End of a Season

I hate this time of year when all your scheduled races are through and you know you need to take time off, but not completely let yourself go. After the L&C Adv. Race I took off 10 days - it was good - I think the body needed it, but since then I have had a hard time maintaining any sort of schedule.
When I don't have a race scheduled it's hard for me to keep my focus. Then the fact that it's the holidays doesn't help either - too much time is spent running around trying to finish shopping and going to programs and parties and eating poorly! :-P

So, what I want to do now is look back at this season - decide what was good about it and what could be better.

My initial pro's are doing a marathon with a lot of friends and family - that was a great pro this year! Let's see, I also really enjoyed doing the Sunflower with Amy, Scott & Scott - it was a really fun race. Then, doing the Dusk till Dawn with Amy - that was great too - I was worried about doing a night race, but it went well and now I have all the gear so I'm ready for the next one. I always like doing the Ozark Greenways Race with Don, Jonas, and John and then of course the healthy competition and camaraderie with Brooke, Tralaine, Andy, and Bob. Another good first this year was Don, Jonas, Brooke and I teaming up to do the Berryman Adventure Race - it was a really good time and we finished well! Another pro for me is starting to ride a road bike - I put in a lot of road miles this year and I think it's helped me all around. I want to carry that into 2009 for sure - into doing more group rides and duathlons (and tri-athlons, but I'll get too that later).

Then the con's - what did I learn that I can improve on for next season?? First, I did too much I think. I need to determine what races I want too do and stick too that - not add a bunch of little pidly races in that end up eating up more time, money and energy than you would think! I don't have to do EVERYTHING. I need to decide what's most important too me and focus on those events. Which leads me too my next con - SWIMMING. I didn't put enough focus on swimming this year, therefore I didn't ever compete in a Tri event. This is something I definitely want to remedy before next season!

So, what am I going to do??
1. At least 1 marathon with emphasis on breaking 4 hours (adding speedwork to my routine)
2. 1-3 Sprint Tri's (depending on how well I like them and how much my swimming improves)
3. Work more on road riding - spend time on drills, going to spinning, and just plain miles
4. 3-4 Adventure Races (adding more single track riding to my routine)
5. It may be a pipe dream, but I would like to break my 24 minute 5K PR

This list will be modified, updated as time goes I'm sure, but this is the start I needed!
So, I'm off to start on the list - heading to spinning class! :-)