Monday, August 30, 2010

Training for fun?

     Last week I faced every endurance athlete's biggest fear, well second to injury. Burn out. When I first got into Triathlons, it was for fun.  Then my competitive nature took over and I started to train myself into the ground. This caught up to me last week and I had to say "when."  It started Saturday when I got up to run and said I don't feel like running that far.  So I didn't.  Then I went to the open water swim, even though I didn't feel like swimming.  I thought, maybe if I get ready and get out there I'll change my mind.  The closest I got was sitting on the bank with my feet in the water.


     Sunday morning came around and I had a 36 mile ride in Montgomery.  I started out with the group and got in a nice long warm-up.  I got to the first Hill and decided to charge for a few miles.  After a bit I started wondering, when was the last time that I finished a ride and didn't go home and have to take a nap because I had exhausted myself.  So I backed off realizing that I'm racing this week and got out of aero.  I just started to enjoy the clean air and the scenery. It was a great morning, cool and quiet.  The result was that I had one of my better rides in a long time. My heart rate was lower and cadence was higher.  I was able to relax and settle in to the beat coming from my ipod.

     It's been a long time since I've had fun on a ride. Looking forward to more in the future. I started this with the intention of qualifying to race in Kona 2014. I can live with that not happening.  Maybe 2020 or even better, it will happen when it happens.  I was dreading the Austin Tri this weekend, but I think my different outlook has changed that.  Happy Swim, Bike, Run.

1 comment:

  1. I think one of the reasons why this past week has been such a challenge for me is that I had really developed a good routine being home, and not travelling. But more importantly, I had been doing well on Wednesday night track workouts because I was there having fun ... and enjoying time with people that I consider to be very good friends. And the more fun that I had, the better that I did.

    I had a really good talk the last two days with a triathlon coach of some very good athletes and he said that some people he knew threw everything into one basket and when they achieved it, "They asked themselves, 'Now what?' " His approach for his athletes was family, work, fun and the sport. It was very refreshing to hear, but it was also so much fun to watch him support his athletes whether they are competing at IM Louisville or if they were off at IM Canada.

    Life is too short not to have fun.

    There are things that I get to do that I wish everybody that I knew could join me while I was doing it - and got the same enjoyment from it. But that isn't always possible; therefore, it means that I just needs to have fun for me - regardless of what anybody else thinks.

    ReplyDelete