Take-off — what I learned from my first 70.3 triathlon
Seven months ago I participated to my first IronMan 70.3 at les Sables d’Olonnes in Vendée, France. Also called “Half IronMan”, it’s is a triathlon that consists in 1.9 kilometers of swimming, 90 of biking and 21,09 of running (a half marathon) where the total distance amounts to 113 kilometers or 70.3 miles. Being considered as one of the most demanding endurance sport, triathlon is a long journey. It is partially because you need to reach a certain level of mental and physical strength. And to achieve this, the process takes time and consistency. Reflecting back on the journey, here are 3 things I have learned from this experience.
Build the right foundation. one thing that I have always been convinced about is that the slogan “no pain, no gain” is the baseline for every athlete : if you want to compete at a high level, there is no other way than train harder with pain and suffering. In endurance sport, we call this the red zone. It designates the body state where your heartbeat is close to its maximum capacity, where you are out of breath. Even though this type of training is useful for many physiological reasons such as increase anaerobic threshold, endurance athlete should focus on training in the slow and low-intensity state, the green zone. Stephen Seiler in his 2019’s Ted Talk is backing it up with a large amount of data : training is about discipline, it is a process that has to be sustainable because training at high intensity is causing too much stress for the body and it can lead to unfortunate consequences such as injuries. Following his lead, I built my own training plan under the constraint of a minimum 90% green zone to red zone trainings in comparison. Don’t train harder, train smarter. This will help you to build a solid endurance foundation.
Learn new things by getting out of your comfort zone. In the previous section, I mentioned the notion of stress while training. It consists in external body stimulations such as training harder or trying new things that you trigger during sessions — training session is a safe place where you can control most of the parameters. The expected result is to help you develop your adaption skill and your ability to manage stress (I advice you to listen to The Triathlon Show’s podcast about the Ten high-leverage ways to improve your training and triathlon performance). I can easily illustrate this with my own experience during my race at les Sables. Race day is super exciting. You wake up early, you go at the bike park to make the final adjustments, the adrenaline is really kicking in. When entering the water for the swim in open water, I could really feel that my heart was racing. As the first strokes passed, impossible for me to put down my swim : too much movement around me, lots of waves and a deep feeling of claustrophobia. How did I feel at the time? Stressed. It took me at least 15 minutes to calm down and be able to swim. Even though I finished with 41 minutes 31 seconds, I lost a lot of time in the adaptation process. And this is precisely why training is useful, it is to get your body used to those external stimuli. We should not underestimate changing environment and the consequences they have on our body and mind.
Focus on your very next step. It is 12.16 AM, I am racing now since 4 hours and 40 minutes, 10 kilometers forward in my half marathon, still 11,09 to go. I don’t use to eat during run races because I don’t need to and I applied this to my run strategy. Arriving at kilometer 11 with the race supply, the wall hits and I have huge difficulties to continue. It is clearly not the right strategy. How am I going to finish the last 11 kilometers? Where will I find the mental and physical strength to continue? While eating a sport gel, I decide to adapt the race strategy, focus on the next supply 3 kilometers farer. It helps me « forget » about the distance that I still needed to cover. I would repeat the process until the finish line. This approach reminds me of a sales training we attended to learn about prospection techniques : when facing a high quarterly target, the sales person can feel burdened and lose confidence in achieving its objective mostly because of the long way that remains to go. The trick is to divide the journey into shorter parts instead of focusing on the finish line one should . Reaching those smaller steps will allow you to build confidence and in the end you will hopefully hit your target.
I finished my first Half IronMan in 5 hours 26 minutes 58 seconds. I could not be happier since my objective was to get below the 6 hours. It was a long journey and many were the obstacles during the preparation — thank you COVID19 — and during the race. This is why it is so rewarding. It is because of the energy that you pour in such adventure to get over those barriers and learn from those experiences. And when finally you cross the line realizing all those sacrifices have paid off, there is no other place on earth you want to be. That precise moment is when you take-off and you start to fly.
