So, the biggest thing I learned from doing this Olympic tri was that my hydration and nutrition plan was lacking. I had thought that I could just take my schedule from the sprint tri and double it. That was not the case.
While the distances were pretty much double that of the sprint distance, I didn't take into account that at the sprint I was able to dip into my reserves. I was quite thirsty and hungry at the end. The water I drank and the gel I ate were obviously enough to sustain me (well obvious now after some thought).
At the Olympic, I had just two bottles of water and two gels (and then the water and Gatorade on the run course). I'm pretty sure that an extra bottle of water and an extra gel may have made the difference. The next time I do this, I'm certainly going to add more than that to the plan.
For one, I'm going to try to have a better breakfast. The medics seemed to think that a couple bagels was not nearly enough. They were probably right. Bringing a gel along with me on the run probably wouldn't have hurt either.
Unfortunately, the other big thing I learned was that I have a breaking point. I've always known that there was a point where I couldn't continue but this was the first time that I actually hit it. Part of me believed that I could just push through the pain and keep going, that if I could handle being increasingly uncomfortable, I could finish any race.
But now I've seen the breaking point and I know it's there. I'm worried that I'm hurt psychologically.
Now that I'm slowly getting back to exercising, I've been to a couple spin classes. What I've noticed is that when I get going and I start to get a little uncomfortable, my head goes back to when I was stuck a mile out from the finish. The discomfort seems like it is going to last too far into the future to handle and I begin to wonder if I can continue much more. It's almost like the breaking point has been artificially shortened in my head.
I have a 10 mile race coming up. I'm hoping to use that to prove to myself again that I can accomplish things past my comfort zone without quitting.
I just hope that I'm not broken.
mwz
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Hrm, interesting theory about the "breaking point". I have also been there (I'm a weiner though so it happened to me early on, in high school, when I almost passed out on a hot summer day). I see it another way. It's really helpful to know your limits (once you get through the initial trauma). It's not worth pushing yourself that far at the risk of getting injured (especially when you're not really close to winning anyway).
Now you just need to work yourself back up to something reasonable, and it's understandable you're going to be tentative at first. I got over my thing by planning and executing some new strategies to deal with the heat (gatorade instead of water with timed 'hydration' intervals, wearing a hat, not stopping suddenly) and being very tentative for a while.
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