The TRUTH (maybe): A Never Ending List
Some of what I learned from Triathlon in 2012 and beyond:
Don’t let this happen to you!
- Taking performance enhancing drugs makes you a twat and a cheat
- Racing lighter is better
- Eating lean keeps you light
- Training heavier makes your faster if your race weight goes down
- Burn fat as much as possible
- Go easy on sugar and get your carbs from healthy sources
- Ucan generation is a game changer for race day nutrition
- Listen to your coach unless you like being injured
- Don’t listen to your coach on race day if you feel really good
- Tackle your weaknesses
- Make lots of friends in lots of places
- Do fun races
- Don’t take yourself too serious
- Give back to others
- Youth triathlon is better than adult triathlon
- Flip turns are hard to do.
- Test yourself in training but not daily
- Recovery is more important the older you get
- It is ok to have rivals if it is healthy competition
- Have the best race you can on the day
- Try not to set a time goal
- Use glide heavily in areas that chafe
- Figure out what shoes feel best and run in them
- Blisters suck, really suck
- Train with people that help you remain centered
- Get out of your comfort zone on occasion
- Coaching is a lot like therapy
- Indoor training is much better than people give it credit
- Try to have one big race per year
- Try not to let your self-worth ride on that big race
- Have strong opinions about training but be willing to listen to other ones
- Affiliate with good shops, clubs, and teams
- Fit over everything else when buying a bike
- Aero = faster
- Comfortable stiff bike shoes are very important too
- Dig deep on race day
- Over train for the distance your racing
- Ironman is not the promised land but its close to it
- 70.3 is the best distance for me and most of us who have busy lives
- Make sure your family is on board with things
- If it hurts, don’t keep doing whatever your doing until you get it checked
- Have great support people on your team including PTs, masseuses, strength trainers, etc.
- Stretching and rolling are stupid although Thai massage seemed to help so maybe that’s not fully true
- The mental game is more important than you think
- More miles works for me to go faster but not for others
- Less miles = need to be harder miles.
- More swim yards does not mean you will go faster
- In the water, quality > quantity
- It’s never too cold to swim until its too cold to swim
- Closer races are easier to do than further races
- The best race directors are ones that get you out of there asap
- Rev3 races are better than WTC races but you can’t qualify for Vegas and Kona there
- You are a scumbag if you cheat (yes I repeated that one) but this is geared toward the bike drafter and the course cutter
- Family and friends present at races makes them more enjoyable
- Yelling and cheering at someone during a race does in fact make them go faster
- Racing a lot is tough due to the sleep disruptions and logistics
- Triathlon can be expensive but it’s a worthy investment
- Short course races are painful but fun and over quick
- Find ways to have the quickest transitions of your AG
- Always carry Benadryl
- Just because they are selling something doesn’t mean you have to buy it
- Have answers to questions you will ask yourself prepared ahead
- Environmental conditions like heat/humidity, cold, wind, etc are things you have to learn to tolerate
- L.A. Woman by the Doors is the best triathlon song ever (MOJO RISIN!!!)
- You are not faster if you have a cool nickname, but it can’t hurt
