One more thing about good decisions

I wrote the blog below in December 2009. Big congrats to Sarah Groff and her coach, Darren Smith. Well done, guys!


"Doing the right thing

Being an observer of the sport, I follow what is going on with some/most of the top performers. I read their blogs, follow them on Twitter, it's part of the job.

One of such athletes is Sarah Groff. I never met Ms. Groff or even talked to her on email, but I've been following her career for some years. It was quite puzzling to see her form crumble when it was crunch time to get the qualification for Beijing. She strikes me as an athlete that does have what it takes to make it as a top performer, but it seems that there is that last 1% missing. Her race at the WCS Final was a good example of that. My coaching bias attributes this pattern of underachieving to her coaching options these last few years.

For all this, I was happy to read her last blog. I was happy to see that she is breaking up with an environment that is not conducive to high-performance (Colorado scene, US triathlon "coaches", etc) and go work with one of the best coaches in Triathlon, that runs a very successful squad. But above all, I was happy to see someone show the commitment it takes to do the right thing.

Very often I see athletes make terrible decisions that keep them further from achieving their goals. Very often I see athletes choose what is comfortable. Very often I see them choosing the lifestyle over the commitment to be your best. So when athletes do the right thing, they deserve to be praised. Well done Ms. Groff."

Quote Of The Day

"I just want to be the best I can be. And I'll do whatever it takes to be that. I could have been really comfortable where I was in Teddington, nice house, family, friends, watching the Arsenal. But if you want to win medals, then you have to do whatever is necessary. Every second counts. One, two per cent could make a difference. I went to the US to find those percentages. People say don't change when things are going well, I felt the opposite. And it's worked."

Mo Farah

The sound of settling*

A lot of times in my work as a coach, I see athletes, both those that I coach and others that I observe, just settling. Just going with the safe, comfortable option. This translates into the decisions they make. It might be in the big decisions, like what races to race, where to live or who to pick as a coach. But also in the small decisions, like cramming workouts to free up an afternoon, changing the training schedule on the fly or what food to eat.

Can you hear the sound of settling? It's just a very low noise, a whisper. It's so low that athletes often have trouble hearing it. This is particularly true to those that speak loudly about how right the approach they're currently using is. When you're shouting, it's hard to hear anything else than your own voice.

Achieving success, both daily but also long-term, means you can never settle. Means you need to always strive to be better. Means you need to break free from the comfort zone. Means constantly asking the question:

Am I settling?



*also the title of a pretty good song.

A recent trend in professional Ironman racing

Underneath the amazing results in Ironman racing in the last few weeks, a trend is more and more noticeable: top athletes have "their" races and no other top athlete shows up to contest them. So you have races like the men's races at Roth, Austria or Switzerland, where besides the designated winner, there really wasn't any competition. On the women's side, it's been the case that top athletes absolutely avoid racing Chrissie Wellington.
These severe cases of "cherry picking" are even more pronounced in 1/2 Ironman racing, where you can have some races that are moderately competitive, while others are not competitive at all. Just as an example, Rhode Island 70.3 had 11 male and female pros starting the race.
This trend isn't happening by chance, but it's the product of the pro rules that the WTC has implemented in the last few years, and particularly since it implemented the new Kona qualifying scheme.
In my opinion, the watering down of fields isn't helping the long-distance professional athletes in particular, but also the sport as a whole. A race where there really isn't any competition is not a race, but an event. In order for long-distance triathlon to grow into a serious sport, we need the best athletes racing each other at a few select events, where they compete for real prize-money. In order for us to have a sport and for it to grow, we need real racing, not cherry picking.

Winning

You need to WANT it!

Winning training plan

"On Monday, I do a 90-minute run, an hour swim, an hour in the gym and two hours on the bike. On Tuesday I swim quite hard in the morning, do an easy run and an easy bike ride and finish with a track session in the evening. Wednesday starts with a long easy session in the pool, a 90-minute run and then three hours on my bike. On Thursday, I’ll swim in the morning and do one or two runs and then a hard ride. Friday is my easier day — swim in the morning, easy run, easy ride. And Saturday and Sunday are both longish rides and longish runs."

You're not so special

"Mr. STEWART: I had the dream that I would not have Bud Harrelson's body. I thought I would have, perhaps, I would grow into something. So I wanted to be an athlete. I didn't want to be in show business.

It was a very different world, and I know a lot of people here are of that era. It was not - we were not in the world where everybody was special yet.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. STEWART: We had not entered into that stage of where everybody had a Facebook page that they could personalize with tunes they love. And you know, my kids will never know what it's like to have nothing to watch because there's like - they will - I mean, I'm surprised that when we have human interactions, they don't like go, let me freeze that and just run that back. Like they're...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. STEWART: They're accustomed to things being presented to them when they want it, in exactly the form that they want it. And they're accustomed to the idea that - I'm special, and I can do anything, and if I do it, just by the very nature of me doing it, it is in fact then special. I came from the era of, you're not special.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. STEWART: Don't - oh, you think you're special? You're not so special."

Read or listen to the rest of the interview.