Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Training with a new sense of motivation

This first season as a professional athlete has had its fair share of ups, and a lot of downs. I've seen some very promising progress and results that I did not expect to see in my first season. I was ecstatic after Oceanside and Tremblant, feeling like things were going really well.

But I have also learned valuable lessons the hard way. I have over thought some situations, highly questioned myself and the decision of going all in, and overall, I just did not trust myself and the process enough. It cost me a lot of discomfort, a lot of self doubt, and numerous sleepless nights. I always try to remind myself that patience is virtue, but it's funny sometimes how one can completely ignore his/her own "wise words." It is simply easier to fall in the "I am not good enough anyway, so why bother" or "there's no way I can get to their level" train wreck. I hopped on that train for most of the season, with periods being worse than others.

August was a rough month to say the least, with Boulder 70.3 being the turning point. I knew that something was off going into this race prep. Physically I was getting weaker week over week, and mentally I was in a dark place I did not think I could get out of. Being all in means that I swim, bike, run, eat, rest, and repeat every day (trained seven days a week until after Boulder), without a single source of income. Seeing my wife taking the burden of supporting the household was/is hard to cope with, even despite the fact that she is uber supportive of me pursuing my dream.

But back to Boulder and the "turning point":

  • I tweaked my lower back during the scenic drive to Colorado. I did not think too much of it, but in hindsight, there were few factors that contributed to it. I was stressed out because I did not agree with the training approach that was used anymore. I questioned it and just merely did not trust the approach anymore. I am someone who needs to have a clear understanding of the approach and milestones needed to reach my goal (racing Kona as a pro). I have learned this year that I needed someone to really look at my training data for me and tell me when I do well or not, without sugar coding everything. In short, I no longer wanted to be the one trying to make sense of my training data, because my opinion was highly biased by how I felt on any given day
  • I raced Boulder with no clear race strategy, and the race strategy I was given was not coherent with the difficulty of the race. 
  • The race itself was the icing on the cake, and it just put on display all the difficulties I was facing. A slew of poor decisions on the swim which resulted in the lower back pain flaring up again in the water crushed the little confidence I had going in. I then proceeded to forget to take off my swim skin on the bike. My legs felt completely shut, and the lower back pain prevented me from going on the aerobars. I ended up free spinning the last 15 miles back to transition
  • I walked from the dismount line to my bike rack. I tried running, but every step sent an acute pain up to my lower back. I lasted 1 mile before throwing in the towel. 
I took a few days completely disconnected from society, which includes people and the Internet. It was much needed. After a few days of reflection, I made the decision to make big changes because I still believed that I could improve and I still believe that I can be competitive in the sport. 

I changed coaches: I took the methodical approach to reach out to some coaches and give them some time to do their research about me before talking to them. I wanted to see who truly had an interest in helping me get to the next level. It was disappointing. Out of the few coaches I reached out to, only one did his due diligence of researching me and reading through my website. After speaking to him for a good 30 minutes and making sure that he would be vested in my progression, Mariesa and I made the decision to switch. His vision was much more optimistic and the goals he lined up for me exceeded my own goals. I was excited to hear a coach whose vision was bigger than mine. I knew that meant that he'd push me hard. Having worked with a coach that has a very hand-off approach worked when I was racing as an age grouper, but I realized that I needed someone who would be on my tail constantly, reading my training log, analyzing data, and designing a plan and sessions that are tailored to the goals and racing. Being a big proponent of data analysis, he sold me on his approach. It's been a big adjustment to work with TrainingPeaks and comment on each of my training, and seeing my coach commenting back. 
It's been two months now and I can now make sense of each training session. I have regained confidence in my biking thanks to very specific training sessions around 70.3 racing. I am starting to feel like my run is shaping up nicely. It is headed in the right direction. And the same goes for the swim. I have never been pushed harder than when starting to work with him, and I am feeling a lot more confident and faster in the water. 

I only focus on me, and my training. I decided to no longer look at a start list or browse Instagram and Facebook to see what everyone is doing. The main focus is now me, my training, and I am making an effort to remove any negativity that could affect me. It may sound stupid, but I have learned to realize this season that being all in has implications beyond the financial aspect of not bringing any income in: it has made me more susceptible to negative comments. I can't tolerate sarcastic comment or judgment when it comes to my triathlon results or training, because to me, those comments are critics of what I should call my career, and those hurt sometimes. I also fear disappointing people and myself a lot more. I no longer have my day to day to fall back to if triathlon does not go well, so everything gets amplified. In short, I am really trying to remove anything that could drive this fear and drive negativity, and I am also trying to surround myself with people and brands that genuinely want to see me succeed. 

It was a longer post than originally intended, but I hope this gives a bit of an update to anyone wondering what I've been up to since Boulder. 

Cabo 70.3 is next and I am VERY excited for it! 

Happy training all! 

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