if I tried again.

The next step was convincing my husband. After how much money I spent on my half, I thought it would be a hard sell, but he seemed fine with it. We’ll have the expense of the hotel but I don’t plan on buying a new bike so there’s not a ton more to it than that. We talked about our house-buying and family plans and it seems to work into what we’d already agreed upon. What I thought was going to be a hard sell turned into an easy conversation. He was more concerned about how it would affect my plans of going to swim nationals in April. That’s a different post altogether.

I think the reason I’m so pumped about this is that I’ve never felt I was a good enough athlete in anything to be considered a national contender until this year. In high school, I never made State Meet for swimming and even now, I’m not qualified for Nationals. I never seem to place well in running events (until this year) and I always felt I was a middle-of-the-pack triathlete. That’s why my win in September was such a shocker. I’m still a little bit in shock and I want to ride this out because I don’t think it will last forever. Though how awesome would it be if it did?

So I plan to be back at it in March or April. I’ll use the same training plan book I used for my half. I expect a bit less time commitment requirement but I’ll expect a higher intensity from the workouts. Or at least I can expect that of myself. One more year of this intensity won’t hurt. I don’t mind the weight loss that comes with it either!

Until next time write on.

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