Goal Setting Beyond What’s Relative

after earning my 70.3 car decal

I’ve had my 140.6 sticker on the back of my car for almost two years. I still remember the day I smooshed it on my back window…. leaving the sticker on my driver’s seat early in the morning… thinking about it when the run was so tough… and finally, in complete dark, wobbling to the back of the car to finally make it official.

I haven’t thought of it much since then.

Until today, when a guy at a red light yelled over to me asking which race I had done. We chatted races for a moment and he mentioned he was training for a Double Iron in Tampa.

We drove off and my mind immediately began racing. “Could I do a Double Iron?” I wondered. You can call it dangerous or you can call it ambitious but most of my endurance accomplishments have come from checking one box and asking myself if I could do the next.

Lately I’ve had thoughts in the back of my head that my training is extreme, that competing in smaller races would impact my life so much less, that it’s too hard to squeeze in the training and maybe I shouldn’t do another Ironman for a while.

Other than fellow bloggers, I don’t have any friends training for an Ironman or any other distance event. It’s just not the normal here. So I take in the chatter and consider a life less extreme.

Until I casually hear a stranger is competing a Double Iron.

I am loving training. Long workouts are my bliss and even with sweating for several hours most days, I feel balanced and strong. And as each day passes I am more and more excited for the main event- for a full day where my training pays off and I swim, bike and run to another oh-so-good finish.

I am challenging myself to keep my goals from being relative to those around me or to what’s my normal. I want to think outside the box… to compete in distances that challenge me and to do things I enjoy, regardless of how crazy they may seem.

What goals are you working toward that aren’t very relative?

Tagged as: goals, training