credit

It has come to my attention that I should give credit where credit is due for my strides with triathlon training. Although my body is doing all the actual work this resource has helped me focus my daily workouts, and given me some great advice on securing a smart training regimen.

It is no secret, and no unorthodox method, I am simply using a plan from Triathlete magazine's Essential week-by-week-training guide ( Warner Books, copyright 2006; $19.95) written or put together by Matt Fitzgerald, with data compiled from many sources. You can pick this book up in any reputable book store, I'm sure, or online. Due to my overreaching, ambitious enthusiasm, I go straight to level 10 but there are many different levels and plans for each length of race from sprint distance to full Ironman. This book also has off-season weight training and stretching programs as well. I would love to have a coach and a physical therapist and a massage therapist and all that but for the shoe string triathlete this book gives me enough guidance to get by...

You know what the real secret is and it really isn't that big of a secret? Having your days and nights completely tuned to your training. No stress from a real job, that is, like 9-5 or whatever. Your training is your work, and you complete all the workouts as prescribed and then you go home and have plenty of time to recover, eat, sleep, do whatever you need to do. No boss telling you to do this or do that, no overtime, no "we need you to come in this weekend", etc, etc... Recovery time is the key, and I don't know many people that will tell you otherwise. You'll never get faster if you can't recover, i mean, you're body will become used to a certain level of stress if you stress it, but for signficant progression in speed, power and efficiency there is no substitute for recovery time, period, and i'm living proof. Lately ( last 5 months) I can swim, run and bike faster and more powerfully, and efficiently because right now I have the time to leave myself 14-20 hours in between my last workout of the day and the first one of the next day. Now I have also devoted an inordinate amount of time to technique drills in each discipline, sometime devoting the entire workout to focusing on efficiency, which comes from good technique (one of the things my "coach/physical therapist/nutritionist/psychologist" has taught me). Maybe I won't bike faster, but i'll learn how to pedal with more power using less energy and my legs will be stronger for the run and effectully being able to run faster.

So in, summary, quit your job, focus solely on triathlon and you will become a better, faster triathlete. I must put a couple of asterisks next to this advice; The first being natural athletic talent, which is hard to quantify, and so could be given to everyone in differing doses, and could affect performance level. Secondly, is even harder to quantify and that is one's mental make-up. Everyone, anyone can do the same set of workouts, have the same lifestyle, but still, people are unique. Depending on the race and distance, what's inside a person's brain that makes one person push oneself longer, harder, smarter in some cases than another? Is it the collective life experiences of that individual which are unlike anyone else's, unique? Contrary to what may be believed out there, triathletes are not robots. Anyone can train themselves to the fullest possible limit of their potential at any one time, but could it be that what is inside one's soul could be the defining characteristic of seperating out the many layers of athletic beings that swim, bike, run the earth?