Analysis girl’s Look at B2B

The problem is, when you judge every accomplishment relative to your own accomplishments, you can never have an outstanding accomplishment. Never. By definition. “I did it, so it must not be that hard.”

I could consider my achievement of an ironman finish relative to the general population. I am one of few people (say 65,000 – 25 IM brand races with 2200 people each, plus non IM brand races.) who this year will complete an Ironman. Out of a world population of 6.9 billion, I am definitely one of the few. I can look at my performance relative to the field. I was mid-pack. Both in my AG (9/16) and overall amongst women 54/103. In my AG, I was 7th on the swim, 9th on the bike, and 6th on the run.

But is that helpful? Was the race faster than most? Where was I on the bell curve of times in each respective discipline? Were others “racing” or “doing” this race? Was I racing or doing?

Well, let’s find out! The overall winner among females finished in 10:16:09. The last female finisher came in at 16:56:19. The cutoff is 17 hours. The histogram of finishing times has me finishing right where that big peak is. In fact, each discipline shows me finishing in the middle of the pack, with the bike + T1 of 7 hours on the dot putting me just a little behind the curve. The fastest female time was just over an hour slower than the time put in by a pro at IM FL. So I’d say she was racing.


My main goal was to finish, and finish feeling good. I did. I ran 4 days after the race, and felt 90%. I was not racing, I was doing. The secondary time goals I had were to break 14 hours, and if things went well to break 13:30. And if it went really, really well, I’d get under 13 hours. But since I had no idea what I was in for, these goals were like imaginary numbers. I worried before the race, because I missed 29% of my workouts in the 12 weeks leading up to the race. Here’s a pic of my log. See all the crossed out red entries? Yeah, I didn’t do those workouts. I missed more than 50% of my swim workouts. Ooops. And the last 5 weeks were worse than average, I skipped 16 workouts of 40, or 40% of the workouts. Given that the last two weeks are taper weeks with reduced workouts anyway, this pretty much sucketh. I still have a lesson to learn about consistency. I think the solution might involve waking up earlier. That, or becoming unemployed and a hermit.

In the end, the test was easier than I anticipated. I waited patiently for the hammer to fall, but it didn’t.

I have to decide on my own whether this is an accomplishment to be proud of, or just a check mark, or a failure. And that’s ok. For me, the race was a success. There is more to an achievement than a relative place or finishing time; there’s the sense of satisfaction in the culmination of efforts, even inconsistent efforts, over a long period of time. Turning to face a challenge, a piece of the unknown and standing tall. Maybe leaning into the wind, even, like Red Spicer. Repeatedly having left the comfort of couch and warm bed and dinner table to prepare. Having started the race with hope but no expectation.