My fall racing season was coming up and I had suddenly lost some motivation to put in the big training hours. Coming off a huge race like Hy-Vee is actually a downer. Suddenly the bait is gone and you have to mentally move on to new things which is tough to do in a short period. Coinciding with this, the energy at work has popped lately and my mind has been engrossed by Powder7. We added two new people on the same day in early September and our sales are up 30% over last year as we head into our busiest season of the year. Amy isn’t even a coffee drinker but you’d think she’s been downing a quad pump Orange Mocha Frappuccino every morning with her buzz. I’ve felt fully immersed during the day by how we can improve our business. How can we better serve our customers? What brands can we add? Then it’s hard to tear myself away at the end of the day to hit the training session.
This experience frightens some. Am I losing the magical ‘it?’. Firstly, I know that I have more ‘it’ than ever. Secondly,
I don’t fear losing ‘it’ a few years down the road when the time comes. I try to focus on not living by inertia and instead maintain an open mind to new things that can excite and motivate me in the future.
After a couple of easier training weeks I hit it hard the weekend before Westchester Triathlon and I was back in the game. I hit a great tempo run at Highline on Sunday and it was fantastic to feel myself almost running free again. My achilles continues to heal that last little bit. Best of all, while standing on a bridge watching me swim at Hy-Vee, Amy noticed how slow my turnover was. Focusing on faster turnover brought immediate improvement and I hit 1:04 for 100m repeats on Saturday, my best yet.
Somehow I had sped up while being in a down training phase. I realized that taking a step back and putting triathlon into a definite second place focus behind work could be a good thing for the fall. I’ll back off the training a touch, race every other week for two months, enjoy it, bring the stress level down, and just focus on getting out and racing aggressively. For me the racing is definitely the fun part so I’ll be enjoying the fall season. I’m motivated for the majority of my training, especially the fast sessions but those ‘just getting in the time’ ones bore me. I’ll back off on those and see how my body responds.
I notice that the champions out there defy classic Type A vs Type B categorization. They are type A in that they are intensely focused in getting to a goal. They are Type B in that they are not high strung and can be relaxed about certain aspects of the process. Look at a start corral before a race and you’ll see that the premier guys are taking it in while other guys are stressing and in their own world.
Is backing off slightly a good long term plan? No. Success at triathlon, like other things in life, requires intense focus and dedication. It can be good though to adjust your outlook from time to time. I’ll see if a small step off the accelerator can get me to the race finish in better time.
It worked this past weekend as I won the Jarden Westchester Triathlon, my first pro victory. I had my best swim of the year, getting out of the water with the pack and within 1:30 of super swimmer John Kenney. I worked the rolling New England hills of the bike course hard and caught John at mile 18. I managed the fastest bike on the day and went on to also get the fastest run split. This is a great event that I continue to come back to. I had a terrible bike crash in ’09 and got second in ’10. A neat part is that the same lifeguards at Oakland Beach who bandaged me up in ’09 were there to welcome by back to the race this year and were very happy to see me win. Next up is Rev3 South Carolina Half Iron in two weeks!
