Race Goals & Other Thoughts for New Racers

[Eden]

..... It's nice to have a good balance. Or make pain look like a smile.

Oh so true - everyone keeps saying you must have been having fun you are smiling about the attached photo - Its the top of a 3K climb after I had been battling to lose the least amount of time possible so definitely not a smile, but I'm smiling now and it was fun no matter how hard that moment was.

But this thread is about goals isn't it. I think I need to seriously think about setting some more. This is my first year racing and I started the season with little idea of what my expectations should be. My goals for the beginning of the year were pretty simple - see if I could stay with the pack and stay up. I've been quite suprised to find myself doing well so now I feel like I need to shift my thinking to less general goals and how to achieve them.

I still just have a lot of nebulous thoughts at this point. Like, OK now I know I can make it to the end of a race with the pack - what I need to learn now is how to set myself (or my team mate) up for a successful sprint. This may be the hardest one for me and at least some of it is mental - I still get to the end of a race suprised to have made it so it doesn't make me much of a finisher. I'm hoping the Thursday night training series will help with me some with strategy and confidence.
I also want to improve my climbing. I'm the right build for it at 5' even, 103 lbs, but I have a lot to learn about technique and am still building the strength to climb fast. At least here I have a solid goal - I've done the Mt. Baker Hillclimb (24.5 miles 4,300 feet) twice now. It gives me a baseline and something to strive for. This time the goal is to go under two hours (I was 2:08 last year)
Shall I talk about TT'ing..... anyway I could ramble on. I'm thinking that maybe I should look into some form of coaching. It would likely give me more focus and feedback and a much better training regimen, but the question is to do it sooner or later. I'm still at the point where I feel like I should see how this first season goes for me, then get more serious about it, but then the other little voice says don't waste any time girly you're not getting any younger...