Somebody said a while ago that racing is just an excuse to train, and I think that’s generally true, but the today i came to a different realiziation. It seems like sometimes racing is the thing that most often stops me from training. I can go through a long season and be really happy with it, but then when I get closer to the race I get stressed out about my time and my performance suffers. Once this even led to me missing a race completely because I couldn’t get myself to train for the four weeks leading up to it. Sometimes I think that I would be better off if I wasn’t actually training for any specific event, but just training for my own enjoyment. have you ever felt this way or ever actually tried this?
Orlando…personally i like having a specific goal to achieve. Training is part of the process but race day is like no other training day. The experience is priceless. I always learn something new after a race. And it usually has something to do with living, loving, and learning in life. So…go out there and have fun and enjoy the ride on race day. Think of how lucky we are to be able to swim, bike, and run when some unfortunate people would do anything to walk again!! Don’t let time/performance haunt you. Do ur best out there and u will have no regrets!! And even if u DNF, it will only motivate u to train harder and smarter and do better the next time!! 
Only my 2-cents!!
I used to be really intense about races in my early 20s and would live or die by the weekly results. Ten years later when I started racing again I must of had some of that residual intensity because my wife stopped coming to races, or threaten to stop, because I was never happy with the results. No race was good enough.
Marriage and children taught me to relax and enjoy the experience. Even better, having my children cheering for me on the course always helps me keep things in perspective. If you are to worried about the results of the race, then you are not concentrating on the important stuff. A friend of mine doesn’t race with a watch and I found that was very helpful for a while as well, because you don’t get wrapped up about split times.
I would not train as much if I didn’t love to compete, but I would still do a lot of running and riding.
Chad
I feel the same way. I like training for its own sake. Having a race to focus on helps give a purpose to your training (or at least it does for me), but I often train up to a race and then bag it because it’s just not that important to me.
I thought I was the only one who felt like this (I should add it to my Dirty Secrets). I agree with you - for me, racing is an excuse to train. I just did my first tri and was a little disappointed with my lack of “Holy crap! This is the best thing I have ever done” reaction. I almost liked training for it more than racing - and I consider myself a competitive person. Maybe my second race will be more addictive since I won’t be freaking out as much.
That said, I need a goal to achieve or I start making excuses for not training. I also know that I need the discipline in my life - it keeps me out of trouble