I've Been Thinking ...

I've been thinking ...

Uh oh. Whenever my wife or I say, "I've been thinking ..." to the other, we both know that it's a signal that some sort of surprise is coming. Maybe not a welcome one.

As in, "I've been thinking ... that we should throw away all your old skiing gear." (Her to me.)

Or, "I've been thinking ... it would be fun this winter to go hiking in the Andes." (Me to her.)

No dear. It's all right this time. I'm not planning to buy a new boat, take you bungee jumping in New Zealand or spend 5 grand on that cool audio system. Not today anyway.

I've been thinking ... about what I'm going to do differently to improve my sailing performance next year. As I wrote a few days ago I want to achieve more consistently good results -- as opposed to my somewhat patchy achievements this year. What should my target be? Sailing is a funny sport because you can only measure yourself against other sailors. Running is different. "I want to run a mile in 5:30" is a good objective -- clear, measurable. And there are training programs out there that will tell you what you need to do if you want to achieve that target. A sailing objective would be more like, "I want to come in the top 5 in my age group at national Laser Masters regattas." Problem is that the achievement of this target depends on who shows up at each particular regatta.

Paul, who commented on one of my running posts the other day, has a simple objective summed up in the name of his blog -- All American or Bust. According to his blog that means he would need to run (at his age) 2:06 in the 800 meters or 4:24 in the 1500 meters. Looking at the results of the 2005 Track and Field USA National Masters Championship those times would have placed Paul at around 5th place in his age group.

Hmmm. OK. So it seems that my sailing ambitions are roughly equivalent to achieving All American status in masters running. Wow. It sounds much better put that way.

Maybe I should change the name of my blog to be more like Paul's. He's certainly hanging it out there. All the world can see his target and read about how he's progressing towards it.

On the other hand, perhaps I should concentrate more on the process of improvement than on the end target? Process objectives rather than outcome objectives? As in, "In every start I will have clear air, be near the favored end, have a good hole to leeward and be going full speed on the line at the gun."

I've been thinking ... "Am I overthinking this?"