Dirty Inspirations

Part of planning a race season involves revisiting your athletic goals for the year. You may decide to stick to shorter events for the whole season or your whole career and continue to refine your speed and skill base. Or you may decide to hit your goal of finishing a shorter race early season, then plan to take on a longer distance event in the fall with an ultimate goal of doing an ultra distance event next season. In any case, planning your season starts with looking at your long-range goals, then sitting down and making a race wish list.

Your wish list will include the dates, names, and distances of all events you are interested in participating. If you are a triathlete, for example—in addition to triathlons—I recommend adding 10Ks, century rides, a backpacking trip with the family—anything that requires time, is physical in nature, or may affect your consistent training program. All of these activities will affect how you race and should be reviewed in total

Then categorize each event on your wish list into the following:

A races. These are the most important to you in reference to performance. You want to get a personal best or have a peak performance. Usually an athlete will have one to three A races a season. These are the ones you want to prime for.

B races. These are important but not enough to generate a complete taper for or plan your season around. You want to be relatively rested for a B race, but not necessarily in peak form. B races are excellent events to use as benchmark events—to test your fitness, try a new fuel plan, new bike, or race pace.

C races. These are events you want to do for fun, camaraderie, and as a diversion to training, but you are willing to train through them if needed to shoot for a better performance at an A or B race.

Now take a look at whether the events in total complement your ultimate goal of doing well at your A races. This means that you have weeks before your A races to generate some solid cycles of training and to be best set up for an effective taper.

Can you race too much? Yes. There is a school of thought that regular A races are just the kind of training you need in order to hit peak form. I disagree. Events are an excellent means to test your fitness in a strong physical, mental, and emotional effort, but in order to race really well in at least a few events each season, you need some recovery time prior to each race.

If you push hard in an A race, you need some recovery time post-race as well. Recovery time ranges from a few days to a week or more (for longer events) when you are diminishing the volume and intensity of your training in order to prepare for or recover from an event. If you do this too frequently—even twice per month consistently—you will lose some fitness.

If you are willing to train through (sticking to your build cycles pre- and post-race) someof your B and C races in order to keep a positive training progression, you may not lose fitness but you might be adding too much stress to your training regime.

Some like to race frequently because they enjoy the ambiance of an event, the or the racing community, and it gives them motivation to push hard. Those are excellent reasons for putting your money down. But if you desire one or two peak performances in your season, you are better off choosing a couple of A races in each season, then throwing in B and C events with some other form of training events added for spice.

[Revisiting this yummy topic once again. This exerpt was taken from my book, Triathlon Revolution: Training, Technique and Inspiration and dedicated this week to SCTA Nu2Tri. Thanks for your inspiration!]

I have been asked many times who my heroes are in sport. In our society we often associate “hero” as being someone who has accomplished some monumental feat or has unusual talent or vigor beyond the norm for what they take on in life. Yet regular folks and middle-of-the-pack athletes have just as much emotionally riding on their accomplishments as do the inherently talented. Their road to success can often be even more vigorous than those for which it comes a bit easier.

The significance of getting a personal record in your 5K or completing your first triathlon is as much of a champion move in your world as it is for Tiger Woods to bring in another million. We all find value and satisfaction in our accomplishments. How and why we get there may just look a bit different.

As a young girl I was intrigued with professional athletes, just like any kid, but I realized that true heroic feats were happening all around me—daily, by people struggling to do life while going after their dreams. My father worked two jobs to support a family of seven while going to school to get his degree so he could advance in his career. He taught me that no matter what we choose in life, we go after with dignity and hard work and then we can respect ourselves. We can be our own hero.

The world is a tough place, and if you throw voluntary physical duress into your daily repertoire in order to offer your kids a stronger vision of humanity, I’d say that is a heroic decision. As I matured as an athlete, this picture of the everyman-hero became clearer.

In 1993, I coached a group of fifteen women who were interested in competing in the Danskin Women’s Triathlon in San Jose, California. These women became my first sports heroes. Some of them didn’t know how to swim. Others borrowed bikes for the occasion. A few had never run. All were moms with jobs and full lives.

In eight weeks, all fifteen crossed the finish line via life-altering experiences. For some, it was the first time they had given themselves a gift worth coveting– self-confidence. I admired them for stepping into the unknown in their lives to examine themselves. What they found was more woman than they imagined.

This concept that had eluded them prior seemed to come to me naturally—you want something, go after it. In many ways it felt easy, and I drew strength from making these choices regularly. But I saw the magnitude of their initial fear and struggle and their choice to follow through with their goal. That was heroic. If that vision of “hero” rings true in your world, then you’ll see that the sport of triathlon is full of them. If you don’t believe me, look in the mirror.

Going After Your Hero

In the stress of work, family, and training, you can create an athletic life that is rewarding and fulfilling, while creating a rich lifestyle that exceeds anything you have known prior. Why live vicariously through someone else you consider a hero when you can create a life in your own mirror that is fabulous to view?

Triathlon has taught me that the heroes in life are everyday folks who fall on their faces time and again, pick themselves up, dust themselves off, learn from their falls, revel at the opportunities of the difficult lessons and heed them. Your hero should be yourself.

Admire the decisions you make in your own reality. Your success touches your life and the lives of your family and friends directly. That’s important stuff. Cross that finish line. Dream large.

A few weeks ago I gave a couple talks on a topic I call “Doing Amazing” to a young leadership group as well as at a fundraiser for SHARP – a non-profit raising money to help kids who can’t afford to get swimming lessons. The presentation is based on my ponderings over the years of who I think is amazing and what qualities might be considered amazing—in short, who are my heros in life.

In short, I don’t have heros as society defines hero, but I do admire the actions of many people—some famous, some just ordinary folks. What I’ve realized over the years is that amazing is happening around us every day—maybe even right in your own mirror.

In many ways our own lives are shaped and molded by our experiences. But doing amazing isn’t so much about what we’ve done, its about what we do with what we’ve done—how we interpret and act on our experiences. Whether we are Mother Theresa, John Muir, or you, if we make fruitful choices based on the stuff that happens to us we can do amazing in our lives—we can be our own heros.

I offered the folks in these recent audiences my 10 lessons or bits of wisdom on doing amazing. I thought it would be fun to share those with you this spring, this time of renewal (see below). I’d love to hear yours! What amazing stuff have you been up to? Do share. And please pass this along to anyone who might enjoy.

Here’s to your amazing self in 2010!

Terri

In Doing Amazing…

1)      Choose endeavors for which you have gut passion. Then expect that your passion will be challenged.

2)       Seek comfort in discomfort while fueling yourself with tenacity, endurance, strength and adaptability.

3)       Create a plan then adapt well as your plan changes up.

4)       Your naysayers, mistakes and failures are your best teachers.

5)       Take risks by stepping into the unknown, with manageable, calculated steps. Then step again, and again…

6)       Some of your greatest joys will come when you share your ‘Doing Amazing’ life with others. Share it well.

7)       Strive to be a ‘master’ at your craft by remaining ‘a beginner’.

8)       Let go of the outcome to achieve your best outcome.

9)       Take responsibility for your own perception of yourself and you will gain the elixir in life and sport…confidence.

10)   There are no absolutes or guarantees while Doing Amazing. That is part of what makes doing Doing Amazing so amazing.