11 Ways to Build Triathlon Success in 2018
Ready for the triathlon season of your life? Not yet? Read on to learn about your first step toward career preparation.
Taking a calculated risk to go faster for swimming, biking, and running rather than hunkering down in your status quo running routine.
Don’t wait to step up your efforts and improve your racing tactics when you see others accomplishing more. Commit to starting a challenging and successful triathlon journey today. Here are 11 ways you will be a more competitive triathlete to achieve success in your specific race goals.
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Train with a specific set of custom triathlon workouts for the best ROI of time to performance results. Continuing to do the same activities will produce the same results. Make your changes from now on.
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Devote 80% of your effort to eliminating time wasters that impede progress toward your goals. These can include writing trainings, waiting for others to show up for training, analyzing meaningless metrics, removing non-value-adding concerns and weird trust, and other time-wasting actions.
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Pre-exempt disorders, eliminate potential problem areas early: lack of stamina, unproven nutrition options, incomplete checklists, postponed race registrations, indecisiveness in housing arrangements, etc.
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Take advantage of downtime from work, sports, and social activities. Your body and mind come back stronger after dedicated rest, recovery, and rejuvenation. Take a deep breath, exhale and relax a bit too.
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focus on doing new to progress toward your goals. You are not fixing problems. Attachment is for pets. New workouts. New career tactics. Barrow widely of successful triathletes further along in their journeys than you.
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Remove the regression. Adopt polarity management in your training plan.
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Training should be a process mindset, not a project. Let sport become part of your lifestyle.
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Get people to follow you to your sweet spot. Don’t passively find yourself in a competitor’s sweet spot. Explore solutions to extend your sweet spots to other disciplines.
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Overcome the challenges. Gain with limited pain. Take advantage of opportunities to raise your pain threshold with tough workouts that demand you physically and mentally.
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Make sure you and your coach are in sync with training and race plans. Make sure you and your sigo are in sync with tri and family social plans! Communicate plans. Honor limits. Fulfill commitments.
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Achieve and celebrate small victories throughout your all-inclusive training milestones, local races and family outings. Continue progress toward longer range goals as well. Enjoy greater achievements and celebrations as you achieve greater successes.
Here is an example of how I changed training plans from year to year. Physical training for a second Ironman triathlon followed a similar seasonal path to the previous year. Unlike Ironman Utah, when I approached a career as a project manager, the training commitment for Ironman Coeur d’Alene (CDA) did not consume my life, only training time. After all the mental strain of thinking about Ironman Utah from registration to race day, Ironman CDA flowed through my mind like just another triathlon.
Becoming an Ironman required following a process rather than managing a project. Trainings, part of the process. Motivation to complete training and compete in the race, parts of the process. Swimming training with a group of Masters, competing against others and supporting the family; all parts of the process. Physically and mentally challenging my body were more components of the process.
I followed the training template from the previous year, though I added an extra day of swimming when possible and a mid-week, early morning 50-60 mile bike ride from the Arizona State University campus to Fountain Hills and back for more bike climbing. Specific weightlifting exercises for arms, back, stomach, and legs were also added. During the training timeline, mileage increased, stabilized, and decreased. I did five races while ramping up training before Ironman CDA to pick up some speed, build endurance, engage in real pre-race mental preparation, and gain experience to deal with race day anxieties. I walked the talk of working out the 13-week training plan for Ironman.
Take inventory of your tool kit now. Purge outdated tools and replace them with new concepts. Specifically compare what you are doing now and what you could be doing differently based on the 11 items outlined above. Acquire the behaviors necessary to reach your full potential. Check your basic physical condition. Challenge all your mental capacities. Start preparing for your season today.
What other changes are you making to your 2018 career plans?
