Triathlon at Retirement

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

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

It is so great to have a fitness tracker and get objective feedback on the workout, making sure I train on target.  I have a Garmin Forerunner 735X which I am very pleased with. It has enough battery power to run GPS for a whole day which saves me from carrying a smartphone. My Garmin can also measure swim distance. I have noticed that the recorded running distance often appears to be slightly short. I previously used a Fitbit, which also was great. The Garmin records shorter distances in comparison to the Fitbit on the same tracks. This has to do with how distance is measured by the tracker.  The Fitbit used my estimated stride length, which I had calibrated on a measured course. The backside of that was when I got faster and my strides longer, the Fitbit recorded a marginally shorter distance! Garmin use a GPS grid and interpolates distance between points. I think this is where the discrepancy starts, if the track has many curves, the grid has a tendency to straighten the corners. La

It is now time to plan for the 2021 competition season. This is a good idea for both the more serious competitors and the beginners.  I go to the competition and events calendars and search for competitions I like to do. Note that the Ironman events are on a separate website.  I type up all potential events on a spreadsheet with dates and location. From there I choose the key competitions, for example a championship, and this year I may try a half Ironman. These will be the focus, and the other events will serve as preparation. By making a plan, I ensure I get adequate training and rest before major competitions which helps performance on the day. I also plan travel dates and vacations away from home with the competition schedule in mind.  Here in Texas, the season opens already in March and I am signing up to a sprint to get an early start. A few competitions really help in sharpening up routines and speed. I do not want to be flustered on an important competition, best to have a few