When I was in the process of looking for a new job I used a great recruiter to help me refine my resume (Emily Liou). She posted this question on LinkedIn recently and it really made me wonder. I know that this is a common career question, but I don’t know that I have ever asked myself this from a triathlete’s perspective…

How do you define success? Are you clear on your own definition of what that means?

I have been doing Tri’s for about 8+ years now and I don’t win them (except for that one fluke Xterra) 😉  and I sure as hell don’t get any money from doing them. Instead, I spend countless hours and my hard earned cash to sign up and train for these events. So what exactly am I striving towards as an athlete? It’s definitely not so I can do piles of stinky laundry every weekend!

In the past I think I trained because I liked the challenge, the social aspect of being around people that I connect with, and because it kept me motivated to workout. But, recently my motivation has changed a lot (see my last post here). I think this is mostly because I am at a turning point in my life where I feel like I am as good as I will ever be physically and mentally, and I want to see what I am truly capable of. I’m sure that once we have kids I won’t have the luxury of being able to disappear for hours at a time and I don’t want to regret not taking advantage of that while I had the chance. I want to experience at least one race where I feel as though I did EVERYTHING I could to prepare myself and know that I gave it 100%.

I came 19^th out of 150(ish) in my age group at Vineman in 2015, and I think I gave that race all that I had at the time. I was really busy/stressed at my agency job and still bartending on the weekends, but I felt like that race was a success for me. I did everything I could manage at the time to do my best.

Right now my life feels really mellow in comparison to that period of my life. I only work one job that is not super stressful (right now), I commute less, get an amazing Equinox gym membership through work and am able to leave at a reasonable time every day to go and train. The stars seem aligned, and I am ready to push my limits.

So long story short…what will success at Whistler 70.3 look like? I honestly don’t know what my times will be, but IF I feel strong and prepared, and know that I gave it everything that I’ve got just this once, I will be happy! A podium spot wouldn’t suck either 🙂

And some random pictures of our week in training…

What does training success mean to you?