In an attempt to provide true insight into the more important factors that make up peak sporting performance, I'm going to document my own experiences preparing for and recovering from a long distance endurance event. In my case, it is the 2014 Sanlam Cape Town Marathon. What follows is the fourth installment of what I hope will provide an insightful look into the mind of an ordinary bloke who, while extremely competitive in nature, competes for the love of the activity and the process. Attaining one's desired results doesn't have to be all blood and guts, it really can be fun and pain free!
The ebb and flow of daily life.
For many of us part-timers, there exists times where we cannot reasonably expect to fulfill our personal sporting pursuits. Those days where “life gets in the way” are loathed by many; seemingly external factors such as work, family, weather, social obligations etc tend wreak havoc into even the most progressive of training approaches.
In these instances though, is life really getting in the way?
I suspect not in many cases. Sometimes these factors that cause us to miss or curtail training sessions exist for a reason. Call it inverse synchronicity if you like, but developing one’s ability to go with the flow starts with accepting any given circumstances that may derail the perfect training plan.
So many athletes talk about the “magic bullet,” that one training workout where good fitness becomes great, where the strong get race strong and/or where they “reach the next level.”
What is the next level, though?
While I’m not sure if I’ll ever find the answer to the above question, what I do know that entirely too many athletes preparing for a major event tend to peak a few weeks too early, essentially falling off the cliff of the clichéd “next level”, effectively leaving “it” all out on the training ground. By “it”, I’m referring to that elusive phenomenon known as good form, where everything is clicking and an athlete feels indestructible. A feeling where hills are flat and wind is a breeze. Where each step or pedal stroke exudes a magnificent lightness and even aloofness; like you could stay out there all day. If a person could bottle this sort of feeling up and sell it, good form would certainly make a great investment on the stock exchange. The reality is that whilst good form can be achieved by a certain level of pragmatism and restraint, great form may be experienced only a handful of times over the course of a lifetime.
There is another way, though.
Basically put, if we as athletes constantly strive to underachieve ever so slightly in daily training, we can be assured that the notion of actually rising to the occasion of competition is within our grasp.
The enigmatic and oft-injured Olympic marathoner Carlos Lopes certainly reveled in his seemingly haphazard training practices. The Portuguese athlete’s preparation for his gold-medal performance in the Los Angeles Olympics of 1984 was as personalized as it was fascinating. Content to train at home in a more temperate local climate whilst his peers spent months acclimating to the oppressive humidity expected in LA, Lopes actually dropped out of a big city marathon in the lead up to the Games whilst in the lead group! Virtually assured of podium spot, he reasoned that his effortless sensations confirmed he was in great shape, effectively deciding to save himself for the big stage in Los Angeles a month or two later.
Not that we all have to go out and DNF in a race on purpose or orchestrate minor ailments for the sake of peak performance; far from it in fact. What we do need to cultivate is an attitude that prevents us from putting pressure on ourselves to attain and/or the standards we (and others!) set of ourselves.
The power of hindsight allows us to identify those key pivotal moments in our respective preparations. Whilst many athletes attribute such key moments or “turning the corner” purely to workouts, I believe that other factors seemingly unrelated to actual training far outweigh any form of physical activity.
Two weeks before the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon saw my working as a massage therapist at an out of town event. With a busy two-day treatment schedule falling over the Friday and Saturday, the Friday morning involved travelling from Cape Town to the hamlet of McGregor - any form of running would have had to take place in the hours of dawn. Squeezing in training sessions just for the sake of it is wholly counterproductive. With my reveling in a long run through the surroundings of the Breede River Valley on the Saturday morning being a totally exhilarating and enthralling experience, many might assume that this two hour jaunt was key to that particular training week. On the contrary, I view my executive decision to sleep slightly later on the Friday morning and forgo my daily regimen as a far more pivotal moment in my general marathon buildup. Sometimes, doing “nothing” proves to be far more than doing nothing at all.
Working at the aforementioned event did prove pivotal in another sense, however. With the plethora of the varying personalities that make up a sport like cycling, one of my treatments involved a guy who, while a very accomplished cyclist himself, is totally into the physical and mental recovery aspect of sport in his personal capacity. I was impressed as I had yet to meet such an individual for some time. This guy gets regular massage, does yoga and pilates, and is very conscientious in the amount of sleep he gets every night. Not since my experiences of working as a soigneur for vegan-orientated professional mountain biker have I met an athlete so in touch with his personal health and well-being.
But that is another story for another day.
