Sunday May 23, 2010

Auburn Triathlon Update

Don't worry, we won't slam you all year with boring, "what are you doing?" updates covering mundane workout details or family vacations. However, becoming a Facebook fan or Twitter follower will keep you updated with important information for race day!

Volunteers Needed Race Day - Great Perks!

If your support crew wants to get great race access and a delicious lunch buffet, contact us by phone (530-888-9911) or email to volunteer! In particular, volunteers at the swim venue can park at Folsom Lake with their athletes. Otherwise, parking is restricted at Folsom Lake/Rattlesnake Bar Park on race morning. Athletes are recommended to park at finish line and cycle downhill 7-miles warmup, or get dropped off at road barricade and coast .7-mile down to T1. Bring your backpack to transport gear! Email us to request special permission to park at the lake.

Volunteers are needed at Folsom Lake to help with body marking, swim exit, athlete traffic flow, duathlon run course monitoring, and gathering and loading gear for transport to finish line from 5:30am to 8:30am at Folsom Lake. You can enjoy parking adjacent to T1 and a great view of all the action. Road will open after final cyclists departs around 8:30am.

If you would like to help at the finish line on race day there are numerous exciting options. The Mile 0 Run aid station gives you great access, as long course athletes will pass through three times on the 7k loop course. All volunteers enjoy a delicious lunch buffer after their shift is complete. Limited spots are available so please email or call 530-888-9911 right away.

Auburn Triathlon Named #2 Most Scenic Race in the World by Triathlete Magazine!

A new feature in the March 2010 edition named the "100 Best Races Around the Globe" broken into ten categories. Click here for complete article.

Other News

Sprint Triathlon: Enjoy a new 1k-30k-7k Sprint Triathlon race course. Easier race day logistics for all, as long course athletes complete 2 loops of the swim course and 3 loops of the run course.

Logistics Video: Please take the time to view this comprehensive overview of all race day logistics, course concerns and incredible scenery. This will give you a nice big picture overview of what will happen race day to keep you focused on going fast!

Sincerely,

Brad Kearns
Auburn Triathlon Race Director

Brad Kearns Tips For Total Recovery
When I was a professional triathlete, I learned that recovery meant not only physical rest, but also forgetting about the sport at regular intervals throughout the year. Being fit is an all encompassing lifestyle endeavor; it’s not simply about pushing your body with hard training and then resting the next day. It’s great to rest the legs from the daily pounding, but if you are sitting around on your day off agonizing over missing a workout, sore knee, diet indiscretions or chatting on the Internet about whether Lance is going to announce plans to race the Ironman, you compromise your mental and emotional recovery. Furthermore, many fitness enthusiasts have social lives designed around their avocation. While this is cool, it can also create an all-consuming lifestyle where one can easily get out of balance. I was amused at a Triathlete magazine interview a few years ago with Greg Bennett and Laura Reback (a married couple who are both Olympic triathletes), where they said they “make an effort to socialize with people who know nothing about triathlon.”

It is critical to regularly walk away from the whole picture and unplug from the constant stress of keeping fit or preparing for a peak performance. A day off (or week, month or entire winter off) should be a time to enjoy being a real person and doing things unrelated to your athletic career. Family activities, non-athletic friends and good movies are all helpful to disengage from the athletic lifestyle. This is especially important as you approach a big race. There is a reason that six-time Hawaii Ironman champ Mark Allen used to spend the week before the event on a different island instead of hanging out at the circus in Kailua-Kona.

The typical endurance athlete has a Type-A, highly motivated personality. If you experience motivation lulls where you don't feel like working out, it's quite likely a smart move to listen to that voice and back off until a strong passion returns. By carefully and intuitively harnessing your energy and striving for life balance throughout the year, you will have an extra reserve of focus, motivation and physical energy to apply when the time comes for peak training and competing. This all sounds peachy keen when you read it in an article, but internal pressures and cultural influences can often cause you to drift away from sensibility toward the rat race mentality of "more is better". Believe me, I learned these lessons the hard way during my career. With optimal lifestyle circumstances for hard training and a healthy competitive spirit, I envisioned a direct road to the top consisting essentially of hard work, good eating habits, and lots of sleep. Only when I was rudely displaced by competitors did I become self-aware enough to realize the elements beyond hard work and elementary physical recovery that were necessary for peak performance.

You don't have to take my word for it though; just reference times in your own journey where you listened to your intuition and sensibility, took good care of your body, and enjoyed peak performance. You can perhaps also reference times when you succumbed to rat race pressures and dug yourself a deep hole of injury, illness, burnout and general overstress condition. The choice is clear every day if you sift through distractions and cultivate a more intuitive approach to your training decisions.Breakthrough Triathlon Training covers these concepts in detail, and will be an excellent balance to the many technical books that help you train effectively for multisport.