New to Tri: John – Week 3

The Army loves an acronym. We use them for everything. From the start to the finish of any course, whether you are training to be a sniper or a medic, you are inundated with an acronym for this and an acronym for that. All very handy really. My favourite though is KISS. All soldiers love to KISS, and no mission, big or small goes well if soldiers don’t KISS. As I take my first baby steps into the world of Tri I think to continue to KISS may
serve me quite well.

Read on for more…

The advantages of the KISS were highlighted to me on Friday past when my friend Michael and I were out for a spin. Before we set out he hooked me up to a heart rate monitor. A very common training tool and I liked the novelty, glancing down every once in a while at ever increasing figures, quite surprised at times to see how high it was going, quite embarrassed to see that I was practically having a heart attack in comparision
to my friend.

Michael then introduced me to another device, a power meter, which measures the torque in wattage of his pedal stroke. Used in conjunction, together with distance and time the cyclist can optimise training. My head started to spin as he explained the calculations, and maybe I am just ignorant but I actually felt that the science may have a negative impact on my training, at least initially. Instead of focusing on giving 100% to my
training I feel that I may become distracted by working through figures. If I just KISS I know when I have given the session, regardless of discipline, as much as I can give, at the moment I don’t need anything to tell me otherwise.

Recently Tadhg sent all of the beginners a very apt article on this very subject by Tri World Champion Chris Mc Cormack. Here is just a small section from it “When I begin training for any distance in triathlon, the primary thing I am looking for is an ability to feel my way through the speed that I am focused on. I have never used a heart rate monitor and I never use power on the bike. I understand the science behind these tools and they are just that “tools”, but I have always found that the key to incremental improvement in this sport is learning to trust your own pace and exertion
across the three disciplines. If you ask me to go hard I know what hard is. Do I need to give you an exact number in power to justify that it was hard? No I don’t. I can tell you by how it feels. What tends to happen with people who begin to become addicted to these gadgets and numbers is that they lose their ability to trust their own pace and perceived exertion and only trust what this “tool” tells them. As far as I am concerned this is
a recipe for disaster. You lose your instinctive tunes that are your lifeline to racing. Training is about teaching yourself to understand your boundaries and then slowly pushing those boundaries up. You need to know how to feel those and where they are!”

Now I know that if you are an incredibly talented sportsman like “Macca” these things are very easy to say and for us mere mortals we may have to use every innovation in technology to get that competitive edge. But for the time being I agree with him when he says “Forget all the crap and just get the work done and enjoy what you’re doing. You will see much more success by keeping things simple. I like simple!”

So don’t be a slave to the numbers, just Keep It Simple Stupid!

Thanks for reading

John

Ps. Check out http://www.chrismccormack.com/2011/03/20/keep-it-simple/#more-97 for
more of the same.

Pps. If any club members need tips or have any suggestions on how to KISS get in touch!