Arthur has recently been reading articles about Navy SEALS and their training. One concept that he has talked about over and over has been the 40% rule. This rule is that when you think you have given it your all you are only about 40% there. This idea shaped his last few weeks of training for our annual triathlon. This is our third year to compete in the Salty Dog Triathlon. As we have discussed before having this race at the end of the summer gives us a reason to leave our cool basement and get outside and train. This year I struggled with running in the evenings due to the heat and we only biked a handful of times. I borrowed my brother's road bike for the race and rode it once before race day. The last week leading up to the race our "training" consisted of watching and evaluating the technique of world-class athletes swimming, biking, and running on the Olympics.
A few months ago my friend Hillary, who competes each year with us, joined me in convincing my cousin Eleanor to participate. She loves to run, tolerates biking, and is willing to swim only if it is necessary. It is necessary in a triathlon.
We all met up in Hutchinson on Friday night for carbo-loading at Olive Garden prior to the race. Eating at Olive Garden is one of the main reasons Arthur participates every year. It is not because he loves getting up at 4:45am on the morning of the race. Although this year he was a pretty good sport about the early morning. He was a good sport all weekend, being subjected to conversation with a group of women that overall was lacking in football references. We stayed at our friend Rachel's house and all the girls stayed up talking leaving Arthur to speed read a good book.
Here are our respective recaps of the race:
From Alex's perspective- Since this race is a stagger start with an individual starting every 5 seconds I had plenty of time to chat with the racers I was standing next to. One guy was from Dallas and he and his daughter were competing on their family vacation on their way to Mount Rushmore. It was a neat idea to incorporate road races across the country with vacation. (Although we we tired enough afterwards that our 90 minute drive home was tough). Finally it was my turn in the pool and I always struggle with swimming the 50 meter length since we train in a 25 meter pool. I felt pretty tired after my first lap but channeled my inner Katie Ledecky to power through the last 300 meters. My split in the race is never as good as how I do in training but at least the swim was behind me. I jumped on the bike for my favorite part of the race. The morning was cool with no wind and the course is flat which are perfect conditions for a good bike ride. We ride 5 laps for a total of 10 miles. With each lap I could tell I was ahead of my predicted time. I rolled into the transition to running with 3 minutes to spare to meet my goal time which gave me a little wiggle room on the run. Having wiggle room was good. Biking felt great but I didn't realize how much it had taken out of me. My thoughts for the first half mile of the run were-- is it okay if I walk, why did I sign up to do this, did I ever think running was fun, and why does it feel like my feet are cement blocks. My first mile was on pace so I just had to keep it steady. I was not trying to adopt Arthur's 40% rule. Running was unpleasant; I didn't have the desire to push beyond my limits. I finished with a PR of 1:12:27. My average speed on the bike was 18 miles an hour. On my regular bike my speed is about 12 or 13 mph so it was fun to fly. I ended up winning my age group for the 2nd year in a row and was the 5th female overall. After the race I did bump into one of my patients who was competing. I helped her rehab after a knee surgery last spring so it was great to see her racing again even if she did beat me-- my competitive spirit is over taken by my inner PT desire of getting people back to the things they love.
Arthur's perspective:
As Alex said, reading about Navy SEALs really influenced my approach to the run. This year I came in with the least amount of training on the bike and running as I have ever had any year of competing. I swam more in training this year than ever before; ironically, it was my worst swim and best year for biking and running, the difference being that I came into the race deciding that I was going to bike as hard as I possible and then push for a 10 minute pace from the start of the run, regardless of how I felt. This led to a 6 minute (7%) improvement on my best time.
I definitely hurt more during the race, but the self-satisfaction definitely offset that. It's interesting that after all these years I'm finding that I've been saving too much for the end. Athletically, I'll have to dedicate more time to figuring out how hard I can push, and hopefully run an even more intelligent race next year. Philosophically, it somewhat serves as a case-in-point for the idea that people tend to be too easy on themselves, and that's a thought that could have far-reaching applications.
After the race we continued to try to beat the clock by trying to get all of our stuff loaded up, driving across town, having 4 people tag team showers, and driving across town in about 1 hour for our post race celebration at IHOP. For some reason waffles, pancakes, and omelets always hit the spot after a good race. My aunt and uncle joined our crew for the meal so Arthur escaped listening to the endless chatter of girls and dove into an engineering discussion with my uncle about an HVAC ventilation problem he is working on at work. My aunt entertained the rest of us with tales we hadn't heard about each of our parents and grandparents since all of our parents grew up attending the same church.
Once again it was a great triathlon and there is the sweetness of pushing our bodies to the limits. The rest of the day we recovered by lounging in our recliners watching Olympic athletes push to the limits and beyond. Omnia Vincit Amor.
No comments:
Post a Comment