So, BTS are coming to the end of the first winter of training
peaks, for some this won’t mean a lot but a lot of club members have been slaving
away over the winter quite literally training like they never have before,
there have been a few patches of light along the way, a half marathon here, a
swim PB here, or even a duathlon there but for the most part it’s been a long,
hard and at times lonely slog.
I thought I’d write a post now on the eve of the first time
trial of the year, when the first triathlon is a few weeks away mainly because I
haven’t got round to it sooner, but it’s a good few weeks before the start of
the new season so I’m sure this will help a few of you!
Keep the faith
As almost all of last year’s confidence has melted away, combined
with seeing snippets of other people’s training or early season races chips
away at your nerves and combined with the increasing intensity and duration of
training its easy to start doubting yourself, your training and little wobbles
in the road can become full on swerves, and potentially a loss of faith and unhappiness!
Three things to think about here.
- Remember where you came from, its easy to miss the progress you have made over the winter so have a look back at you records from las t summer or this time last year, you will be amazed by how much progress you’ve made vs yourself!
- Focus your nervous energy into your training, use the fear to make sure you put every effort into your training, you can’t make up for lost time but following the programme to the letter will crystallise the progress you have undoubtedly made over the winter make sure you absolutely smash every session, getting swim run and bike paces spot on BUT don’t go crazy and try to make up for any missed sessions or add “extras” in!
- Secondly there will be a magic moment where you will realise that all the hard work has paid off, it’s impossible to know when this might happen and it might be a Saturday bike when all of a sudden you are waiting for the pack at the top of a hill, or it might be the first time you pin a number on for a half marathon, time trial or duathlon and you do better than expected, but it might also be your first big race of the year when the training and tapering finally click and all of a sudden you are flying through the field ahead of your expectations, trust me it will happen!
One final thought, if you have energy to burn (nervous
rather than physical!) then start thinking about racing and your kit in particular,
get you race bike ready to ride, make sure you’ve got elastic laces in your
shoes and make sure that all your kit is in a good state!
