Well, I started this blog post about 5 times and couldn’t even figure out what title to give it.  The bottom line is that I have to change how much time I devote to training, and thinking about training.  The good news is that I was promoted at work and my new job is an exciting new challenge.  But along with this new challenge, I think that I need to focus my energy on succeeding in my new role to an extent that I have to budget my time more carefully.

One of the challenges of my personality is that I am not one for moderation.  If I row, I want to achieve at the highest level that my physiology will allow.  Working out for the sake of heath and fitness bores me to tears.  I really live for competition and half the fun is trying to figure out how to get better.  I’m genuinely struggling with the idea of setting limits on training and then “doing my best” at competition.  It sounds dangerously like phoning it in.

Obviously this is something that I am going to have to figure out for myself.

The first decision I need to make is whether or not to compete at the CRASH-Bs this Sunday.  My race prep has been hampered by the fact that 2 of the last 4 weeks I have been traveling for business and last week, I was on vacation in Aruba (I know, life is tough, isn’t it).  But now I have 5 days to competition and I’m sure I will struggle to post a respectable time.  Part of me thinks using this week to determine a doable pace and going to the race is the best idea.  Part of me wants to just blow it off since I’m pretty sure I will be no where near PB territory and it might be my slowest race ever.

Beyond this weekend, I think I need to come up with a simple, periodized approach that limits weekday workouts to 60 minutes of gym (or water) time.  I also need to find a more efficient way to log and analyze training results.  Finally, I think I need to limit my OTW racing to a couple events per year.

It will be interesting to find the balance that keeps me challenged on the erg and in the boat, and manages the time commitment more closely.