Someone once asked me what I liked about team sports and the answer was easy: I enjoyed contributing to something where the outcome was greater than what I could achieve on my own, and I enjoyed feeling like I belonged to something; team sports offered me a tribe. Through team sports I spent years finding my voice, if you will, initially struggling with the pressure of screwing up and negatively impacting our results but eventually welcoming and wanting to be put into the game in critical moments.
Individual sports gave me a place to participate for fun, with no such pressures, and also a place to seek improvement in myself through achieving nominally better times which were not even remotely competitive with the larger field. I was content to improve by small minutes and for years I sought challenge through choosing formidable events, be they longer in distance (marathon, ironman) or challenging in terrain (hilly).
Individual sports gave me a place to participate for fun, with no such pressures, and also a place to seek improvement in myself through achieving nominally better times which were not even remotely competitive with the larger field. I was content to improve by small minutes and for years I sought challenge through choosing formidable events, be they longer in distance (marathon, ironman) or challenging in terrain (hilly).
It wasn't until the days following Ironman Wisconsin (2012) that I set a significant and specific goal time: breaking 13 h in an ironman event, and I entered a new and uncomfortable territory of working for something I did not seem to be able to attain. Was I not working hard enough or was I simply not good enough? I was repeatedly told by my coach to believe in the work was doing while simultaneously questioned by my Dad as to why I thought I could achieve some time (in a running race) which to him seemed unlikely based on x, y, or z prior results. I am both too logical to blindly trust in my coach's enthusiasm or to tune out my Dad's questions, and too optimistic to believe I was simply wasting my time.
My overarching goal for this season has been to really enjoy the process of training and to believe that I can successfully execute any individual workout exactly as intended. This was an important first step because even I, with my doggedly rational approach to things, could see how I was undermining myself by looking at workouts and immediately exclaiming: good grief, is he crazy?! My thinking was this shift in focus would allow me many opportunities to enjoy success and my hope was that I could establish the trust in my coach and myself that was going to be required to attain any very specific time goal. Come the end of summer what I think I learned was that I only trusted half as much as I needed to which still left too much on the table for full distance events (marathon, ironman).
This is not meant to say I didn't have pleasing results; on the contrary, despite not correctly executing most of my race plans, I found myself collecting Age Group awards in many of my events, which had very small fields.
Coming in to my last scheduled race of the season (Savageman) I wondered what it would be like to enter an iron distance race simply for the fun of it, without the heavy burden of several-months of preparation and expectations. Many from my training group were gearing up for Beach to Battleship and I wanted another crack at correctly executing an iron-race run plan. My coach thought I could physically do it, that we'd add one hard week of big hours to prepare for it following Savageman plus its few days of recovery, presuming I could mentally hang on. I signed up part-way through that big week of work, 18 days before the event.
My overarching goal for this season has been to really enjoy the process of training and to believe that I can successfully execute any individual workout exactly as intended. This was an important first step because even I, with my doggedly rational approach to things, could see how I was undermining myself by looking at workouts and immediately exclaiming: good grief, is he crazy?! My thinking was this shift in focus would allow me many opportunities to enjoy success and my hope was that I could establish the trust in my coach and myself that was going to be required to attain any very specific time goal. Come the end of summer what I think I learned was that I only trusted half as much as I needed to which still left too much on the table for full distance events (marathon, ironman).
This is not meant to say I didn't have pleasing results; on the contrary, despite not correctly executing most of my race plans, I found myself collecting Age Group awards in many of my events, which had very small fields.
| Event | AG | Gen | ||
| AmZof | 1/2 | 5/10 | ||
| Deadwood | 3/17 | 39/169 | ||
| CAC | 1/4 | 9/22 | ||
| Penticton | 3/10 | 20/53 | ||
This was wild and I had literally no idea what to expect. Would we recycle my race plans, maybe CAC's for the bike and Penticton's for the run? Could I be faster because this was a flat bike course, or not because I didn't fully peak-train for this specific event? When the email arrived and I read through my guidance I couldn't hide the disappointment I felt from my friends. What had I done to reduce the coaches' belief in me that my run plan had been written so? Instead of the usual very specific pace ranges, 10 sec wide and cutting down at specific mileage points, this one started out with a never-before-seen 30 sec wide pace window for the first 10 mi and then loose guidance to bring it down to just under the lower number from there, and I found myself wrestling with the fact that I was now upset for getting a plan I actually believed I could accomplish.
Race day. I experienced my first ever fun 2.4 mi swim and was happy with my current-aided time. The bike wasn't easy; the winds made maintaining a consistent power output challenging and I spent the ride literally berating myself to keep pushing for the intended ranges. That said, race day conditions were quite frankly very much easier than those found this year in Penticton and I think CAC as well. I disregarded my run plan without doing the math to see what time it predicted. In my head, I thought I needed to maintain <10:01 min/mi to PR against my open marathon time, which is what I wanted to accomplish, and I didn't think what had been written could get me there. In the end I crossed the finish line with a cumulative time of 11:23:15 and a whole bunch of confusion.
Yes, confusion. How the hell did I just cut 34 min off my prior best 112 mi bike split and come in >1 h ahead of any time I could ever have imagined? How had I run what amounted to my most comfortable marathon ever while successfully logging a new PR? How the hell did I manage to come within 2 minutes of the masters' podium, finishing 6th of a group of 68? All of a sudden I've not only achieved this hard sought after goal of 13 h but I went screaming by it so far it's taken me completely by surprise. Just what am I supposed to do with myself now?
What should my new goals be? Should I target larger events with deeper age group pools? Should I stick with flat courses? Should I only do races loaded with friends who provide encouraging support throughout the race? To this last point, the answer could very well be yes. I started triathlon in 2001 and after the '03 season took a couple-year break because it was a lonely pursuit. Even after returning to it, it remained a summer activity - to enjoy a change of pace from ice hockey - and was not something I worked for year-round, as I looked each fall to return to my hockey family and the sense of belonging they provided. And then, thanks to Ashley, I found the group at Cadence and now I have the best of situations with a supportive group of like-minded and driven athletes. I've put more out in the Cadence cycling classes than I sometimes do on my own, in the Cadence (and certainly Upper Merion USMS) group swims than I sometimes do on my own, and maybe I'm more willing to leave it all out on the race course when it feels like I'm part of a team all working toward our own highest goals. I'm thankful to be a part of this group and, what-ever my next goal may be, I hope I can be as supportive to them as they have been to me.
Race day. I experienced my first ever fun 2.4 mi swim and was happy with my current-aided time. The bike wasn't easy; the winds made maintaining a consistent power output challenging and I spent the ride literally berating myself to keep pushing for the intended ranges. That said, race day conditions were quite frankly very much easier than those found this year in Penticton and I think CAC as well. I disregarded my run plan without doing the math to see what time it predicted. In my head, I thought I needed to maintain <10:01 min/mi to PR against my open marathon time, which is what I wanted to accomplish, and I didn't think what had been written could get me there. In the end I crossed the finish line with a cumulative time of 11:23:15 and a whole bunch of confusion.
Yes, confusion. How the hell did I just cut 34 min off my prior best 112 mi bike split and come in >1 h ahead of any time I could ever have imagined? How had I run what amounted to my most comfortable marathon ever while successfully logging a new PR? How the hell did I manage to come within 2 minutes of the masters' podium, finishing 6th of a group of 68? All of a sudden I've not only achieved this hard sought after goal of 13 h but I went screaming by it so far it's taken me completely by surprise. Just what am I supposed to do with myself now?
| Prior Best | B2B | Event | AG | Gen | |||||
| S | 1:25:53 | 1:01:55 | Savageman | 1/5 | 12/27 | ||||
| CP 2015 | [1:36/100m]* | Mills | 1/3 | 5/13 | |||||
| B | 6:25:07 | 5:50:55 | B2B | 1/16 | 20/142 | ||||
| CAC 2015 | [19.1 mph] | ||||||||
| R | 4:24:28 | 4:17:40 | * current aided | ||||||
| Deadwood | [9:50 min/mi] | ||||||||
| O'all | 13:51:28 | 11:23:15 | |||||||
| IMBO 2014 |
What should my new goals be? Should I target larger events with deeper age group pools? Should I stick with flat courses? Should I only do races loaded with friends who provide encouraging support throughout the race? To this last point, the answer could very well be yes. I started triathlon in 2001 and after the '03 season took a couple-year break because it was a lonely pursuit. Even after returning to it, it remained a summer activity - to enjoy a change of pace from ice hockey - and was not something I worked for year-round, as I looked each fall to return to my hockey family and the sense of belonging they provided. And then, thanks to Ashley, I found the group at Cadence and now I have the best of situations with a supportive group of like-minded and driven athletes. I've put more out in the Cadence cycling classes than I sometimes do on my own, in the Cadence (and certainly Upper Merion USMS) group swims than I sometimes do on my own, and maybe I'm more willing to leave it all out on the race course when it feels like I'm part of a team all working toward our own highest goals. I'm thankful to be a part of this group and, what-ever my next goal may be, I hope I can be as supportive to them as they have been to me.
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