The Tri Town Times: 8/1/22

• Posted on 1 August 2022
• By Antonio Gonzalez
• Posted in the tri town times
• 0

The Week: Sleep benefits. Value of sports during childhood.

Image: Pro triathlete Skye Moench in St. George, Utah

Hi all,

Here is your weekly Tri Town Times newsletter: 

Weekend race report: 

- Over 2,000 triathletes competed at the Burley Spudman triathlon on Saturday. Tri Town's Travis Wood won the race for the second year in a row, and many local athletes made the podium in their respective age groups. 

- Dutch rider Annemiek van Vleuten won the first Tour de France Femmes. After loosing almost one minute during the opening stages to a stomach bug, van Vleuten was able to recover during the later mountain stages of the race. 

Training thoughts and updates: 

- Time and again, sleep and napping have been shown to be excellent performance enhancing habits. This may be a self-serving cycle: having the time in your day to nap implies you have not overbooked your day, which may help lower your stress. Lower stress should improve your desire to train and your ability to absorb the training you complete. Read my sleep and performance notes here. 

- A large study showed what athletes have known all along:“Kids who participate in sports learn what it is like to struggle as they learn new skills, overcome challenges and bounce back from failure to try again.”  An interesting insight from this article is that grit/perseverance is trainable- in both the positive and negative direction. If you stick with things, you develop the ability to persevere in other aspects of life, but if you tend to quit when the going gets tough, you will develop that tendency instead. Seneca summarized this point two thousand years ago when he said: "No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself." Sports permit a person to prove themselves on a regular basis and in a relatively safe environment. 

Gear that caught my attention: 

The bicycle industry is still plagued with supply chain issues, but we are beginning to see new road, triathlon, gravel, and mountain bikes from Cervelo and Orbea roll through our doors again.

Quote that struck a chord: 

"Sure there will be a lot of pressure. And a lot of us will be facing more experienced competitors, and maybe we don't have any right to win. But all I know is if I go out and bust my gut until I black out and somebody still beats me, and if I have made that guy reach down and use everything he has and then more, why then it just proves that on that day he's a better man than I." Steve Prefontaine speaking to reporters before the 1972 Summer Olympics. 

There is so much great insight in this one quote. A few things that stood out to me: 

- No one is technically 'qualified' for anything until they actually do it, and that is okay. It's normal to feel a bit like an imposture, because technically you are. So you might as well jump in, do the work, and prove you're the person for the job. 

- All we can ever do is our best. Never more, and preferably never less. 

- If you do your best, and still lose, there is nothing to be ashamed of. 

- When you lose, it simply means someone was better than you "on that day". It can be left at that.

Train smart, and have a great week! 

Antonio Gonzalez

Tri Town Bicycles

Like the newsletter? Please forward to a friend so they can subscribe.