Going Long

In this blog I hope to highlight some of the things I have learned about endurance racing.  Most of these come from personal experience. I learned the hard way, without the benefit of a coach or guide. In some sense I am happy I did. It may not be the fastest way, but I certainly figured out what works and what doesn't.  I hope that by reading this blog you may avoid some of the mistakes I made. 

One would think that with all the information out there, things would be easy. However, I found that much of it is misguided and a lot of it is quite wrong.  The field is also driven by advertising and the desire to make money and much of the "information" one can find is nothing but blatant advertising for products that you don't need and that in some cases can harm you. These products are often portrayed as breakthroughs based on scientific insights. In almost all cases they are neither breakthroughs nor scientific.

I have been an endurance racer for a while now. I started out more than 10 years ago as a road biker, then I took up running and more recently I have been competing as a triathlete. I am by no means a natural talent. I also started quite late in life and never practiced any sports until I was well into my 30's. I did not start competing until I was over 40.

Over the last 4 years I have tried to improve my performance and despite being "over the hill" as some might think, I have been able to improve every year since, both in absolute (time) and relative (position) terms. I guess I must be doing something right.

The focus on this blog will be on endurance racing, not just finishing endurance events. The goal is to be competitive in events that pretty much take up a whole day. I will clarify my definition of an endurance event more in the posts to come.