Triathlon at Retirement

This was a really great race weekend. On Saturday, the Rookie Sprint, a slightly shortened course with only 300m open water swim and a 2 mile run, while the bike leg was 14 miles. On Sunday, Quarter and Half Distance of the ironman lengths. I was intending to do the sprint as I have been polishing my speed for the Sprint World Championships in Bermuda in October, but as the championships got cancelled due to corona, I decided to do the quarter distance at Kerrville instead. After all, I am no rookie anymore, and I am in my home town, right? The weekend came in with a cool front, which in September in the Texas hill country, is good news. I looked at the rookie race, and it was a glorious day, perfect temperatures, beautiful location and a flat course. Swim was in the Guadalupe river. The competition was big and well organized, I think about 1800 participants. Swim Exit Being a home competition, I definitely felt pressure to do well. I started to worry weeks in advance. Aches and pains

I have completed two more triathlon competitions; September 5, a sprint at Cane Island, Katy TX, place 2 and September 12, a sprint at Rose City, Tyler TX, place 1. Both competitions went well. I  usually  have a feeling that I exhaust myself more than other people, both on training and on races. For example, sometimes competitors talk to me during races, saying things like "looking good", or "go girl". This happened again during my last race. There is no way I have enough spare breath to talk during a race. But I don't know how other people really feel. My Garmin smartwatch gives me a score on aerobic training effect after each workout  on a 0 to 5 scale that accounts for my personal fitness level and training habits. Now, I can get some sort of measure of my suffering. According to Garmin: 5.0 Overreaching 4.0-4.9 Highly Impacting 3.0-3.9 Impacting 2.0-2.9 Maintaining On my last triathlon competition, my bike ride was registered at 4.3 aerobic impact with an a

I have to confess, I look at Strava way too much. What really has my attention are the "segments" where my time is compared to other people. A big incentive is to appear on the list of top 10 of all times. As I am older, this is rare, but then there is the top 10 in my age group, or in my training group... Not on a Strava segment.. . If you are out biking with friends  and suddenly one person sets off in a mad pace, recklessly passing parked cars and loose dogs, you can be sure it is a Strava nerd that just entered a segment. Must have that record time! Recently, I did a longer run up a mountain in a rural area and my smartwatch lost contact with the GPS for part of the run. Consequently, Strava did not credit me with the segment. Grrr, I had a really good time... I tried for hours to fiddle with the settings on Strava to see if the program could understand that I had not been teleported from halfway up the mountain to the top, but I could not change the result. Then it happe

The look of exhaustion... A few weeks ago, I was feeling more and more exhausted during, and after training. I still performed, but pain levels seemed harder. I really noticed it on the Fort Worth olympic distance triathlon, my legs were tired right at the start of the bike course. I pushed through in a businesslike manner, but it all felt hard, mechanical and uninspired. The run (10k) was not fun and it got worse along the way. After the competition, I was faint. At the time, I thought I had eaten poorly before the competition, compounded by sports drink not being offered on the run course. Not my best race. The following week I cut down on my normal training dose to about half, I wanted to recover. But training still felt harder than normal, in fact, it did not feel fun at all. Bottom was hit one day when I ran one mile at a fast pace, but just could not continue. My legs could not move at any decent pace. I checked my heart rate, max had only been 127 bpm. I regularly reach 170 bpm

An all female supersprint competition! I really enjoyed it. Distances were a little shorter, swim 500m, bike ride 10 miles and run 2.5 miles. While this was an opportunity for first timers to try triathlon, it was also a hard competition with nationally ranked athletes.  Because  it was a marginally shorter than a regular triathlon, I pushed hard all the way. I had a good race, my transitions were fast and I managed my energy well. I opted to swim without wetsuit (it was optional) and I think it was the right choice. Hardly worth the hassle to take it off for such a short course and it was going to be a very hot day. On the final run, I was head to head with one of my training friends; we battled each other for 2 miles, sometimes she was ahead, sometimes I was. Our final time was almost the same! She got first in her class, I got second place. I think this was one of my most enjoyable competitions for a long time.

Should you use socks in your shoes during triathlons? You come out of the swim barefoot, putting on socks takes time. Is it worth it? For sprint competitions, I skip the socks, every second counts. For Olympic distance and longer, I use socks because I am worried about getting blisters on the run and a bad blister can impact the performance. In cold weather, I always wear long socks in order to protect my achilleas tendons.

This 2nd of May competition was a qualifier for the draft legal sprint World Championships in Bermuda later this year. Many hopefuls, including myself traveled to Virginia trying to capture one of the coveted Team USA spots, juniors and seniors included. Perfect weather and a fine location with smooth arrangements made this draft legal sprint a great competition.   My race was in the afternoon and wind had picked up quite a bit. I thought I did a good swim, I certainly pushed myself, but it was over a minute slower than the practice swim the previous day! I don't understand why it was slower. Bike course was 4 loops with a hairpin turn-around and a few tight turns. The only long straight stretch had headwind, and the tailwind was on the technical part of the ride so it was not that much of help. I pushed myself too hard on the bike course and got very tired. Starting the run leg, I hit my head on the racking tubing standing up after putting on my shoes, and felt very confused for a

I broke my own advice. I entered a race I was not sure a could complete; Ironman 70.3 in Galveston, Texas. Well, I did complete the race, and in a decent time too! It was a good experience. I signed up last year when so many triathlons were cancelled. It looked like Ironman 70.3 Texas, was going ahead in November 2020, but it was cancelled just a few days before and moved to April 11, 2021. I had paid the hefty entry fee, I live in Texas, it is hard to get a spot at all, I am not getting any younger, so I went for it. But I was worried, so I did not share my race preparations on this blog. I did not change too much anyway; a few longer bike rides (the longest was 50 miles), a few longer swims (up to 1.5 miles) and I ran 6 miles once. ONCE. The run part on Ironman 70.3 is 13.1 miles. I am not a fan of long workouts, I don't believe it helps much, and I think I am vindicated. My total time was 6.51.28 , swim time (1.2 miles) was 46.57, bike (56 miles) 3.21.13 and I ran the half marat

When you start training, your times improve quickly at first, but then there is a plateau. If you are competitive and want to get faster, you have to work on speed. It will not happen running the same 5k track, time and time again. Same in swimming and biking, you have to do speedwork . I will here focus on how I have improved my speed in running. I reason like this: if I want to run an 8.30 mile, I have to train at 8.30 speed or faster. I just can't keep it up for 5k (3.1 miles) yet. So I use the treadmill, where I can control and force the speed. First, and very important, I need a good warm-up. I start at walking speed for 1 minute, then increase to a slow jog for a minute. After that I press the button for an increase in speed every 15 seconds. After a total of about 8 minutes, I am faster than my competition speed. How fast you force yourself, is individual, but I run a normal 5k (3.1 miles) on a triathlon a little above 9 minutes/mile. (On a regular 5k race, I am faster). So

Why do some people work out regularly and struggle through hard training while others give up? Character? Maybe, but I do not think it is the whole story. I am not a psycologist, but I will share my observations, and my own experiences. Success breeds success and failure breeds failure. Even today, at age 63, I get a sinking feeling when I train with people much better than myself. I can reason that they are younger and that I am doing FINE considering my age. But it does not work that way. Always behind, the downward spiral of self doubt, lack of motivation and lack of energy and enjoyment starts. Its not fun AND my physical ability declines. In contrast, when I am ahead, the energy flows, I can push myself much harder, I get better! Society often credits athletes with all sorts of fine personal characteristics and while there is something admirable in being a high achiever, my view is that we should not exaggerate the mental strenghts of athletes. It is mentally easy to be a winner.

Here in Texas, competition season is mostly going ahead, but with some Covid-19 restrictions. One change is that participants have been asked to do their own body markings. Competition numbers are usually placed on both arms, and on the side or back of your legs. Your age can also be displayed on the back on your calf. Have a friend do it for you, if you use a mirror,  it will come out like this!

In this post, I share some lessons I learned the hard way. I try to keep it short. You probably have heard that " y ou can achieve anything if you work hard enough at it " . This is not true and implies personal failure, suggesting a lack of effort when record results are absent.  I like to say that   if you train harder and more effectively, you will get better .  Hard and smart training is key, but a Dachshund will never beat a Greyhound and at elite level, talent is needed. What are you really? If you are more of a Dachshund, enormous training volumes will not make you a winner, but result in exhaustion, injuries, and disappointments.  For the competitive personality, what to aim for,   is to be the best you can be while maintaining good health and staying injury free .  Remember, aim one is to participate, if you are injured, everything is lost.  Do not take risks with your body, better to rest an extra day than get injured. Just by completing a triathlon race, you are d