Pursuing Excellence, Whole Hearted

 1. Intro

As I sit here, in the cold of December with an actual case of the actual FLU, I can tell you I'm still incredibly grateful and incredibly proud for the effort and manor in which I competed this year. We'll get to the results, but I have embarked on a new journey, one that has a mental sphere of influence beyond just triathlons or competition. I've enjoyed this year more than any previously not just because of the joy of the competition, but the joy in sharing my sport. I've made real friendships and have tried to share my love of the sport and knowledge and wisdom (if there is any). As I look back, I can truly say that I have embraced my wife's mantra of "make friends, have fun".

I guess if you read this Inner Excellence book enough, it starts to rub off on you ;)

I have, to the best of my ability, adopted the mentality of "living my dream" and not being so caught up in my goals. Goals are things you can't really control (not completely). This is completely obvious when a friend finishes way ahead of you in a time trial format race just to learn that you beat THEM by 1 second. The same thing happened TO me in my last race in Key West. It's a function of who shows up really. I can pick out 100 triathletes just in my age group that I bet I could lose to on any given day. So where does that leave goal setting? Does it really matter?

Well, if I were just goal driven, 2025 would be absolutely impossible to beat. I was healthy the whole year (got the flu a week after my last race fwiw). My equipment was completely on point. I had very few missteps (sorry about the penalty in Wilmington everybody). I competed to win every time but also realized winning wasn't what was driving it. I like the lifestyle. "Living the dream". I hope to remain healthy and do that in 2026.

Ok, but let's look back and document this bananas year I had. I'm convinced everything I'm about to say overstates the year I had, but its a kick to look back.

2. Year in Review

1. All American Status: My final USAT Score for 2025 will be 109.404. That is good enough right now to be ranked 4th in the country for my age group. So this will be a check 
2. Win NCTS For AG. My total NCTS Score ended the year at 37,624. That's about 2k more points than last year. And also got me #1 overall for NCTS, all age group/advanced males. 
3. Improve my overall USAT Final Score. I went from 95.676 to 109.404. I also improved my score in every USAT sanctioned race from previous years (the only exception was Wilmington where I got a 2 min penalty. If i didn't get the penalty, I would have beat my old score for that race as well. And that was with the same bike fwiw). 
4. Be the highest ranking triathlete in my age group in the state. I think I was the highest ranking NC athlete over the age of 41 last time I checked as well fwiw. 

Stretch goals added half way through:

1. >100 USAT Score 
2. Win NCTS OA 
3. Improve on every race 
4. Top 3 ranked in country  (almost, likely 4th)
5. Podium PR 
6. Avg Place 3 

The Details:

1. 25 Triathlons, 1 Duathlon completed in 2025 (26 multi sport races):
• 23 AG Div Wins
• 22 AG Overall Wins
• 26 Top Ten OA Finishes. Lowest place was 8th (Wilmington because of penalty, would have been 5th)
• Podiums
• 7 Outright wins (including my first chase down win). Remember this?
• 4 2nd places
• 3 3rd places
• 5 4th places (fwiw)
• My average (and median) place for the year (including my 8th place in Wilmington) was 3rd
2. Highlights for me:
• First race of the year felt like a let down. I mentally couldn't compete with top 2 guys and I ended up settling for 3rd. My very next race I had my first ever chase down win. The only difference was between my ears.
• Pinehurst felt like my best race of the year. My legs felt fresh, I had gas in the tank at the end, my first 100+ score.
• Lake Norman: I always do bad in that race (I thought). I probably put my best performance together that day on a VERY difficult course. 
• It was great to finally fit Badin Lake in again after like 15 years.
• I tried 2 races in the same week. It was WAY hard.
• I didn't bring a wetsuit to a race in August and it cost me. I still had a good attitude that day though.
• Outer Banks is a great race. I really like that one. Some races are great just to be there. This is one. Extraordinary performance is a subset of extraordinary experience.
• Cocoa Tri was a great win for me, tough competitors, kept my composure.
• Key West returned! Maybe stayed too long. Don't need to see the Durt Bags that much. One night is plenty.

3. What's next?

This is always a question that bugs me. And I think I know why. Because I started to suspect that I could hunt and peck races make me look better than i am. I didn't necessarily do that on purpose in 2025, but I could easily see myself doing that in 2026. I'm not going to do that. 

So here's what's next: I'm going to focus on living my dream and see where it takes me. I'm not going to try to beat my number of podiums. I'm not going to try to beat my USAT scores. I think I could do that and it would limit me. I wouldn't branch out, take chance, enjoy this stuff. If I just did VERY early and VERY late triathlons, I could podium ALL of them and maybe win most of them, especially the ones that I know and that do not necessarily draw the same level of competition. So if in one year I say "I had more podiums, a higher percentage of them, did less and was choosier with races", that would sacrifice why i actually do this. That would sacrifice living my dream. AND my dream is to race every weekend and feel the cadence of that. It's not a lifestyle if you do it once a month 3 months a year. I'm in this for the mental, physical, spiritual benefits. Hell, I didn't even save any of my first place trophies either! I stopped wanting my 1st place AG awards the same way I stopped wanting my participation medals. Who cares? Not me. It's always fun to appreciate the day in the moment and then move on to what's next. This is already who I am. If I did something different, it just wouldn't be me.

SO, what does that mean? It means, I'm going to try to continue to have the American Dream - to PURSUE happiness. The journey and the effort is what I'll celebrate. I'll be doing the now draft legal race in Sarasota. It will be a completely different race. Good. New challenge. 

One more thing. Towards the end of the season, I started to lose this mentality a bit. I started to think about the wins. I didn't like it. It didn't change my results. It didn't make me happier. It just made me appreciate less. Whenever I get back to that, I need to re-evaluate and change my attitude. I'll always compete to win. But I need to remember, the journey and the pursuit is where my pleasure is.