Thoughts on speed, and an extraordinary evening

You all may do the same and leave the mind wonder while doing those long runs or rides or swims. One of the thoughts that came to me (apart from the supermarket list, stuff about my friends in Argentina and what I would wear for Friday at work) was that there’s a point where speed becomes a by product. I’ll explain, as we keep training and getting fitter and then increasing volumes we all have small or big gains in terms of speed and race results. We may even think we can stop ageing, but that’s not true.


After some time, we all hit a point where the gains get smaller and smaller, and that when we realize that we can’t beat ageing and we can’t beat genetics. However, we can certainly keep improving and that’s when the focus changes to technique. By just reading many of our blogs it’s easy to see a trend that many times end up with us doing small changes to hour swim, run or pedal stroke or cadence and get to another level in each discipline. Stretching seems to be a big one, and then coache’s advise on swimming and running are just behind. I am not sure how it works on the bike, though.

I guess what I wanted to say is that the main focus many times is not going harder faster, but doing it in a way that has not other result than going faster, and then going harder AND faster. Funny, hum?

The second part of this blog is about last nite. There’s this race called stroke and stride, it’s been held in Mission Bay, Auckland for some 20 years now. There’s plenty of stories and many world champions had raced there. It’s a swim-run event and is fast and furious, but it also a good introduction to multisport. Last evening was the first race of this season, and while the girls were out, there was a pod of orca whales swimming with them. This was not a stunt by a wetsuit manufacturer, it was real black big mammals swimming 100metres from shore.

The organizers had to delay the men’s start until the rowers and surf lifesavers moved the whales out. It was cool to watch and I guess it could have played in some of the men starting the race 5min later. The photo is thanks to Sarah, who saw her husband venture into the sea of killer whales. I was supposed to start but I couldn’t fit my long run any earlier, so that’s why I was in the sidelines. Only in New Zealand, he he he