Challenges

As incentive for December, the TGs have been given the opportunity to win TG apparel by successfully completing a personal challenge during the month. The challenge can be anything – perfect attendance at workouts, a certain number of miles done, etc. I’ve decided to not eat any ice cream until Dec. 24. I’m quite fond of ice cream, and I eat it often; but I should practice better nutrition than I do, so I figured this challenge would get me started in the right direction. I’m not giving up ice cream for the whole month, though, because it’s a family tradition to have peppermint ice cream at the holidays and I will allow myself a small portion then.

I also plan to swim 105 more 50-yard laps so I will have done 60 miles for the year. My original goal was to do 2000 laps, or 100,000 yards. Since I accomplished that on Saturday afternoon, and there are still 3½ weeks in the month, I decided to do 3 more miles. And I’d like to run 8 more miles to reach 300 miles for the year.

Then there’s the challenge of planning for next year. I don’t expect to repeat as a Setup Events age group award winner. Five events are required in 2009, and there are only three events I have any interest in doing – Smithfield (4/4), 3Sports (7/19), Patriot (9/13). A fourth possibility would be Acorn (10/4), but I don’t want my 2009 season to last as long as 2008 did. I also want to do Rocket’s Landing (5/17) and Pink Power (8/9). Entry fees for all these events will add up fast, so that’s another reason to be selective about which ones I do. Training has become a way of life for me, so maybe I’ll just train for events, and not actually compete in them.