The Secret to Being Fast

Last night I was looking back at the last 2 years of training. Officially, I started training for triathlon on July 23, 2023. It was after a couple of loved ones passed away from various illnesses and health scan that showed I was fine but trending in the wrong direction. I didn't need to the health scan to know this but holding the data in my hands made it sting deeper.

I've used an app called Training Peaks since the beginning to plan workouts and collect data from those workouts. I was scrolling the phone app like it was social media. It was fun to remember the feeling of each week. There are some workouts I remember vividly. I didn't have Zwift so I used Peloton mostly. A route I can now easily run in less than 20 minutes would be 25-30 back then.

From 2021-2023 I used Peloton almost exclusively. I loved it and sometimes miss the nature of the classes–of feeling together with a bunch of other people. The classes I enjoyed most were the Power Zone classes. At the time, I had taken every single one of Matt Wilper's Power Zone classes. I learned so much about cycling and training as a cyclist from him. I learned that you didn't (and shouldn't) max out every effort, every day.

Being on Peloton and finding success there eventually led me back to triathlon. When I got my results back from the health scans, I decided to work harder and set a goal for myself to race in the Mission Bay Sprint. It would have been just under a year since my dad had passed away from heart disease and it was going to be a moment for me to take control of my health.

I finished 6th in that race with a time of 1:11:53 . While I was excited to place so high but really but something else happened that was far more important. A fire was lit inside me that I have not experienced since I was in my early 20s. A hope and more importantly a desire to find the best in myself was the new default.

Fast forward to today and the topic of the post. I have improved dramatically in the last two years. I'm not yet elite but I'm on track to get there and the only thing I can point to as the reason is that I'm consistent. If you scroll my training peaks calendar you'll see very few "red" colored workouts. The red workouts are the ones that are planned but missed for one reason or another. From July 2023 to June 2024 I missed a total of 10 workouts. Most of those were due to illness or injury. I raced in my first 70.3 in June and decided I wanted and could make it to the World Championships.

Shortly after the race in July 2024 I broke my rib. 5 days after breaking a rib I was on the bike trainer for a 30 minute workout. I did what I could and 2.5 weeks post broken rib I was doing more than I thought would be possible in 17 days. It wasn't much but it was something. The fire burned and I was all-in. By Aug 19 I was training again. 4 weeks after fracturing my rib, I was doing the thing. There was pain still but it wasn't stopping me.

From Aug 19-Sep 27 I did not miss a single workout. Even on vacation in Hawaii I was putting in time. On the last day of vacation I came down with Covid. I was knocked on my ass for 9 straight days. When I was well enough to workout again I had one week until race day. I raced and it went ok. Would've been better had I not been sick.

From Oct 7-Dec 8, again I did not miss a single workout. At Indian Wells I posted a fast 5:15 in the 70.3 and felt like I was on the path to World Championships.

In Dec I had dental surgery but was only off the bike for a couple of days. It was the week following my race so I didn't miss any workouts. From Dec to April I missed one swim due to the pool closing suddenly and then the week prior to racing Oceanside I missed two workouts due to illness.

All of this to really say, consistency is the only key to improvement. It's boring but I'm not exceptionally talented. I'm just a stubborn motherfucker that keeps coming back each day. There are lots of things to learn and know to be successful, sure, but the bottom line is that in an endurance sport, I have to do endure...a lot. That's how adaptation works. If you're not pushing the boundaries of what you are able to endure your body can't grow to eventually endure that thing.

This isn't just a lesson about endurance sports. It's fucking life. Come back each day and try to improve on yesterday.

So the secret to being fast is be available and ready to sweat, to work, and to endure.