When planning our strategy, for use of a better word by a relatively newcomer pair of triathletes, for race day on the brighton and hove tri, we weren’t competing to set a new world record, but we wanted to run across the finish line as best as we could. We wanted to complete the course in the knowledge that we had trained hard and deserved that finishing medal. And we did. We stomped it, as hopefully you can tell from my previous over excited posts or Instagram pics and captions!
But pre tri, everyone was asking what sort of time we’d do it in. In reality we didn’t really know. I knew I could swim 1500m in a pool in 24 mins on average. All my training rides of circa 40km were about 1hr45 and my running, well I’m pretty slow but was pretty consistent at about 1.15 or so. So I suggested maybe 3-4 hours on that basis, but pushing closer to 4 hours.
It was with complete amazement that I hit close to the 3 hour mark (3.08) and if you take into account the extra distances of the route (1800swim / 42.5km bike) that I completed a sub 3 hour Olympic distance tri! According to online forums and magazine articles that’s pretty impressive.
I then started to get all analytical of my times. Looking at each part, how I did, where I sped up / slowed down (you should see the run…each kilometre my speed was dropping as my knee was raging!). And a week post race we were talking with some friends and the TriPal really wasn’t bothered too much about her time. She was so stoked (still!) that we smashed it and got across the line. Me too, I couldn’t be more stoked, but… I’ve already been planning how I could do it quicker!
My point? Honestly I’m not sure. I flip between how stoked I am that we completed it and then how happy I am with my times. I mean, I swam, biked and ran quicker than I have done before on all my practice sessions. So STOKED. (Have I mentioned I’m stoked yet?).
But to the average triathlete, ie us, apart from personal satisfaction of smashing PB’s, does timing really matter? Isn’t it more about the pure stoke of completing the event? Well, yes…and no! Here I go again.
Throughout my training I paid attention to my timing more so on the bike and run than the swim, but I was measuring what worked and what didn’t. If I ate something specific before did it have an affect? Or if I had a rubbish sleep the night before (I have two small boys!), was my average better than the day previous? I was constantly glued to my strava data. And so was my friend Paul. He is a data guy, or maybe more scientific but actually he was amazing at helping understand the numbers, looking at averages. See what pace I could keep up etc. Really helpful when out running and being able to know if you’re over cooking it or not.
Yet come tri day, yes I did pay attention to what my watch was telling me on the bike and run, but in reality, I was caught up in the moment. In the excitement. In the euphoria that I was training last he barrier on my last lap of the 10km and I had stopped running. And the result? I smashed all my PB’s!
So does it matter? It’s all personal. One might want to know minute detail about how they’re training and what it looked like on race day. Another might not. Just don’t get too caught up in the numbers. Remember to enjoy it, it’s one hell of an experience!