In December 2012, I sent friends my rough race goals for the next year. The list was not short.
I wanted to qualify for the 2014 world championships in sprint or Olympic-distance triathlon. I wanted to qualify for Boston by running the New Jersey Marathon in about 2:45 to 2:50. I wanted to finish the Leadville 100, run another fifty-mile race in under eight hours, complete two half Ironmans in under five hours, and find a swimming race longer than four miles.
This was a few weeks after Shutterstock went public. The company had more than 20 million images and had completed more than 250 million downloads. I was Director of WebOps and IT, and there was plenty going on at work.
I still thought this race schedule looked like a good idea.
The goals were detailed because that is how I usually planned training. In triathlon, swimming was my clear weakness. I was already a strong runner and cyclist, but I thought I needed a 23-minute 1,500-meter open-water swim to be competitive at the level I wanted. For Boston, I did not just want to get under the qualifying time. I wanted to be well under it. Even the second fifty-mile race had an exact target.
The long swim was less specific. I had completed the 2.4-mile swim in an Ironman, and I wanted to try something over four miles. I had not picked the event. I had also not worked out how a long open-water swim would fit beside marathon training, two half Ironmans, and Leadville.
My friends gave me the expected responses. One wanted to get through a 5K before joining a twenty-mile training run. Another said a 1.2-mile swim might as well be a thousand miles. I told him the cutoff was probably slow enough to breaststroke it and invited everyone to Boulder anyway. In the email, I called it a Colorado triathlon party.
I had already registered for the Boulder 70.3. The Leadville Marathon was likely, and the Leadville 100 was definite. I did not expect anyone to run the whole hundred miles with me, but I was looking for people willing to pace sections of it.
Around the same time, I was helping a friend start running. My advice to her was much more conservative than my plan for myself.
I suggested beginning with one to three miles at a pace she could hold without walking. From there, build toward eight to ten total miles a week. Add an easy longer run and a controlled tempo run. Work up to about fifteen miles per week, then find a level she could maintain. Stretch, watch for tight muscles, replace worn shoes, run with other people, and have fun.
I also recommended a GPS watch. I liked seeing current pace, the previous mile, and saved splits. The numbers made progress easier to see. A phone could do some of that, but I hated carrying mine while running. It was large, distracting, and might even ring. I complained about that in an email sent from my iPhone.
I knew a new runner needed a gradual plan that fit normal life. When I made my own plan, I was much more willing to stack several difficult goals on top of each other.
At that point, these were goals, not results. I had not qualified for Boston or the triathlon world championships. I had not finished Leadville. I had not found the long swim or broken five hours in the half Ironman. The calendar was not fully settled either.
What I did have was a list, a few registrations, and the start of a spreadsheet. I was excited about all of it, even if the amount of training required was a little ridiculous.
I ended the email by asking if anybody wanted to do the training schedule with me. That part was serious. Big plans were always more fun when other people came along.