Sunday, October 28, 2012

Noah is my hero

I was recently reading a bunch of articles on how to race an Ironman. One of the most interesting sound bites that resonated with me came from Endurance Nation. To paraphrase, there is a difference between building a vessel and operating a vessel. Race day is about operating the vessel, not building the vessel.

Training time, in contrast, should focus on building the vessel. Right now I have no vessel but need to build one with the raw materials (me) that I have. While they aren't the highest quality materials I do have some time. I realized that the StA triathlon is six months away so the time is about right to start.

Noah didn't start building the ark when the rain started, he started it way before so it would be ready when he needed it. I need to start training now to be successful next year. So the offseason is officially over, the coach has been called, Training Peaks is set up to start pestering me with the workouts, and I need to figure out an eating plan. Eating everything and a lot of it doesn't seem to be working so well for me.

The rain for Hurricane Sandy has already started here. This storm is real annoying as I couldn't even watch/record the IM Kona special since the TV kept breaking away to the politician's news conference that kept saying the same thing over and over. They didn't break into the football games as they used the split screen approach. Even so I believe that the Kona special is more impactful to me after I've completed an Ironman as compared to before.

Don't think I need an ark for Sandy but I need to build a vessel for the 2013 triathlon season. Time to start building.


7 comments:

Shelly said...

Hope you are right about not needing an ark for Sandy......

Michael said...

Awesome post, and so very true! Sorry you missed out on Kona - it was so awesome! Almost inspiring enough to make me want to try the 140.6....but not quite :) Good luck with getting your training kickstarted!

TriMOEngr said...

I loved this analogy. I must also work on building my vessel this winter. The half hearted approach I've taken for the last 6-9 mo just isn't going to have me ready to sail much of anything.

Carolina John said...

I've got kona on the dvr and started spreadsheeting my training plan for b2b next year. Luckily, Sandy stayed off the coast for us.

Start building the vessel!

Jford said...

Someone told me to enjoy my offseason after my last race, to which I replied 'There is no off season". I know that everything I am doing now/today is tied into when I do my first 140.6 in Sept 2013!

Big Clyde said...

Doing okay today, Rock?

bigclydesdale@gmail.com

Sarah said...

I love this analogy - it's so true!!! Get to it!