Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Something to "tri" for

Our team psychologist recently talked about the importance of setting goals. The essence of his theory is that having too many complex, specific goals creates stress, and fighting stress wastes energy, so a person should set one main goal, with some subparts, that is doable. I see the merit in this principle, even if I do tend sometimes to get bogged down in details. My ex-husband called this tendency "making everything too complicated," but he was a procrastinator par excellence, so .... Anyway, my goal for this season is to earn an age-group award given by Setup Events. To do this, I have to compete in (read, enter and finish) four triathlons in their state series. I've signed up for the first one on 3/29. I anticipate doing one in July and one in September, so that leaves a choice between events in June and October as the fourth one. Either one of those (or both) would likely require a wet suit, which I don't have. I could rent one, or buy one. This is where over-thinking comes in, as I mull the merits of having my own suit v. the expense of buying or renting. Then I have to consider how, even if , my pear dumpling body will fit into one, and if I could get out of it in T1. It might be easier to get Setup to change the rules so that only three events would qualify. From one simple goal to many tangents -- it really is all in the details.

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