Saturday, March 26, 2011

Blow the middle ground

A long boring day in Auckland, made the decision not to go training in the morning, as the weather what $hit. That bought me some time to finish with all the chores and the study... and finally get to blog what I'd though since the race in Welli.
A couple of days after the race it was the Abu Dabi Tri, a different race format with a gruelling 200km bike ride. That kept me thinking about how sometimes we are constrained in our training in order to have a great race in a set distance. I then investigated a bit about fun tri distances and found about some crazy races out there with overly long swims, or bikes or runs, something we don't have a lot here in NZ.

Anyway, what I thought is that over the off season, besides doing all those stupid miles sessions that I like so much, it is a good idea to lift the ceiling of what can be achieved in any of the three disciplines. Why not going for an all out swim PB? why not going for a 50km run? why not going for a 12secs 100m sprint? or up the biggest hill in the town or the region? or the country? there is many sporting ventures that we think we can't do but yet we can. Say, for example, our average pace... whatever that number it is, it is the result of the middle ground between our fastest pace and the slower pace. My theory is, that we don't loose much by lifting that fastest pace a notch for one time.
What happens if we realize that given we did it for once, we try again? and again? I guess that sometimes we have to throw everything out the window, find out a whole new world and move the middle ground up, or down, but shake it for the sake of it and put some spice to the training.

I've made my objective this season to have a few of those epic fun times. Don't have them mapped yet, but I'll make sure it's noted.

Tomorrow is the last race of the season, National Aquathlon Champs. The weather outlook is a bit dim, and we may not have great numbers, but there's still a bit of speed left on the old legs to fire through the race. A full report due tomorrow nite.

Enjoy your weekend

3 comments:

  1. I'll give you a fiver if you swim the Cook Straight.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If you hurry, you can compete in the world triathlon. Swim 2000 miles, bike 9000 miles run 300 miles to the top of Everest, or something like that.

    ReplyDelete
  3. GL on the final aquathlon race! love the idea of raise the roof....ran 30mi on my 40th bday last year...but paid for it for like 2 weeks:)

    D

    ReplyDelete