No matter if you ran 10 minute miles or 5 minute miles, averaged 23 mph or 17 mph on the bike, a personal record is a record non-the-less. Fast, sort of fast and slower makes no difference. If you shaved 2 minutes from your PR on a 5k or 10 minutes off your half Ironman PR, it’s a win.
Do I have some sort of super knowledge to be able to keep improving? HGH? Is Ben Greenfield coaching me? No. What I do have is consistency this year.
Bob Mitera, IM coach, summed it up best in THIS POST. The best lines from his post are, “Just show up and do the session to the best of your ability in the here and now. When we race, you do the same thing” and “I will compete at certain events, but not at the expense of my family's happiness.”
Two basic principles and ideas I found myself already living by:
1) If you make your plan for your season, stick with it.
2) Don’t skip workouts. Don’t half ass workouts.
Give everything you have to each workout and you will reach your goals. The past few seasons, incidences out of my control prohibited me from maintaining a consistent training schedule and volume I wanted. I had to re-adjust my expectations, but this year so far so good. Consistently hitting my planned workouts and giving 110% at those workouts allowed me to run the fastest splits in a 10k race, ever. I was definitely surprised when I set off a little faster than I planned and only had a minor letdown at the last mile.
The second quote played in last year as well. My family required a lot more of my time than would be “normal” and I had to adjust. Sure, I had struggles adapting to what was needed, but that experience changed my perception of what’s really important. If you’re reaching your goals at the expense of your family, you’re going to be awfully lonely at the finish line.
With the new year and all the resolutions to be faster, race longer or race your first triathlon, if you don’t at least show up for the workouts, then you are setting yourself up for failure. Your best race isn’t made on race day, it’s made from the days, weeks, months and years you showed up to your workout and did it to the best of your ability.
Ryan Falkenrath writes the blog falkeetriathlon.blogspot.com, married father of two young kids, owner of two dogs and trying to balance life, work and multisport. Ryan has participated in multisport events since 2001 from 5k's to Half Ironmans. Ryan is also the Kansas City Endurance Sports Examiner and you can read more of his triathlon thoughts HERE and he collects race reviews at www.Triathlon-Reviews.blogspot.com. Contact Ryan at: falkeetriathlon@hotmail.com or follow him on @TriJayhawkRyan.
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