The idea behind marginal gains is that a number of small improvements can add up to a large overall improvement. Consider a bike. Imagine exchanging one part for another that works just as well but weighs one ounce less. Will it make you faster? No. But repeat that exercise sixteen times and you shave a pound off the weight of the bike, enough to change the outcome of a race.
On a recent morning I was driving to my favorite beach where I swim regularly, only this time it was to do a time trial. As I approached the park entrance I felt my mood change. It was as if a cloud passed over the sun. Fear? No, not that. But similar. Much less intense than fear, but pretty much the same sensation.
January is the time we promise we'll do better. Better eating habits. More exercise. Less booze. Mostly personal stuff. Something that should be on that list but too often overlooked is better sleeping.
We start with fuzzy ideas. Good intentions, but lacking clarity. It's hard to measure success, or the lack of success, without a clear statement of what it is we are trying to accomplish.
If you are like me, Jan Ulrich, and most people, you put on some extra pounds during the holidays. Ulrich was for several years Lance Armstromg’s biggest competitor. Literally. He had a reputation for starting spring training carrying more than a few extra pounds due to exuberant enjoyment of German holiday food. To be fair, these guys are away from home for much of the year, so who wouldn’t want to relax and party hearty during the winter?
I think everyone will agree that 2021 was supposed to see a return to racing. I speak specifically of triathlon, but the same applies to cycling and all of the olympic sports. And it was. Sort of. The pro cycling calendar was shifted radically to the right and compressed, leaving athletes no time to recover between big events, or in many cases lesser known but still popular classics being held on the same day. Japan did pull off the summer games, but without spectators. Near and dear to our hearts, the Ironman World Championship was moved to February 2022, and then again to Utah.
This is the time of year when families and friends traditionally gather to celebrate the passing of the longest night, and to reaffirm commitments that will get them through the tough winter months ahead. The days will be bleaker and colder, but the sun will shine a little longer each day until at last spring arrives.
As I write this the world is seeing a dramatic rise of COVID-19 infections, driven by the highly contagious OMICRON variant. Experts in South Africa, seeing a significant drop, speculate that the spike may already be past its peak for them. The general consensus for the rest of the world is a peak sometime in January.
The OMICRON COVID-19 variant is spreading rapidly throughout the world. If you are fully vaccinated, and have received a booster, there is no cause for alarm. I do feel sorry for hospital workers who are facing another wave of the unvaccinated. It must be hard to treat someone who has refused to do their part.
How does this impact your plans for 2022? If you are like me you were planning something special, a once in a lifetime challenge meant to celebrate getting through these past two years. Will rising infection numbers put the kabash on our dreams?
I always take the Monday after the Honolulu Marathon off, doing as little as possible. This year, having dropped out of the race after six miles, I had plenty of energy and an appetite to document my reactions while fresh. That effort ended up being my race report.
Since then I have been bouncing between several points of view. The strongest is where I question whether or not I actually had an SVT episode. Was it just nerves? Did I run too fast? Was I able to keep going? Should I have toughed it out?
The last time the Honolulu Marathon was a live event was in 2019, just before the world went into lockdown for COVID-19. This was the race that convinced me there was something wrong with my heart and got me to get a referral to see a cardiologist.