Have you ever found yourself not motivated during a workout? Does it ever happen to you that when you are jacked up to get out there and train, you always a look at your watch?
If you think that you are becoming a slave to your wristwatch, the power numbers, and the metrics that you have developed for all your triathlon training, then, that might have something to do with this article.
This article is all about how you can avoid being a slave to your wristwatch and how can you not be dependent on it.
Tracking the numbers as a triathlete
Some people are dependent on the numbers they attain while on training without realizing that they’re burning themselves out. They tend to focus on their wristwatch, bike computers, and their heart rate monitors every single time.
Besides that, they are also taking blood readings and body chemistry composition readings. They continuously analyze their data, trying to become better athletes.
Well, that is excellent if you seem to become undoubtedly the best performing athlete in this field, then you need that type of specificity.
However, we are not a professional athlete. We are not here to get in those specific workouts all the time. We are not about to hit a certain number just because some people are doing it.
They may have a specificity about their exercise and how they continuously analyze their data because they have no other choice.
For us, we are age groupers, we should be having fun with triathlon. We should not extend our limits to keep up with these professionals.
Nevertheless, the best approach to triathlon training is finding your own system that will make you faster in the long run. You must enjoy and love your training so you will not give up your speed over time just because you are burning yourself out.
If you do not do this, you will not run very fast for the rest of your life.
Activity tracker used the right way
Here is some guide that will let you balance your triathlon data and enjoy the sport itself:
1. Focus on the training, not the watch
If you plan to train yourself for a year, make sure to remove your watch and focus on the more significant workout. May it be a few months in the offseason, after a race or your next build up stars, make sure that some training is unstructured.
Yes, you can keep the data of what is going on so that you get those Strava segments in, but do not focus on what those numbers say. Train freely and train with your heart because if you do, it will make you more in tune and you will do better during the race. So, better in tune with your capabilities.
2. Train with your colleagues
There is nothing more joyful than being with friends or the people you enjoy their company with. Even if you all have watches during the training, the odd is pretty good. It will not make you or your friends check with your watches.
If you are with the people who have the same goals and abilities, that is enough to self-police. If you are training with the same plan, it will take all of you to stop checking with the training data while still getting a good workout because you are doing it competitively against each other.
You want to beat the other, so you are more focused on the exercise rather than the watch or the data.
3. Train with your heart and power will come after
If you are training in the middle of the offseason or at the beginning of the offseason, make sure to train more by heart rate. You wouldn’t want to hit the ceiling of your heart rate especially if you’re going to build fitness back up and rebuild your cardiovascular system.
After being trained with your heart rate, you can switch over to power by building strength for the upcoming race.
Once the winter is gone, start hitting off the track, then start by going on for a time around the track. We do not always look at power is the first thing, and the heart rate is on the second. Switching them up every time will keep you going and fresh. Repeating it will only burn you out.
4. Focus on small things
Instead of focusing on what the power numbers say, focus on the little things like the small wins. Improvement in triathlon does not have to come for the next race that is a few months before that. Instead, the massive improvements come a few months after that.
It may seem like a hard process, but if you were consistently chipping away at becoming a little bit better, you are going to be very fast in the long run.
Taking it slowly will surely give you ahead out of everyone. Be sure to focus on the small wins day by day. You may feel like being left out by everyone by small progress is still progress.
Instead of focusing on the race, enjoy those little wins. Be grateful for them.
5. If you like them, keep them
If you can’t help but create training metrics for yourself, you can still do it, keep them. However, please do not give them more time than the training itself.
If you are a person that is numbers driven, be numbers driven. Keep looking at the training data and do whatever it is that makes you want to do with triathlon for years to come because it is a long game, and that is okay.
However, if the time comes that you will find it annoying to be training off with the data continuously, and looking at the metrics are not enjoyable and will make the process harder for you, then, back off.
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I hope that this helps you pull you out of a slump, if you are in a training slump. I’ve been there, I know what it’s like. Don’t let yourself get there before it’s too far gone. As always, triathletes, happy and hard training and good luck in your next triathlon.
