Amateur Endurance Triathlon Magazine

This is part 2 of the Eric Kenney’s series on being a student.

Take control!
Things don’t happen to you, you gotta MAKE IT HAPPEN. Take control of your life. Take control of your training! Own your training, it’s your body.
Its cold, it’s windy, I was at work late, lunch didn’t sit right, I have an early flight, it’s too dark. Yeah these things happen, but when they “happen” all the time there excuses. Fix it.

“Adapt, improvise, overcome!” ~Clint Eastword in heartbreak ridge.

Your race won’t be easy. No one is going to hand you your goal on a platter. You have to go get it. Stop saying whoa as me, and start saying whoa, I feel sorry for my competition. You have to do this alone. Your coach can’t teach this, and many wont tell you “get tough” so I’ll say for them. Suck it up and get tough!

I have an infinity symbol tattoo. Its broken however, it doesn’t connect. Every now and then someone takes a close look at it and asks “why is your infinity symbol not complete?” I say, “I am the completion of it. I have to go out and make life happen.” If I sit in the house all day and wait for my business to grow and my legs to stronger and meet new friends guess what, none of that will happen. In fact it won’t be long until the opposite happens.

The best way to do this, Plan ahead.

Plan ahead:
Ever said this to your coach? “Oh yeah, I didn’t do any of the workouts last weekend, I was away.” REALLY? Did you wake up sat at 3am and decide you needed to fly to Canada that morning? Training properly takes planning. Your coach still can’t read your mind. Your month should go like this:

• – Communicate your (athlete) sch. For the next month. I need these days off. Away for work here, group ride I would like to do here, etc.
• – Look over your training when it’s all set. Make sure it works with your sch. again. Double check.
• – Make sure you know the 3 keys to a good workout for every single workout!
• – Plan ahead. You may have to get up early for that workout, pack clothes for that, eat pasta for breakfast that day ask to move that workout as the weather looks bad. All this leads to better quality training and better performance on race day.
• – Prepare!! Remember things don’t happen to you. Make them happen! stretch, eat and hydrate well before those tough workouts, get pumped up, whatever it takes to get it done.

Listen to others, don’t react.
Its ok to read training articles, listen to others and what they do. But before taking action ask your coach. Its only a matter of time before people start telling you what workouts you should do, how many hr’s you need to train, how fast you have to go to reach a goal. Go ahead listen, take it in. Realize that everyone has an opinion. And for many of us, our local sporting team is the only place we can express those feelings in a place where people will have a clue what we are talking about.

If something sparks a question in your head, ask your coach! You need to have trust and faith in your training. You can’t be second guessing yourself all the time. If you hopscotch around form training method to training method you’ll fall very sort of your goal not to mention waist your money if you’re doing what you think is best instead of what your coach has taken the time to lay out for you.

“Hey coach, what do you think about this?” Seems like a pretty easy question to me. I get it from my clients all the time. I encourage it. It makes for smarter, better athletes and it pushes me to be a better coach.

Know thyself.
Communication again!! Is it sinking in yet?? Listen to your body. Your coach doesn’t know what “I felt horrible” really means. Horrible to him and you may be two different planets. Horrible how? Tight, empty, weak, tired, good at first then bad. What? If you know you just can’t do it today you have to communicate that. Figure out why and move forward. The answer is probably right there. It’s hard to see the forest through the trees some times. One reason for having a coach is this objective point of view but you have to tell them what’s going on. Every athlete is different. “Hey coach I think I can go faster. The Z4 int. are feeling almost easy and I am in the upper end of the zone” that’s a pretty quick e-mail. If you’re too busy to e-mail, too busy to take control and own your training, your too busy to train, organize your life.

Here’s the deal folks. Whether you have a coach or not you have to own your training. Plan ahead. The best results I have seen form athletes all have a common thread. They missed very few if any workouts. Why? Because they don’t have jobs? No because they communicated and planned ahead. Tock steeps to ensure there training was at the highest quality possible. Everyone has set backs. Everyone has tough times and bad workouts. The more you take control, the more take responsibility the better you will be on race day.

Train smart, train safe.

Written by Eric Kenney