Mind-set

For years, it's bothered me. Sometimes it has infuriated me. Other times I've let it slide.

The longer that I train and race as a triathlete, I find that I'm becoming more open and aware of what drives other athletes, and how they see themselves. And it's forcing me to rethink how I see them and myself too.

It's so easy to compare myself to others, especially those with whom I have trained. I have often used my previous training and race performances to provide me a measure of my competitiveness. Perhaps that's a misuse of my energy.

I have a number of friends who are elite age-group triathletes. Two of them will be racing this weekend in Kona. At Ironman Canada, both of them were fast to say that they weren't ready to race. Yet both smashed the course and won their age groups with ease (my interpretation).

I was reading a post by one of them as he prepares for Kona. He mentioned that he did a training swim of the course in Kona this past week and among his comments was: "It is not only because I am slow ..."

I almost fell over.

Time, of course, is relative for all of us. This athlete swims 100m repetitions in 1:11 and swam 54:56 at Ironman Canada. He swam 1:01 in Kona in 2009. He's not as fast as a pro but he's damn fast.

What confounds me is whether this athlete is being modest or whether he's simply downplaying his ability, consciously or not, in order to drive himself on race day. Race day execution is something that I've been thinking more and more about the past few months.

Relative to me this guy is super fast. I have swum as fast as 1:24 for 100m in a pool. I swam 1:04 at Ironman Canada in August and in my Kona debut in 2007 I swam 1:13.

But I'm intrigued.

Is it better to be conservative with one's expectations heading into a race or to have confidence in what one has accomplished in training and racing? What's the best approach to put oneself in the driver's seat on race morning?

Confidence on race day is a huge factor, I think, in how an athlete will perform. It's something that I want to focus on ahead of my 2011 season. It's something that I want to learn more about.