The New Road

No Pain... No Pain

I've been reading this book on triathlon training. It stresses working out smarter as opposed to harder. One thing in particular that struck me was how the author debunked the old 'No pain, no gain' idea. Or I should say, that there is nothing to be gained from intense pain or real agony. The key to being a good triathlete is continuous training. Day after day. Year after year. It's not glamorous.

In hindsight it now seems obvious to me. But I can still remember times when I thought that just this one more ultra-intense workout would do the trick. The trick to what? Right? I could just stop after that?

Now I suppose I argue against myself and say that the 'Jackathlon' I tried last weekend was torture. But I did give up at the four hour mark and go home. And I was fighting against the elements more than my own exhaustion. Will I do it again? If I put Mission Peak in the rotation it would probably be for just a duathlon. Mission Peak and swimming, or Mission Peak and biking again. The mountain is just too tough on it's own. But I might find a nice long trail run and use that instead. There is a nice trailhead near the Treeview pool so I could just as easily use that.

I'm also beginning to notice how fitness advice seems to make a little more sense to me now. For example, on the one hand you would have these sweeping change suggestions; eat less fat, eat more protein, drop caffeine. And then there would be these micro suggestions; increase your footfall speed, sit back further in your saddle, push out with your arms at the apex of each stroke. And now it kind of makes sense to me that in the beginning you need the big macro changes to get into the whole deal. Then when you are into it for a while, it's the micro changes that start shaving off time here and there, or making longer runs, bikes, or swims possible with less effort. In golfing magazines they have advice targeted for each skill level, I wish they had the same kind of things in magazines for triathletes.

Anywho, still suffering a little from the allergy stuff. I definitely sucked a lot of crud into my lungs which I'm coughing out. I also went to REI and bought some buffs so that I can have a handy face mask on hikes, bikes and runs. If you want to have some fun watch the 'demo' video on the REI page. It's amazing what you can do with just a little piece of fabric. I talked to Lori about it and she said that I hadn't watched enough Survivor. On that show they use the buffs for everything. Here are some more ideas, though I can't vouch for 'blind chicken'.