Further Reflections on the Gulf Coast Triathlon 2008

Now, a little removed from the emotion of race day, I can look at the event from a more logical perspective. The race outcome wasn’t quite as bad as initially reported by our joereger.com correspondents.

1) My new training methods are working. I’m doing a lot less hours but my race time is constant. That’s more efficient training. Despite fears that I didn’t have the endurance to make it through the race, I did.

2) Even though I didn’t PR, my performance was the best yet at the half distance. Weather conditions on the swim, bike and run made this year a harder race than the last few. So coming within 13 seconds of my PR ain’t bad.

3) I didn’t blow up on the run when it got hot. The heat kicked in at the halfway point for me. It was really hot. I felt it. I felt many of the sensations that precede explosions. And while I did fade some, I was able to keep going strong to the end.

4) This is my third race that I felt I paced the run properly. IMFL06, IMFL07 and now this one. I go by feel, easier early on and then I bump it up slowly throughout. What’s interesting is that I never say “it’s time to go a little faster.” It’s more like my mental associations morph through the run from a general “keep it slow” to “time to go.” But the thoughts aren’t necessarily race or pace related. Often it’s more like “I’m being reserved” to “I’m being aggressive.” The key is that I flow into a mindset of going faster instead of trying to go faster. When I do workouts where I want to be at a pace and I say “I want to run 6:00/mi” I just get miserable because the motivation is logical but not emotional. When I do a workout listening to Metallica and just let ‘er rip I often find that I’m doing 6:00/mi with ease. So I guess I’m saying that in the Deep Survival sense I’m using my emotional side to pace my runs more than my logical side.