Baldwin Park 2011 Pre-Race Report, aka The Point Where it All Comes Together

There is a point in our lives - often, multiple points - where everything that we've experienced lends us wisdom on some level and life just starts to click.  Situations we'd have found insufferable mere months prior seem to work out easily; solutions to problems we'd long dismissed irresolute appear, seemingly out of thin air.  Resolve we never knew we possessed suddenly strengthens us to tackle additional challenges and adventures.

This week has brought me there - to the point where it all comes together.  

In 2008, I did the Baldwin Park triathlon as a comeback race after a disappointing finish at St. Anthony's and a DQ at Florida Half Ironman (all but 4.3 miles.)  I spent a month on the trainer, doing stomp sets and high-interval spinning.  I learned (and actually FELT) how nutrition on non-race weeks and days factored into the picture.  And I finished the race with the fastest time I'd completed a sprint course up until that day.

I did no triathlons in 2009.  I took a hiatus and didn't return to multisport until summer 2010, when I'd resolved to keep my cancer treatments from hindering my fitness.

So tomorrow I return to triathlon for 2011, after a year of virtually nonstop PRs in 2010.  My goal for this race is to beat not only my course record at Baldwin Park but also my all-time sprint record.  But, either way, I'm continuing to learn to push myself really hard at short races, to really attack. 

Every race I have a keyword or set of keywords that fuel me during the race.  For Miami Man, it was I'm in Miami, Bitch.  For the OUC Half Marathon, it was pain cave.  For Battle at Fort DeSoto, it was balls out.  For the Mardi Gras Marathon, it was Team MAJ. Tomorrow I am debuting a new keyword: ATTACK.

Let's do this, Brutus.