I learned how easy it is to put on 25 pounds during race season… 
I learnt that now I’m 55 I can still ride a bike pretty fast and run pretty fast. Unfortunately not necessarily at the same time 
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I need to train unstructured suffering. I can suffer through Mary Austin with the best of them, but when it comes to my races I lack the mentality to ‘be prepared to lose the race to win the race’.
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Goals are the cherry on top of the process sundae. Goals are great motivators but if you don’t love the process you’re going to get burned out.
This was a lesson I learned half of during Covid when I was in my best form ever and all my races got cancelled. I spent the next year chasing that form and ended up being slower, and top it off my A event had horrible weather, I completely cracked, and was just mad at everything.
This year, I’ve had much more balance, enjoyed the training process by finding ways to have fun rides while still getting quality training in (shepherding my C group at recovery pace, and easy Sunday zwift group rides with a group of friends in another state), and I was numbers wise capable of achieving my goal at my A event, when it got cancelled for weather.
This time around I wasn’t mad or disappointed like I was in 2020 / 21, I was more disappointed for everybody who showed up to support me and ‘wasted’ their weekend. And heading into the 2024 season, I’m more motivated because if I was close to my goal time last year then I’m set up to slam dunk it this year.
- Inflation + being a full time amateur cyclist sucks. I burned 277,000 calories last year and my grocery budget is WILD
I learned that you dont always fit perfectly into a TR plan.
Im a long course triathlete (mainly 70.3) and have worked through all levels of TR plans (Low, Medium, High), and none of them have felt quite right for me.
Low/Mid Volume: Too much intensity, not enough volume.
High Volume: Too many days/workouts to allow for enough recovery.
I have finally found a balance that is really working well for me, but it involves some customization: although my focus is on a 70.3 distance, I am doing the ‘FULL DISTANCE - HIGH VOLUME’ plan but eliminating the Friday easy ride and the 2nd run workout.
This brings my training down to 3x-balanced week rather than 4x. 3 Runs (workout, brick run, long run), 3 Rides (workout, brick ride, long ride), 3 Swims (not in TR). And because its the full-distance, the volume of the long ride/runs is more than making up for the 2 eliminated workouts.
A 3x balanced plan, of “high volume”, is finally allowing me to (1) get in the higher volume of longer rides/runs that I want, and (2) allow my body to recover properly by not having the 4th ride/run every week. This all boils down to: a plan that allows me to be consistent over time!