Good Bye 2012 - You have been great!

Today is the 31st Dec, last day for 2012.

2012 has been a great year for me in terms of my triathlon training and racing. I have ticked off 3 of my short term goals, these being:

- Half marathon under 2 hours. I did this during the Melb marathon festival with a time of 1:58.
- Olympic Distance triathlon under 3 hours. This was ticked off at Noosa Olympic Distance with 2:52.
- Half Ironman under 6:30. This was completed on the 18th Nov 2012 with a time of 6:16.

For the 2012-2013 season, I will have one more goal to tick off which is my first full Ironman triathlon (within 17 hours).

Looking back at the last 365 days, I am happy about my progress. My swims have improved to a level which I am comfortable with. Still not the within the advanced group by a long shot (I am a realist, not delusional) but I am happy about my own progress and can see the improvements from strength, speed through to being comfortable in the open water.

My ride on the TT bike is so much better than last season and this is simply attributed to spending more time on the TT bike and in aero position. I started to use Dale as soon as I got him (July) and used it on the windtrainer consistently. He went on the roads from September onwards. This is a change from last year where I used my old road bike on the windtrainer until October and barely did any long rides on the old TT bike. This year, I felt stronger during all of my races and have barely any pain on my shoulders.

My runs have definitely improved. This is attributed from changing my shoes to minimalist form so I can feel the ground and also let my feet flex more and running the volume as per the program. Leading up to my half marathon and Shepparton, I was running 20km+ for about 6 weeks in a row which is more than my weekly runs last season. I had been turning up to do the Tuesday morning sessions too which is a change from my token 2 sessions a year previously. My runs were up to 40km a week leading up to Shepparton. I had no injuries which was the biggest relief which allowed me to run the volumes I had this year.

My weight had also come down to the lowest I had seen in about 5 years. My lightest was 56.4kg leading up to Noosa which was a 6.6kg weight loss from 63kg post Recovery Month on April 2012. I still have a way to go to get down to 55kg before mid March (currently 58kg).

Each training session and race I have done in 2012 has been great and am really happy with them all (even if some sessions are classified as bad session) - once placed in perspective, every activity and action has improved me as a triathlete and coach.

Here's to a fabulous year that was.

Can't wait for 2013 and looking forward to spending more hours training and doing more races in this lifestyle which I love.