Was triathlon better before?

If you are active on any message boards you will quite often read about that the sport of triathlon was better before. That the sport has changed from a tight knit group of friends to this new “thing”. But was triathlon better before?



First of all, any sport was better when you just found it either alone or with your friends and had great pleasure doing the racing and training. This is not unique to triathlon. But it has nothing to do with the sport, just how an individual appreciate the moment.

 

I did my first triathlon at the end of the 80s. I did it with the same group of people I did cross country skiing with. The sport was not new for us, we had been exposed to triathlon since a long distance race had been organized in our area since the mid 80s (Hof). We also had don multisport as part of cross country skiing training, swim-run, swim-run-rollerskiing, so the thought of multisport was not new. Was triathlon fun, yes. Was it hard, yes. Was the sport better than now? No.

 

These days the races are better organized, they are safer and you can even get equipment. A friend of mine did Hof triathlon (Ironman distance) without a wetsuit. 17 degree water and 3.8k swimming was cold. He started the bike with a feather jacket to warm up. These days you can get a good wet suit for $200.

 

Conclusion: every time you find something new and you are really enjoying it, it will soon be the good old times. You maybe had more fun, but the arena you did your sport in did not matter as much as you think.

What we should do is keep focusing on why we are doing the sport, the enjoyment of the challenge.

100 hours of training

Time is flying and it is mid March already. I can feel spring is in the air, I have allergy and the next months will be loud and interesting. On days with a lot of pollen I run or bike indoor to make sure I can get the workout done properly. But I am use to having allergy so this is my normal :-)

Training is going OK. Of course I wish that I could have done more, but to be honest I am happy with what I have done so far this year. I just passed 100 hours of training.



 

As you can see my training is polarized.



 

I feel that I am getting better, stronger and fitter. Not only because of my polarized training, but also that I now have several years of consistent training behind me.



 

With the weather getting better I can get some longer bike rides in, but I will try to maintain focus on running. Running is the best training for the endurance engine.

Are triathletes stupid customers?

The definition of a stupid customer is a person that buy everything in hope that it will solve a problem. A typical customer will buy some item that solve no problem, but it looked like a really good buy 3.30 at night on TV after too many beers, or even worse, anything from the Skymall catalog.

What about a fat burning creme.....



Then, what about triathletes. Are triathletes stupid customers? To use a line from the movie Singles, "Sometimes". How can I say that? I can say that after watching triathletes in action. But here you have some products that have been in the triathlon spotlight over the last years, compression socks, Vibram fivefingers, mid/front foot shoes, no gluten, no carbohydrates, ice baths, solid food on the bike, magic bracelets etc. These are just some of the fabs the last years.

But one thing is true about the sport of triathlon. It is a first adapter sport. Nothing gets untested. But not all things should be tested at all and that is my point.

For anything related to the body, trust science. If the product has claims, how can the claims be proven. Do not trust anyone saying; test it and find out. You can say that science does not know everything, and that is true. If science knew everything it could stop. But claims should be backed up by verifiable facts, not stories.

There are no shortcuts or secrets to success. No magic blue pill (doping is cheating, remember), no hidden secret that will make you to a speed machine. A good example is the result of the fictional book Born to run. Many got caught in the wave of minimalistic shoes and had to find out that they were not 10 years old, 80 pounds Kenyans running to schools. Sorry, the running without cushioning is just stupid.

But on thing actual can improve your training and make you go faster. It is also free. Get more sleep :-)