And Now I Race!
I am a strong believer that quality and consistency in training will trump quantity and/or intensity, if not immediately, then eventually down the road. Many people go out and race…a lot… and for some this works. Frequent, high intensity efforts, (a race), followed by recovery and rejuvenation is one way to build fitness, and for some this works. However, when it comes to most athletes, who have various other commitments, work family, school ect. and particularly those athletes training for an Ironman distance triathlon this may not be the best way to build your fitness.
Don’t get me wrong, I love racing, and toeing the line is truly the best way to test your fitness. Racing is also the goal that keeps us going forwards, and provides motivation for us all when we are tired or just lack motivation. But in my mind racing is also the reward, especially a good race, after some delayed gratification and heavy training, we dig ourselves out of the hole and see what the last several weeks have brought us.
I like clustering my races together, so that I can complete several weeks of uninterrupted training. Having said that, I have just finished a solid three and a half week training block which saw just under 100hrs of training, including 71000yrd of swimming, almost 1200miles of biking and 178 miles of running. Although there were certainly some hard intervals and work sets throughout this training block I keep the effort repeatable and consistent to maximize the fitness benefits.
As for the racing! I am racing the White Lake Half #2 here in NC tomorrow and then Florida 70.3 next weekend! I can’t wait to laid it all down the next few weeks and I’ll be sure to post updates afterward.
