On The Water

I have been a triathlete for 7 years now. Along these years of training and racing, I have found that many of my fellow athletes fail to set a goal and go after it. This is because a goal that is achievable and challenging enough requires a lot more work than one may think and more importantly, it involves a high probability of failing. I think a lot of athletes nowadays are afraid to fail. This is one of the reasons why they often use the excuse of "I just want to have fun" to justify their lack of focusing, their races where they "had a bad day" and their multi-distance/multi-disciplinary plans: "I want to race an Ironman, a SUP race, a tough mudder, a 6hr endurance MTB and win the National Road bike and time trial races this year". Having fun is paramount and trying out different sports and distances is definitely a lot of fun. However, a lot of these athletes that "just want to have fun" are highly competitive. Despite being highly c...

I am really excited to finally experience an Xterra off-road triathlon in the SouthEast! Coming from the road triathlon scene, I was really disappointed to realize how few racing options are available for off-road triathlons compared to the road triathlons! I would say that the Xterra Tiger is a great welcoming race to make this gap a little smaller! Located at the Chewacla State Park in Auburn, AL, the Xterra Tiger is a sprint off-road triathlon race that has it all: excellent timing for a first tri of the year (right at the beginning of the season), easy drive to the venue (from AL or GA), plenty of parking space and friendly people! The race itself consisted of a refreshing 1/2mi swim (I really think it was a little longer than 1/2mi though), and a truly amazing 10mi mountain bike loop that is fast and flow-y, quite rocky and with sharp turns but not particularly technical. The trails are fast and furious packed with a lot of fun! The 5k run (also a little longer than 5k) is ar...

If you want to run a faster 5K or a marathon or just get better in the running leg of a triathlon you gotta learn to tune with your body and understand what is often called, perceived effort. The majority of the runners out there start out a little faster than they can maintain over the course of the race and gradually slow down their pace or fade out. They may run a fast time this way but the question is: could it be faster with negative splitting? There has been lots of discussion on the subject over the years and there are lots of examples on elite athletes racing with different strategies. Excluding the exceptions (exceptions always exist to general rules) most records have been broken either by even splitting or negative splitting. The latter is what describes the time of the second half being faster than the time of the first half. And this is hard to accomplish. Understanding how fast you should go during the first half so that you can save a tiny bit to run the second ...

My racing season has not officially started yet as my rehab plan is still on, but I do train a bit and I do have to complete some key races in order to monitor my rehab progress and get the green light for the start of the season. One of those races was the 2014 Duathlon Regional Championships last Saturday. I got into the race day feeling great. I had been running totally pain free (from my abdominal/psoas pain) the past two weeks and my goal for the race was to enjoy a fast pace without having to suffer any side-stiching-like pain. I chose the standard distance 10k run-40k bike-5k run. The race course was really technical with lots of hills and ups and downs both on the run and on the bike. Despite the difficulties, the roads were magnificent and the run portion had stretches of trail running into the woods, which was really awesome. Once we started, I zoomed in and felt ok for the first 4mi then I started feeling weak but nothing to worry about. On a 10k run, things start ...

Let's first make something clear: Before you jump into an overload training phase, you need to have a coach who understands very well the concept behind the periodization training plan and who can apply it specifically to you and adjust it along the way depending on the circumstances and your unique, personal needs. You can read more about it in one of my previous posts here: The porgressive overload as part of a periodization training plan When it's time to enter the progressive overload period of my training plan, I have just come out from the base and transition periods. The former (base) requires lots of slow, long miles and the latter (transition) lots of sort, power exercises that make different muscle groups work one after the other. Before the overload period, I probably weigh 2 to 4 pounds more, I feel a little tired but not worn out, and I may (or may not!) get a week of easy workouts: every day I would do about 1 hour of easy spin or 20min of jogging or 45m...