Consistency - the athlete's insurance policy

It's now officially less than 4 weeks until race day. Numbers have been released and I've been given number 843. I'm someone who has this thing about race numbers - as soon as I get one, I get a 'feel' for the number. My Noosa number - ok. Geelong number - awful. Xavier's Ironman Melbourne number - fantastic. Strangely, each of these 'feelings' have translated 100% of the time into the race result. So let's call me the triathlon number whisperer.

So, on reading 843, my initial feeling was "Great. Strong". Honestly. I had no basis for those thoughts, I didn't force them, it was just the first sense I got that was connected to those numbers. I know some of you will laugh, but we all have our pre-race rituals, traditions or routines and this one is mine.

It gave me an acute sense of calm. Not confidence, not motivation. Just calm. It's like the pieces of this race puzzle are starting to come together, and as the race gets closer, I am slowly starting to become calmer and at peace with the concept of racing a half ironman in what will be less than 18 months after my first triathlon.

The last few weeks have presented some challenges, so it was only in the second half of this week that I picked up some decent training again. Riding 1.5hrs Thursday, 4hrs Friday and 3.5hrs of hills today (Sunday) meant that this was my biggest ride week to date. I wasn't sure how things would turn out, if my body would cooperate or just rebel with the load that was suddenly thrown at it. As it turns out, things went better then I could have expected. I rode (too hard, not following the program - stupid) on Friday but this didn't noticeably affect my hill work today. Legs were fresh, still had the usual power in them and I came off the bike with gas. Given the last few weeks, this was a massive confidence boost which I can only attribute to one thing.

Consistency.

I started working with a new coach in early November 2011. Since then, I have very rarely missed sessions (only if I was sick or injured) and even then tried to limit them to either swim squad or others that I think are 'second tier' (i.e. try never to miss a long run, long ride or interval work). I know people thought I was crazy, but I trained Christmas Day, New Years Eve, New Years Day, my 30th birthday and all over this Easter long weekend - the times people would think are a little odd to train. I've trained in howling wind, rain, heat and cold. I've swam in ice cold water. Bottom line, I've tried my best to be consistent and log consistent hours, week in, week out. For 5 months.

So I feel like, finally, this consistency is starting to pay some dues and propping me up during the times I can't be as consistent. It's like an insurance policy that I'm now claiming on and it's paying up, big time. It's the reason I can get back on the bike, ride my biggest week, and feel good. It's the reason I can get back in the pool for the first time in too long and swim without feeling like a maimed seal gasping for air. Sure it's not perfect, but the point is I'm no worse off.

The training I've done, the programs I've been set, have worked, have put the fitness and strength in my body where they need to be and I can trust that it's there. The next 3 weeks will be, as my coach says, about 'tweaking' this and fine tuning around the edges.

The priority now is to stay healthy, not an easy feat in Melbourne where 100% of the people I work with have been off sick at some point in the past 2 weeks. But I will be doing my best to cotton wool myself so I can toe the line fit, strong and ready to race.

When challenge comes our way

"You must not abandon ship in a storm because you can't control the wind"

In life, most of us have plans. Some are more defined then others (1 year plans; 5 year plans; succession strategies; promotion targets) - others have dreams or ideas of what we would like to achieve 'one day'. These may be as simple as a bucket list, an outline of crazy one-offs that will deliver a sense of achievement and purpose to our lives to break up the normal day-to-day routine.

Within these plans, there may be one or two things that are really important. Goals we only get a chance to do once. Things we have decided to focus on and dedicate time, energy and resources to and make sacrifices to achieve the outcome we not only want, but what we think we are capable of. We may want to test ourselves with this goal, push ourselves further then what we have done before, challenge our body and mind to think or perform outside of its comfort zone. These goals are thrilling, intimidating, exciting, stressful and demanding. These are the ones that make our hearts race with anticipation, that fill our minds with nervous thoughts and which get us out of bed most mornings, excited to face the day.

Generally, we don't throw ourselves into this space with a contingency plan. Failure isn't considered, it's not an option. We'll work hard, be consistent, make sacrifices and get the outcome we expect. That's how things are supposed to work. In the whirl of excitement and progress and improvement, we don't allow ourselves (rightly so) to entertain negative thoughts of "what if I can't do this? what if I fail?"

So, when confronted with circumstances that challenge your goal, jeopardise your plans and derail your strategy, we often don't have strong coping mechanisms to respond. We have been so busy focussing on the positives, maintaining our trajectory towards our goal, celebrating our achievements that when a wall suddenly appears we have no brakes, crash straight into it, leaving ourselves in a crumpled mess.

"Obstacles are put in your way to see if what you want is really worth fighting for"

How people respond to these situations is an interesting social exercise. I've personally observed that people's response largely depends on the confidence they have in themselves. I've seems some horrendous behaviour in a professional context, some heartbreaking stories in a sporting context and I've reflected on both recently to try and understand why people have reacted this way; could they have prepared themselves better? Can we rely on the mental strength we lean on during the times of competition to also help us through times when things just aren't going to our plan?

I do believe that challenges can present opportunity. These may not be immediately obvious; you may be so overwhelmed by the impact these challenges are having on your immediate goals - but, taking the time to put those thoughts to one side, these challenges can be used to develop other skills which can be equally, if not more, useful to your overall goal. Teaching yourself how to harness positivity, giving you opportunities to cross-skill, rest, recover, learn, read. Spend time with family and friends who have been neglected while you chase this dream, whatever it is. You may find that these experiences fill you with a different momentum, a different purpose that you can carry over into your goal once you return to it. Fresher, relaxed, focussed. You can't discount the impact that time can have to your overall objective.

We all read stories of burnout. Gifted geniuses, whether academic or athletic, pushing too far, going to hard and falling apart. Retiring from the very thing that initially brought them so much joy. As much as the dream and the goal is important and the competitor in you wants to succeed and wants to succeed well, you have to acknowledge why the challenges are presenting themselves and pay respect to that. The body is not invincible and it's not a machine that we can just oil every so often and keep churning through the motions. If we want it to respect our goals, we need to respect its needs.

Can you believe it?

I cannot believe it's April tomorrow. It's been 5 and a half months since I entered 70.3 Busselton and it could be yesterday. Time has flown in a blur of bikes, work, lycra, pools, wind, sweat and tears.  Has it really been that long? Have I really been training for 5 months....already? I don't feel like I have, I think I've been on the groundhog day routine that one day merges into another, one weekend into the next, and now I've woken up, turned 30 and this race is in 5 weeks time.

4 more training weeks. Wow. That's an intimidating thought because we always want to train more, just squeeze in a few more sessions. Then there's the big question - have I done enough. Can I be a competitor. Am I mentally ready.

About 4-5 weeks ago was when things started to turn for me. Up until that time, I think I had lingering questions about some things. Could I run a half marathon strongly off the bike? Could I bike strongly and still run strong? What does running 21km feel like? Can I run 21km?

Then something happened. It was like the training puzzle came together and shit started to work. My legs were running strong. My long runs got easier. I stopped being the slowest swimmer at squad. My biking shot up. I don't know why or how this happened but, as I said in my Portarlington race report, I realised that I could do this race, be a competitor and trust my training and my body.

That's something I've focussed on this week. Off the back of the monster IM Melbourne weekend, the early mornings, late nights, negligible nutrition left me in a bit of a crumpled mess. I got sick quickly, which should't have been such a shock given (a) the massive but awesome weekend; and (b) the number of people I work with sharing their various illnesses around the floor. The result being 5 days of no training, dragging myself through the days, cold & flu tablets, ginger & lemon tea, sleep time and worrying about the fact I wasn't training. Missing 5 DAYS?? The control freak in me started to meltdown. This was supposed to be a big, focussed, HIM week. Key. Important. Critical. And here I was, letting myself down by being sick.

That's right. "Letting myself down". Like I had any say in it and any control. Life is not perfect, bodies certainly aren't invincible and I've been incredibly lucky with the build I've had to escaped with nothing more then a few niggles. My body has been good to me, strong and it has tolerated a lot. But obviously, it can take only so much. So rather then allow myself to wallow in what I couldn't do, I tried to focus on what I could - rest, take time off, take advantage of the days I couldn't train to give my body what it hasn't had in so long (time off) and focus on getting back into the sessions once I was better. Dwelling on the week would do me no good and only prolong a headspace which would do me no good. Pushing my body to train would only end in tears (literally) and make the recovery period even longer.

So today, I got up and I rode for 2 hours (I'll admit, I did need a bit of a push out the door :). Nothing fast, just moving the legs again. And it felt great. Legs felt strong, it was warm, the Spanish track team cheered me on and the head wind back from Mordi didn't bother me (too) much. I'll admit, it was mentally the longest 2 hour ride ever and I think my body was in a bit of shock (what, a bike? we're back on this thing again? Geez) but you know what? I physically felt no different. If anything, I felt better with the rest I've had. And that has given me exactly what I need. The confidence that 5 days off, the scheme of things, is no big deal.

Now,  I've got 4 weeks to tweak the last 5 months of training. I've got no doubt it's going to be a pretty ugly 4 weeks, I'm going to be tired, things will hurt, I'll start to stress at some point.....but that's what racing's all about. That's what triathlon is all about. Blood, sweat, snot bombs, vomits, pain, aching, tears and that one moment when you cross the line and realise that THIS moment is why it's all worth it.

N U M B E R F I V E

This weekend was my last hit out before 70.3 Busselton in 7 weeks time. The Gatorade Porarlington race is a longer sprint distance triathlon (800m swim, 26k bike, 8k run) and, while I have spectated at this race before, I had never raced the course.

Due to the craziness that is life over the past week, I forgot that I was racing until last Friday when all the Facebook posts started. Good, in hindsight, as there was no race week build up, no anxiety, no manic googling the course, checking the wind/weather/elevation and panicking whether I would have a good/bad/average/bomb of a race. Totally forgot. The other benefit is that practically no one else knew I was racing, so there was hardly any "looking forward to race day?" conversations. Total calm.

Did my day-before race pace efforts on the bike and a short run off. Felt great and this was the first time I started thinking that maybe I'd have a solid race. After Geelong, its not secret that I wasn't over the moon with the race as a whole. It was important to have a good final race before Busso for a bunch of reasons - test the training, know things are on track, prove to myself I can race and - most importantly - give me the confidence that I need going into this 7 week period.

The thing with races is you can't focus too much on them. I've learnt that, for me, focusing on a race and analysing/assessing/turning it over in your mind is diabolical. Be prepared, absolutely. Know the course, exits/entries and the essentials. But leave the non-essentials behind. For me, they just clog up my mind with unnecessary worry that takes away from what I need to focus on. Racing. Being competitive. Pacing.

So I drove down to Geelong late Saturday, checked into my hotel, watched a movie, ate dinner, prepped the bike and went to sleep early. Alarm off at 5.30am, standard pre race meal and into the car to Portarlington. Found a park easy, wandered into the race area, collected my race pack, went through number marking, racked my bike, checked the entry/ exit points, then wandered to the tent. Calm.

It was hilarious. I felt no stress and no worry about this race at all. I have no idea why; perhaps because so many other things are happening in life at the moment, maybe it was because I knew this isn't my priority race, maybe I'm just "maturing" as a racer. Who knows. But it was so nice. Just calmly going through the motions of wetsuit on, warm up done, and heading to race start.

The first time I started to feel a bit anxious was lining up to start. How can you not. Waiting for that gun to go off is torture. I positioned myself to the end of the swim start line up, like always. I wanted to get a clear break and start strong. Gun went off and I went for it - the water was shallow so I porpoised about 8 times before I started swimming. Two girls shot off like fish and were clearly planning it that way so I let them go. I was behind them in third, where I stayed until 2/3 of the swim when one girl overtook my towards the end. I was sighting a lot as the long course swimmers were with us and I wanted to keep track of where I was in the age group pack. I wasn't sure if that girl finished in front of me at the end. I felt strong, and for the first time, I was in the race.

I came out of the water and sprinted along the transition path. I didn't know my exact position but I knew I was about 3rd or 4th. Ripped the wetsuit off, helmet and glasses on and I was off. Sprinting out, yelling "excuse me" to people who were taking their time. Forget jump mounting (my seat's too high and it stresses me out) so I got on and rode up the hill. Somehow, the Velcro on my shoe got stuck so I spent probably a minute stuffing around trying to sort that out and keep pedalling. What can you do. Once I got myself sorted, I was off. There were a group of guys ahead and we played cat and mouse for about half of the ride, then I caught up to one of the girls in my age group and we chased each other for awhile. We rode into a headwind for about 2/3 of the ride and up a slight gradient for that time with some sharper inclines that pinched. The road was dead for most of the ride which made it a challenge, but a good one. Gave me a chance to give all this bike training a good hit. Finally we hit some downhill and I went for it and had a crack. Burned back into transition, forget any fancy dismount, and sprinted into transition. Couldn't see any bikes so took that as a good sign. Figured I was around 3rd place.

Onto the run and straight up "the stairs". Nightmare. Then there were a few sharp little "hills" at the start of the run to really test things before you could settle into a rhythm. Now, what no-one told me was that the ENTIRE run was on a gravelly/dirt/sandy packed track next to the beach. No road as the long course guys were still riding. The run was undulating in parts with some tight hills and this surface made it extra challenging. The sun was out by this stage and making things hot. It was actually a really nice run; my age group was one of the first starters so by the time I was on the run I was one of the first people out there (aside from the opens & elites). I haven't run on an 'empty' course before and it really gives you a different race feel - I liked it. Given it was out and back, it also let me see where I was at in terms of placing. I haven't done any specific short course work so I knew I couldn't keep the pace I expected these girls to run (4m/km - 4.20m/km pace). I was running between 4.30-4.45m/km pace and holding but I knew that it wasn't fast enough to hold my place. I thought about upping it but knew if I did I'd blow before the end of the run (given the last 2k or so was uphill) so decided to stick to the pace I knew I could hold and let what will be, be.

As it turned out, I ended up holding a 4.45m/km average and ran 37.21 for 8km which is a new race PB for me. PUMPED. It wasn't enough for a podium and I finished 5th overall (50sec shy of 3rd place.....!!) To say that I was BEYOND excited would be an understatement. For the first time, I turned up calm, confident and I raced. I raced from the start, was a competitor and laid it all out there. The run was tough, I was definitely hurting towards the end and those last couple of hills made every part of my body ache. But that's racing. I crossed that line knowing I gave it everything and look - a 5th place!! In a SPRINT distance race (seriously?!) while training for a half ironman.

I am completely overwhelmed and excited by what Busso will bring me. The confidence that this weekend's race has given me is more than any training session, more than any 4 hour ride, long run, swim set. It's the knowledge that when it matters; on race day; not knowing the course, the weather, the competitors - that I can go out there, trust my training, trust my body, read my efforts and know how to race. To chase, to read other competitors. To push when I need to, hold back when it's needed. Dose efforts. Get angry. Push through pain. Focus on the finish. It was such an important day for all of these reasons, results aside.

It's taken ever triathlon I've raced (this was my 7th) to finally get it. Well I think I've got it. Maybe I've only got it a little bit. But it's a start. And not a moment too soon. Triathlon is hard and it hurts. I was told this day 1 and I only really understood that this weekend, really understood exactly what that means. But there is nothing more motivating then knowing you're getting what you have worked so hard for and therefore what you deserve. That is the best motivation of all.

Suffering for success

After Geelong, I had a good hard look at my "race fitness" across each three legs. I wanted to be honest with myself because I needed to see where I could focus some more energy to give my performance a boost. From my previous post, it is evident I was happy with my run (and 6min PB) and knew I had more to give there. With the bike, I knew I under dosed my efforts but the main thing was I knew I had gas in the tank and more power in the engine. It was when I looked at my swim, and forced myself to remember that long, torturous 1.5k (or 1.7k depending on who you talk to) that I hit the mental jackpot.

BOGUS.

If I am honest with myself, my swim has gone no where in a solid 6 months. That's nobody's fault but my own. When I first got into triathlon, I came in with a swim background (translation: I swam squad 4-5 days a week when I was in school for 8 years, raced a few district and state competitions, but hadn't swum a lap in probably 13 years). Lesson: The body changes a lot, physically, in 13 years. Stupidly, I eased back on the notion that "I'm a swimmer" and never really invested the same focus, or energy, on the swim leg as my bike and run. This attitude was certainly not helped by the common misconception among triathletes that you "just have to get through the swim".

No my friends, it is not just about getting through the swim. I read a quote from a pro who said "its true you can't win the race in the swim, but you can definitely lose it" and I can't agree more. My ambivalence with swimming has left what I can see is a gaping hole in my improvement trajectory. I know/knew I was a terrible runner and I've worked hard to improve this. I loved the bike from the moment I started riding, and had a little bit of natural ability so it's been a bit easier to pick this up and improve. But swimming......I've resisted. Why? I think the 8 years of following the black line, night after night, has mentally scarred me. In fact I know it has. Back in the day, your squad instructor yelled at you until you cried, hit you on the back with a stick to correct your stroke and wouldn't let you get out of the pool, sometimes even if you needed to go to the bathroom. I still have such strong memories of those days, and as a result I developed such a hate for squad and for swimming but was made to go. I suspect this is why I find it so difficult to motivate myself to go, and follow that black line again. That, and the fact that I stupidly have been thinking "I'm still a swimmer". A friend pointed out that it's easy to become complacent with a strength; in may case, I became complacent because of the past. Coach tells me the aim of triathlon is no glaring strengths and no glaring weakness. My aim is to stop the swim rolling closer to the 'glaring weakness' bucket.

BUT I'M NOT ONE TO SIT AROUND

Once I had my lightbulb moment, it was action stations. I fronted up to masters squad (on speed set night), got my ass absolutely whooped, walked out with my ego smashed, then fronted up again. And again. And again. And again. I've asked heaps of questions. I've gotten specific drills for ocean swimming. I'm still getting my ass whooped (side note: I used to swim in the advanced squad in my triathlon club so, even with my comments above, I considered myself to have a fairly good swimmer ability. What a joke. Clearly there is a different between "triathlon swimmers" and "swimmers".....maybe its a bit like the tension between cyclists and triathletes? Anyway moral of the story - these guys in masters swimming can swim. Like, seriously-swim-I'm-going-to-national-titles swim. My legs, shoulders, arms and heart rate have gotten the shock of their lives). I'm perhaps the 2nd or 3rd slowest swimmer there. I still hate the black line. It's still a battle to get the motivation to go. But I go, and I submit myself to the 90min of non-stop swimming pain and I'm already a better swimmer for it.  I feel faster, I feel stronger, my stroke rates up. I can actually sprint continuous laps now.

The important thing for me is to be confident across all 3 disciplines; confident that my ability across each is roughly the same, that no one leg is going to let me down. I'm fortunate in that there is some residual swimming ability there; you don't forget technique, form, stroke....it comes back. The shoulders are slowly building up. My ego is slowly mending (although I did feel a little bit better when one of the guys found out I raced triathlon and said "that's crazy, I don't know how you do it". Made me feel a little better about the fact he was lapping me in the pool :)

And truthfully? The nut bag in me kind of likes the novelty of squad again. Turning up and being subjected to some cruel form of torture, not knowing what you're in for. I like changes to training, it keeps like interesting. So I've got big hopes that this cruel torture will pay off.

On the topic of changes....this week, coach mixed things up and programmed a Sufferfest video into my weekly wind trainer sessions. I follow this Sufferfest mob on Twitter and truly, the way they market their stuff it makes me think I need a dark room and a rave CD just to buy it. It freaks me out a little bit. People tweet how the DVDs ruin them, breaks them etc. Anyway, I was assured it wouldn't be too hard so I downloaded the required DVD, set up my gear and actually got excited for something new:

Sweat station

It was awesome! 80min of solid riding, good intensity and some pick up sprints. Limited downtime and some cool cycling footage. Solid calorie burner and worked up a sweat. Wouldn't mind knocking off a few more of those. If you haven't tried a DVD from these guys, give it a go if you want to mix up your trainer sessions.

Just me and the open road.....

On that note, 2 weeks until Victor Harbour and tomorrow is another solid weekend of training. Starting to get very close, 11 weeks till race day!

Me finishing Sufferfest - happy days! Love it!

Ding dong, Geelong

Yesterday I participated in the Geelong Olympic Distance triathlon. I say participated deliberately, because with the benefit of reflection and analysis of data, I don't feel like I can say I "raced".  But more on that soon.

I was really excited for this race. It would be triathlon # 5, Olympic Distance # 2 in my very short triathlon career and I was very keen to see how I would fare compared to Noosa three months earlier and - most importantly - how all this half ironman training would translate into a race.

Naturally, because I was signed up for a triathlon, the skies opened and proceeded to bucket down the most insane amount of rain from Saturday afternoon until roughly Sunday morning. So commenced the dreaded question of "will the swim be cancelled" and would I now be signed up to do the most torturous Olympic distance duathlon. I manically monitored the EPA website, USM's twitter feed and stared out the window willing the rain to stop. There was nothing else for it but to sleep and hope for the best.

Sunday morning I was greeted with.....pouring rain. Great. Official word was for a swim start, but I began to be more concerned with the road conditions. This amount of rain meant super slippery surface, bad visibility, stacks, crashes, punctures and - slower times. Then there was the wind. Strong and lots of it.  Was going to be a long day at the office.

The swim
There's nothing really positive to say about the swim. I was like an injured seal, struggling through the water, begging to be put out of her misery. First dive in and goggles came off (good start) and from then on I lost my chance to be in a group and swam the very long 1.5km on my own with no feet and miserable thoughts in my head. Was a solid 5 minutes slower then my 1.4k Australia Day swim. So yep, this was bloody dreadful.

The bike
My poor bike was hanging out on the rack by itself by this stage. I had to laugh at myself as this was definitely not something I expected. I grabbed my gear and had a pretty seamless transition. Running past the Tri Alliance tent, with lots of cheering, I admit I felt embarrassed. I have always felt proud of my swimming competence and today's swim put me way back in the field and I felt flat that this was so public. I pushed these thoughts to the side and tried to navigate around the slow pokes, the mud and to get on with it.

We (me and coach) agreed I wouldn't kill myself on the bike this time and that I'd focus on having a strong run. Given my lack of race experience, I wasn't sure where this would leave me speed wise - how fast I should push to still have run legs. Add in the pouring rain and block headwind, I was in all sorts about how to ride this race. I was also acutely aware of being in no man's land with no girls around me - I had no idea if that meant I was riding incredibly slow, them fast or what was going on. This mental roller coaster went on for much of the ride. Lesson - to chill out and focus on the task at hand.

Coming back into town, there was a lot of slow cautious riding through the park which was annoying but necessary. Case proved when a girl in front of me took the last corner too fast and her bike slid straight out from under her, resulting in her landing flat on her back and sliding 5 metres across the gravel. This lead another guy to lock his brakes and fly over the top of his handle bars, face planting quite hard into a median strip bush. I said a silent prayer that I was lucky to get off this bike with no punctures and no spills.

I got off the bike in 1.20 which I was pretty disappointed with. I knew I had a lot more in me but I wasn't sure how much to give in order to save my run - it was only my second OD and I'm still learning my limits. As soon as I came off the bike and started running, this answered my question - legs fresh as a daisy. Definitely should have pushed harder on the bike.

The run
The main goal of this race was to have a strong run off the bike. Its no secret that the run is my weakest leg and I've been working pretty hard over the past 3 month build to work this up.  I wasn't familiar with the course so I was a bit conservative with pacing - I didn't want to blow at the 5km mark and then drag my feet home.

Lucky for this as the course was pretty hilly - sharp uphill plus rolling undulations made for a challenging 10km. Seriously, I finished one hill and felt like there was another one just to replace it. Definitely was not prepared for that! But sometimes its better not to know what you're getting yourself in for as it meant that I just got on with it and tried to stay consistent.

This strategy still paid off as I crossed the line in 50.47 - a 5min improvement on my Noosa time and still with plenty of gas in the tank. To say that I was pumped is an understatement. I was so close to my sub 50m goal that I know, in hindsight, I could have gotten there. The confidence boost in how my run is tracking is incredible - I never EVER thought I would be someone who could even think she could run sub 5min/km, but now this is looking perfectly achievable. Excited to see how much more I can juice from these legs in the next ~80 days before Busso :)

Post race review
I didn't feel tired after the race and handled recovery as well as I could without having my usual nutrition with me (ok, it was basically a Coke fuelled recovery). Stretched for about 30min after the race and got in as much water as I could. Drove home from Geelong feeling good, didn't need a sleep which is a first - so something's definitely going right.

I downloaded my Garmin data to see if my heart rate averages backed up my post race thoughts on pacing efforts. And, as expected, they did.
- For the bike, my average heart rate was in my tested T2 heart rate zone.
- For the run, my average heart rate was in my tested T3 heart rate zone.
- For the swim - who knows (rubbish)

What this tells me is that I basically "raced" this as a training session. For an Olympic Distance race, I would expect these heart rates to be much higher (the red line effect that I hear about). No wonder I came off the bike with legs feeling fine and finished the run with gas. The data shows I wasn't pushing my body hard enough for this style of racing.

I was disappointed initially with what "could have been". Ahh yes, the old coulda/woulda/shoulda. But I didn't so I've got to look at what I got out of this race:

• I've learnt some valuable lessons about my own personal pacing that I can test out in the next OD race in 4 weeks time. 
• I nailed down my nutrition with no problems. 
• I woke up with no muscle aches or pains, which means training this week won't be compromised (important given the overall focus of the season). 
• And, even with my pacing miscalculations, I still had a respectable finish in the top half and got a run PB. 

But more important then all of this, I got the answer I was looking for - my endurance training is working. I was out there moving for 2.47 and finished feeling fine. This gives me a big confidence boost going into the next block of half IM training and was exactly what I needed at this point. My focus is on getting my body race fit for a ~5hour endurance event. This weekend gave me a big tick that this is tracking along perfectly.

Don't think. Just do.

For people who aren't involved in triathlon, announcing you are training for one can sometimes elevate you to a status somewhere around an athletic god. The non-triathletes (the "NT"s) don't know the difference between a sprint race and an ironman; all they know is that triathlon involves three sports in one and MAN that is HARD. Plus you have to SWIM. In the OCEAN. Wow you must be fit! Why do you do it?

I never get tired of the awe in NT's voices (and sometimes the undertones of "you nut bag, why on earth would you waste weekends like that?!") when they find out you race in triathlons, because it is the dose of reality-checking you need when you are caught up in the "world". You can get so immersed in training (was it a good session? bad? were you tired/dehydrated/on pace/under speed), critiquing everything you do, meticulously planning your swim/bike/run/eat/sleep/repeat and race schedule, wondering if you should think about a new frame/new helmet/new wheels/new aero hydration system (don't laugh, we have all thought about it) that sometimes you can forget the very fact we are involved with the sport is a pretty amazing accomplishment in itself.

You laugh off these comments by saying things like it's-no-big-deal-its-a-lifestyle etc, the NTs look at you like you're from another planet (their minds thinking 'how can riding a bike with those skinny little wheels and skinny little seats be a lifestyle?') and you look at them like they're from another planet (you thinking 'I'd ride my bike any day if it meant not waking up on Sunday with a brain mashing hangover - EVERY weekend').

And it's true - triathlon is a great lifestyle and forces you to be extremely disciplined with time. I'm at the stage where life is in a pretty good routine. Week on week it's a bit of a groundhog day, but in a good way. I'm happy that I've gotten consistency with my work/training week...well, consistent. There's no questions to ask, there's no if/buts/maybes. The routine is set and it rolls on. This makes training so much easier as there is no space for even asking the question "should I go to training? do I feel like training?" I just do. Why? Because it's in the routine. Just like going to work, eating breakfast and showering before bed. It's now part of my life.

Over the past few weeks, I've realised just how important this autopilot is and these unsolicited NT remarks. Melbourne has turned on some ripping summer weather of late; I never would have thought there could ever be a downside to this, but there is - training in the heat can be a real bitch. I've written before how much I have struggled with heat in the past. Without a routine, without this autopilot, it could be very tempting to convince myself that it's OK to miss a session because it's too hot/too windy/too humid. But.....I don't. Sure it's mildly uncomfortable, some adjustments are needed to the normal nutrition plan but my thinking is you just get out and do it. The session is set for a reason; come race day, you can't choose what weather is given so training in whatever is thrown at you not only makes you a stronger athlete but a better prepared one.

The NTs (and sometimes, the Ts) will say they can't believe so-and-so went and rode in whatever conditions were present. But these are the exact conditions we should train in; they prepare us for the worst so, come race day, we are equipped to handle whatever conditions are thrown our way. And that is why routine is so important - to improve performance through consistent training and prepare us for racing in every condition.

Adopting this attitude requires a certain focus - a goal that sits in your mind, every day, demanding your attention. I am a firm believer that, deep down, we all know what we are capable of - but the catch is you must know yourself first in order to know the answer to this question. There are things that I know I am not capable of, but there are things that I deeply believe I can achieve. And these are the goals worth pursuing, relentlessly, because the greatest disappointment in life is not fulfilling your potential.

And if you ever feel any doubt about that - go and tell an NT you race triathlons. They'll remind you that you're awesome :)

"The greatest battle is not the physical but the psychological. The demons telling us to give up when we push ourselves to the limit can never be silenced for good. They must always be answered by the quiet, the steady, dignity that simply refuses to give in.


Courage. We all suffer. Keep going"


(Graeme Fife)