Triathlon at Retirement

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 ...

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 comp...

Strava is a program on the internet where you can upload your exercise if you have a GPS supported fitness tracker. There is a free version and a paid version with more features, but the free version is very useful. If you are regularly active, you will hear a lot about Strava, and I suggest you join. (I am not paid or supported at all by Strava, this is my personal recommendation.) Start with the free version and see if its interesting to you. My Garmin tracker automatically uploads the training to Strava when I am done. For cycling and running, there will be a map of the course covered, data from the tracker like speed and heart rate. What I find most interesting are the "segments". Individuals can map any course, short or long, and all Strava users that pass the segment will have their best time uploaded in a table for other Strava users to see (unless they opt out of this feature).  The segment leaderboards allow you to see how you stack up against other people. There are...