So you’ve done a few triathlons. You’ve had a lot of fun and have enjoyed pushing yourself to heights that you never thought were possible. Your mail goal so far has been to just finish, but now you’re thinking that you can go faster. You know you need to adjust your training, but you may not have realized that you first need to adjust your attitude.
Many triathletes don’t realize there is a big difference between simply participating in triathlons and racing them. Being a “competitive” triathlete means placing considerably greater physical, psychological, and emotional demands on yourself. Of course, because of this added effort, the rewards can be that much greater as well. Making this shift to being a triathlete who cares about how fast you go and where you finish in the field starts with developing a different mindset that sets the stage for your newly intensified training and competitive efforts.
The first step in this transformation is for you to set a goal to shoot for. No longer is “just finish” something that you aim for. This objective can be a time goal, for example, doing an Olympic distance race in under 2:45 hours, or an age-group goal, such as finishing in the top ten. This goal provides you with a clear destination to your journey and helps you focus your mind on what you want to accomplish. In choosing a realistic and challenging goal, you should reality test your perceptions of your ability. The key question is: “Can I actually achieve this goal with hard work?” You may want to enlist the feedback of a tri-coach or an experienced triathlete to help you determine what is possible for you.
The next step in raising the bar involves marshaling your desire and determination to achieve your new goal. You must now make a commitment to a path that is going to be more difficult, more time consuming, and more painful than when just finishing was the goal. To overcome these new challenges in training and races, you need to remind yourself why you are “stepping up.” Focusing on the long-term benefits of your efforts will help mitigate the immediate PTA (pain, torture, and agony!) that you will experience during training. And remember this when you are really hurting: the physical pain you feel in training and during the race in no way compares to the emotional pain you will feel if you don’t achieve your goals because you didn’t push yourself enough.
Perhaps your greatest challenge in developing into a competitive triathlete is gaining the confidence that you can actually race a triathlon. With this new emphasis, it’s easy to lose confidence as you fail to show the gains—however unrealistic they are—you were expecting. Training is different now. Whereas before your main focus was on just building the necessary endurance to go the distance, now you must also add speed and strength dimensions to your training. This very different type of fitness takes time to develop. Be patient as you build your fitness, speed, and strength. If you expect too much too fast, you will only get frustrated and discouraged, and you will lose your confidence before you have had a chance to realistically gain it.
A key to building confidence to race triathlons is in trusting your preparation. You must first believe thoroughly in your training program, knowing that if you follow it, your program will enable you to achieve your goals. Then, you need to acknowledge your little victories in training every day—every time you get out of the pool, walk off the track, or get off your bike at the end of a workout, you win! As time passes and your race approaches, these small successes will accumulate, you will see and feel your new-found fitness, and that preparation will give you confidence that you can have a big success when you get to the line of your race.
With the desire for speed in triathlons comes a potential shift in your focus which may actually hurt your efforts to achieve your new goals. Becoming a competitive triathlete can cause you to place increased expectations on yourself that can morph into unpleasant pressure. Remember, you are no longer training and competing for the pure joy of triathlon. Now you are investing yourself in the results. If you allow yourself to become preoccupied with your results, you will not only not enjoy training and racing as much, but you will probably not have the results you want.
The best attitude to have to get faster is to set a competitive goal for yourself and then only think about it occasionally. In your training and races, rather than thinking about the results, focus on why you do triathlons in the first place, for example, overcoming physical challenges, the camaraderie, the “tri-high,” and then simply do what you have done in the past, just more of it with greater intensity. With this “process” attitude, you not only continue to have a great time rather than getting burdened with these new expectations, but you also gain the necessary fitness, perform your best, and achieve the results you originally set for yourself.
