Hope Is Not A Plan.

Merry Christmas!!!!

Christmas has come and gone.  I spent Christmas day with Wilbur, hiding in the camper dealing with some kind of stomach issues that may have stemmed from the loosening of dietary restrictions recently.  Christmas Eve was nice though.  I went to my co-organizers house for dinner and helped him get all the presents wrapped for his family gathering the following day.  He  nearly had an out of body experience when he realized that I spent Thanksgiving alone and when the pestering invites started coming I knew it was infinitely easier to relent and go be merry for an evening.  Regardless of this Christmas papery hitch in my bah-humbug giddy up, spending Christmas day nauseous and covered in hives restored my Scrooge McDuck-ness to it's full glory.  

I have very few days left at home in Texas and some of those will need to be spent doing a little work in Dallas (tomorrow and the next day).  Then I have to prepare for the long drive south to Wellington, FL.  My yearly trek to South FL inspires a multitude of emotions for me.  It is my longest trip, 4 months, and always feels like moving away.  This trip, more than any other, is the reason that I struggle to put down roots in Austin (or anywhere).  I lived there for a while thinking that it would allow me to feel more normal but instead it just meant that the big trip was in the summer instead of in the winter.  Also, now that I have a training environment that includes a variety of terrains, I am reluctant to go back to pancake flat SoFlo on any kind of permanent basis.  So with no conclusion to the internal argument, I ignore both sides and do what I always do... pack.

Florida.  Sadly, the picture will be a little different this year.

The carnage of last year has me skittish and gun shy with regards to training, especially while working.  Obviously, I am going to do it.  Training is too integral to my life and happiness to do make a different choice, but I have so many reservations.  In looking back over the last six months, wish I could sort the WHY and the HOW from the irrelevant circumstances.  I still don't feel like I understand where the mistakes were made and how much each element... work, (over?) training, endocrine issues, dietary mistakes, my sleep and travel schedules, the injuries from the three crashes... contributed to the total shut down that happened.  While I have struggled to wrap my head around it, I don't even for a moment feel like I have arrived at an answer.  I don't feel like I have learned enough from the mistakes to go forward, wiser for the experience, with a solid plan designed to avoid a repeat performance next summer.  

I even boiled up the nerve to email DW and ask for his perspective on the events of Sept and October.  I have no idea if he will respond or offer his advice but I hope so.  Regardless of anything else, he has the most continuous perspective on the events that led to the Great Duckpression 2012.  I hope he offers some advice.  If he does not, I will proceed cautiously and conservatively.  

I handle mistakes and setbacks by viewing them as learning experiences.  I find the courage to try again by identifying the mistake and coming up with a strategy that utilizes the lesson.  Hope is not a plan.  A dream is not a plan.  A plan is the only way forward that minimizes the likelihood of  repeating mistakes and maximizes the likelihood of success.  I draw the strength to keep picking myself back up from the idea that I am learning something, that I the pain of the mistake yielded a wiser, more clever approach, that falling down improves the odds that the next time will be the time you stay on your feet.

Now, I am going to Milwaukee this year.  I will be competing at the USAT AG National Championships.  I intend to arrive healthy, happy, and ready to fight.  That is a goal and a goal requires a PLAN!

Milwaukee.  Milwaukee.  Milwaukee.

That is a goal.  A goal requires a plan. 

HOPE is NOT a PLAN!!!