Does a Triathlete Follow?
There are limitless sources of “good
advice” to the triathlete with a question or a problem. Pieces like this one,
clinics taught by a respected authority, various publications, the guy in
your bike or run group, triathlon forums, etc.
Each of these has a
role, a degree of timeliness and accuracy but it’s your responsibility to
carefully evaluate your “teacher” before applying the new found data to your
training.
While sitting at Dulles International last year, I struck up a
conversation with the man next to me who was wearing cowboy boots.
Eventually the talk turned to the problems of the Social Security system.
I asked him if he thought signing up for SS as soon as you were eligible was
a good idea and he thought so. Shortly after this, the man across from
“Boots” turned out to be his brother who asked, “Were you able to get on
the plane by yourself?” My neighbor turned out to be a total fruitcake and
here I was seeking his opinion on something of potential importance!
Where I’m going with this is that a questioner on one of the
tri forums recently posted a query about how he/she should spend the winter
to be his/her best come Spring, and
the answers were wildly
different. One response was to ride 300 miles/week at an easy pace.
Another respondent suggested daily intense spin classes to really push it.
What these two answerers had in common was that they were both anonymous.
They could be knowledgeable sources
like Chris Carmichael or Ben Greenfield or Joe Friel…or it could be
BOOTS!
So be careful whom you believe. Verify the
source and make sure it just makes sense. You’ll be glad you did.
Marianne was a terrific local triathlete who
unfortunately succumbed to breast cancer about ten years ago. Sort of puts our
complaining of plantar faciitis in a different perspective.