Why am I doing this I asked myself and Rob (my husband) one evening last week? I was just starting some core strength work at 8.30pm after getting the boys off to bed. This started me thinking about the broader question, which is; what drives my interest in and energy for triathlon to the point that I train 6 days a week, generally betwen 15 and 20 hours and push myself physically and mentally to varying degrees each day so that I can swim, ride and run as hard as I can possibly go for up to 10 hours in a race?
At the end of all this work there is no pot of gold (at least not for me as a professional who always aims to be in the top 10 overall, but in big races am unlikely to make the top 3), nor is it altruistic for a greater good as it saves no lives or cures no disease. Triathlon leaves very few real ripples in the world. So it is essentially about what I get from it personally. Despite little external reward and lots of effort, I do love it. So here are some of my top reasons why that keep me focussed and enthused to both train and race.
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| Out training with Rob |
1/
I love training. Racing triathlon is a good excuse to train. Racing as a pro in long course / ironman races is a great excuse to train a lot. I get to spend hours each day training in the stunning mountains, lakes and valleys of the French Alps. In just the last few weeks I have taken a bunch of photos on the iphone while out training. I will put more of them on a seperate blog. I am lucky as my training areas are truly stunning and I have a good team to train with (mainly for swimming given I live 30k away from most of them) and a very fit husband who also loves cycling, skiing and generally having fun in the outdoors too.
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Pre race nerves unleash into action
Long Course World Champs, Germany 2010 |
2/ I love racing. It seems odd sometimes to enjoy pushing yourself as hard as you can possibly sustain for the duration of a race, whether Olympic distance, Long Course or Ironman. I do though. I love the thrill and challenge of racing. It is the culmination of lots of hard work and a challenging mental and physical test of how well you can leverage all you have prepared for the day. The energy of those also testing themselves, the comraderie amongst "competitors" is fantastic and it provides the opportunity to dig deep inside yourself and find the strength that is there when needed that you may not otherwise know exists.
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Rip, Alia, Adi, myself and Benny
take time out after a race in Oz |
3/ The community is great. Triathlon allows me to meet and be part of a great community of people who each have their own interesting and diverse drivers to triathlon, delve deep into themselves by choice, are generally sparky, positive and with a high degree of commitment that you can usually see demonstrated more generally in their lives than just through their sport.
4/ We get to travel to and live in interesting places. Triathlon gave me the excuse to come to the French Alps to live with my family and do something really different and interesting for this part of my life. It also gives us lots of opportunity to travel to great places. Last year we went to Budapest, the German Alps, Paris, Nice, Barcelona and the Costa Brava and lots of regional towns near here for races. Besides seeing the race region we often make a road trip of it and stop on the way home to visit some interesting areas. This year St Polten in Austria, Henley in the UK and more regions of France are on our agenda.
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| Discovering Budapest after racing there last season |
5/ I like being fit and healthy. My body loves feeling fit, and then tired post training, and fitter and stronger again as a result. It is good to be a bit tiggerish in energy most of the time. When I do other sports like nordic or alpine skiing, kayaking or just bouncing about with the kids it feels great to really enjoy and feel energised by it. Training hard also helps you make good decisions about a lot of other things that impact short and long term health such as nutrition, hydration and sleep as you need these to support effective training.
6/ There is so much to learn. Triathlon is great fun, but challenging to keep developing in. You have three sports to juggle both physical training and technique development. Nutrition, strength and conditioning, rest and recovery and an effective mental attitude are all part of the skills to learn and hone too. Most triathletes need to fit in a job too, and we all need to ensure our family and friends are part of our journey and we are part of theirs. To prioritise time effectively and maintain progress requires constant learning; reading, listening, watching others and trialling stuff that makes sense and working out what works for you. It is a great mental as well as a physical challenge.
So generally I am delighted to have discovered triathlon at a later stage in life and discovered that I have some capability in it. Yes, I qualify for Veteran category here in France :-) After two seasons of training and racing in a focussed way, I've managed to qualify for a professional licence to race with the elite women's field in the top long course races. After only getting beaten in one race by anyone in my age category (the Olympic Distance World Champs) and never finishing outside of the top 10 overall women in any race last year, I have decided to take this opportunity to go to the next level and race as a pro simply because I am lucky enough to have earned the opportunity and be in a position that I can take it up. So I am now training for my first season as a professional and giving it my all. I am no Chrissy Wellington or Mirinda Carfrae and neither do I expect to ever become one. I simply expect to do my best amongst the finest athletes, and hopefully if all goes well I will train effectively without any major interuptions from injury or illness and in racing be able to put down the fastest time I am capable of. To do this will be a great challenge, but the journey to get there and the people I get to meet along the way are the real reason I love tri!
I hope you love doing whatever it is that you are focussed on too!
A bientot / See you later
Christine
