We are always more than keen to share the success of our athletes and like most of us on social media we tend to only show when things go to plan and when athletes reach the finish line and we can be guilty of not sharing the times when things don't go to plan, athletes who didn't finish, athletes who weren't able to make the start line or even the disappointment when events don't go ahead.
This blog is all about dealing with when your race doesn't go to plan and what you can do to bounce back after a disappointment.
We take great pride in all our athletes performances whether that be winning a race or just getting to the finish line of their first event occasionally things don't go to plan. Just the other week one of our athletes unfortunately had to withdraw from their main race of the year after struggling on the bike and starting to feel sick 30km in and got off the bike feeling dizzy and ending up in the medical tent and had to stop the race in transition. It goes without saying that this athlete was gutted and not the plan we had going into the event but the reality is that these things happen and trying to identify what caused it so we can put processes in place to reduce the likelihood of it happening again.
We also had an athlete who had to withdraw from a race a few days before the event due to becoming infected with Covid 10 days previously which left them feeling exhausted and unable to recover in time and risking long term health for one event wouldn't have been wise. This athlete was also upset and frustrated as they had committed to months of training and was ready to go after their goals but not even getting to the start line can leave you emotionally drained and annoyed.
We've also recently had athletes whose events have been cancelled (again) due to ongoing restrictions where their events were meant to take place, this also can leave us frustrated as for some, an event they have been training for 2+ years gets moved to another year down the road and has definitely left athletes feeling like we've put all this work in for nothing.
All of these things can play havoc with our motivation and leave us feeling like we've failed and we've wasted months of hard work to not get the outcome we had targeted. Maybe we should move on from the goal and try something else is often one of the ways athletes will begin thinking in this situation.
When working with athletes the main things we focus on, is the process of training consistently and building the ability to get better day by day, week by week, month by month and year by year. The process is what allows us to see progress over time and being consistent with the training is usually harder than the actual event. If you've trained well and done the best you can to juggle the training around your work, family and other life requirements then you have been successful as this is not an easy thing to do and we can often overlook this fact and only tend to define success or failure based on what happens at an event on one day.
To achieve success in any area of our life we will often have to fail our way there. We all need to be willing to fail but never be content with failure and if we come back stronger after every set back we will take the next step closer towards out goal.
Failure or failing to hit our desired outcome(s) does not define who we are but our ability to get up after every set back, every failure, every disappointment will define us and every time we become more resilient, more determined and even better prepared to look failure in the eyes and say 'you will not stop me'!
Our dreams and goals are too important to stop progressing towards them because of a set back. If you've failed at something allow yourself some time to be upset and reflect on what the set back can teach you but don't ever allow it to define you and take that pain of disappoint and turn it into motivation to get back up and try again and again and again until your dreams become reality!
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I like the sentiment but we do need to add a touch of realism. If we have performed at a reasonable level our performances will decline as we get older, but there is plenty we can do to arrest the decline. We need to train smarter, have a little more recovery and be more aware of injury risk. They take a lot longer to heal!
I started running in November 1983 and ran my 1st marathon in Glasgow in September 1984. Not necessarily something i would recommend to a 24 year old now. I ran my PB for my 1st set of marathons in Newton Stewart in March 1985 in a snow storm. 3:39. Not long after that I discovered cycling and my focus moved to bike racing and a few Winter duathlons. In my late 40's I returned to the marathon and I ran my best ever marathon in London in 2010 aged 50, 3:09. It helped that by then I had a good idea of how to train properly and had years of endurance training behind me.
It has long been a goal to run a faster marathon in my 60's than I did at 25, with 3:30 being the A goal. I have been doing some investigating what this actually means related to age. There are plenty of age grading calculators online. The one I have used shows that my age graded percentage to the world best at 50 was 72.54% (the world best for a 50 year old is 2:12, wow). If I was to 3:30 at my current age the age graded percentage is 72.23%. This is only a calculation but it does give me confidence that my goal is realistic but not easy! I certainly can't afford to slow down!
]]>The last 9 months have been challenging for all of us and if you have managed to keep up your training and exercise through that time, well done!
]]>The last 9 months have been challenging for all of us and if you have managed to keep up your training and exercise through that time, well done! We are now back in lockdown and it is dark, cold and icy or wet and windy outside. At least in lockdown 1 the weather was good so it was a bit easier to get outside for some exercise.
If you have got this far and maintained your fitness, keep going, If you have taken a break, get going! But do it safely. It can be tempting to take a break until everything improves, including the weather but don't loose all that hard earned fitness.
Moderate exercise boosts you immune system, while over training suppresses it, leaving you more susceptible to infections so don't overdo it, but keep doing it.
Set yourself some short term goals, they don't have to be to smash out a 10km PB, they can be as simple as to do a minimum of 30 minutes training 5 days a week, do 2 core strength sessions per week, or to stretch more regularly. Anything that will help to maintain your training programme and make you a better athlete. Write them down and pin them up somewhere so that you see them regularly. It can be a struggle to get out the door or on the turbo for a session but I guarantee that you will feel better afterwards and have the satisfaction of knowing that you are a long way ahead of somebody who stayed on the sofa.
Remember the principle of reversibility, use it or loose it!
]]>We always ask athletes what they would like to achieve when planning to enter a race and more often than not the goal is either just to finish or to not come last.
While its easy to understand why this is a concern for some people the issue with setting this as a goal or even being worried about it is you have no control over it. Setting goals that you are unable to control is sure fire way to never be satisfied and will usually result in you losing motivation or enjoyment of the sport.
When first considering to enter a triathlon it's easy to psych yourself out when you envision the Brownlee Brothers and Triathletes being superhuman and looking like racing snakes. The reality is the majority of triathletes are regular people and many of whom started exactly where you are now, curious to give it a go but worried that you can't do it or that people might laugh at you if you're slower than everyone else.Often the fear of finishing last will cause some athletes not to enter the race as they feel it will be embarrassing and with sports like triathlon you'll hear athletes say "I'll wait until I get a bit fitter before entering a race". All this usually does is move the start point further away and you'll find another reason not to give it a go. Learning to step outside your comfort zone and challenge yourself physically and mentally is not only liberating but will give you a greater sense of achievement and you'll wish you started sooner.
So what happens if you come last? Absolutely nothing happens, you get a medal and print out of you time just like everyone else and in reality most people will be too concerned with their own times to worry about where you finished. As far as sport goes, Triathlon has one of the most welcoming communities and is definitely a sport for all ages and abilities. So regardless if you're not a good swimmer, rubbish cyclist or slow runner you can still complete triathlons. You just need to convince yourself to take the first step.
If you have any questions about how to get started drop us a comment below or send us a message and we'll be more than happy to give you advice on how you can take steps to improving your fitness.
]]>Without intending to test myself, about 3 months later I had a steady run round a route I use regularly which takes about 70 minutes. When I looked back through TrainingPeaks, completely by accident I had completed the run 10 seconds faster than I ran it at the start of lockdown, but far more interesting my average heart rate had dropped from 136 in March to 119. Nice improvement in aerobic endurance. If you look at the charts you can see that pace (blue bars) is very similar but heart rate has changed from having a lot of zone 3 and some zone 4 in the 1st chart to nearly all zone 2 in the second.
I also have another route of about an hour which I used to use as a test regularly when training for marathons. Early in April I had a hard run round it for the 1st time in a long time and to say I was disappointed with the time would be an understatement. I had been dreading doing it again but eventually, on a whim, I gave it a go. The result, 25 seconds per mile faster than last time. Still not near where I was 10 years ago but loving seeing some improvement again rather than training to stop getting worse. Amazing what you can do with some good, consistent training, a good mixture of training intensities and a little extra recovery time. Of course, I know all that and regularly preach it to other people but it is good to prove I can still do it. Loving my training again!
Remember improvement comes from consistent training and making small steps regularly, not smashing out mega sessions and then needing extra time for recovery. Oh, and my heart rate has dropped by 11 beats per minute on a 2 hour ride at the same average power.
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