The great thing about triathlon and triathletes is that I’ve never met such a driven, motivated, encouraging and supportive group of people. Your training partners are the ones who remind you of your goals and encourage you when sessions get tough. These are people with similar aspirations.
Share your goals with these people. Tell those who you think will want to help you and see you succeed. Choose those people you need to help- because a strong support network is essential.
I’ve heard it said that if you can write a goal down, then you can achieve it. Writing it down can be scary, but if you’re too scared to commit it to paper you’ll probably be too scared to really go after it. I have mine by my bedside to read last thing at night and when I first wake up…
My goals for 2009 in terms of performance are;
To finish in the top 10 in Hawaii (11th in 2008)
To finish an Ironman in under 9 hours. (PR is 9:00 and 55 seconds)
To run a sub 3 hour Ironman marathon. (PR is 3:03)
Podium in every Ironman this year. YIPPEE Done in 2 out of 3 so far, NZ and China, not Roth.
To win another Ironman this year. YIPPEE Done in China.
These performance goals are really important to me, because they all lead to one thing…having a successful career as a Professional Triathlete. It’s become increasingly important to me to make this career financially viable. It would be a BIG VICTORY for me.
I’ve been competing Professionally since mid 2004, full time since mid 2006. When I first started racing Professionally I didn’t do it for the money. I didn’t really believe I would be or could win races. I didn’t think I was good enough. When I finished 9th in Forster, at Ironman Australia in 2004 with a 9 hour 55 minutes, the decision to race as a Pro was more of a logical progression. The rationale was that finishing in the top 10 I could have earned money and had a free entry. Triathlon is a very expensive hobby as an age grouper and I just thought racing Pro would save me money- not really ever make me money. So for the first few years I worked full and then gradually part time whilst racing Pro.
Trying to work, train and race at the elite level is a hard road. It’s one that most triathletes have to start out on. Most of us end up having to decide whether to make the JUMP? Whether to train and race full time and take the financial risk.
In 2006 I decided to JUMP!! Just do it! I decided I wasn’t getting any younger, and did I want to live my life wondering “what if”?
“Could I have made it?” I had lots of top 10 Ironman finishes but I wasn’t a threat to win.
Up until that point my prize money had just about covered my costs of getting to races- that was it! Time and money constraints meant that I didn’t race very often, and I wasn’t really progressing- I had hit a plateau. I had very few sponsors and I was supported financially by my husband.
The financial year of 2008/09 has been the first year as a triathlete that I can say that I have made some money. Not much, but for the first time I wasn’t embarrassed showing my figures to the accountant. It’s a BIG thing for me. It’s the overriding goal- the one that stands atop all others. I want to be a financially viable business- independence. And now that I can see that it can be done it drives me forward. It motivates me to keep training and racing, and know that it can be done. Success breeds success, and I want to keep it rolling and the momentum going.
It’s a very exciting time for me…
This is a great opportunity to thank some people who have helped me in the beginning and along the way-you all believed in me when perhaps even I didn’t. These are a lot of “behind he scenes” people who weren’t necessarily sponsors, but were kind enough to help me…
Steve Firth, Inner City Cycles, Clarence Street Cyclery, vale David Morris of Supercraft tools, John Hill of High5/Hillbillies coaching, John Mergler, Daryl Phillips of Performance Health Newport, The Berckelmans, The Corbishleys, Jacqui and Gordon at Hypo2 and husband and coach Kristian Manietta. I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone. And lastly to all of my training partners. I hope I also helped you in some way too.
In fact, I probably would have never started triathlon without his persuasion. I‘m happy to follow his lead- most of the time- quizzing him now and then as to the why’s- if the answer makes sense, then all is good. When we’re training it’s a working relationship. There’s no kissing over the lane-rope 
please wait a tick 
