For over a third of my life I have competed in short course triathlon. With my first triathlon a Sprint distance race and my third a leap to the Olympic distance, I never considered tackling the challenge of distance racing at such a young age. Ironman and Half-Ironman distance races have never been on the radar for me. In fact, up until three years ago, it was very evident that my performance at the Olympic distance was significantly weaker than at sprints. I was blessed with an abnormally high VO2 max which is simply the volume of oxygen I can absorb in a given time. In fact, it is one of the highest. My lactate threshold on the other hand, was something that needed to be trained. This left me behind in longer races but enabled me to suffer immensely at high speed, something I am still much better at than distance racing. But recently my dreams have teased me toward new goals. Continue reading Sampling long-course racing
Tag Archives: Chris McCormack
Drafting versus non-drafting triathlon
Triathlon, just like distance running, cycling, or swimming is not just one sport. Within triathlon we have subdivisions of distances for example. Just like track has the 100 meter dash up to the 10,000 meter run, triathlon spans from a race lasting around an hour to a race lasting over eight hours. This is essentially equivalent to comparing a 5k to a marathon or comparing the 1500 meter swim to a 10 kilometer swim. These are drastic differences and about as far as any distance sport will span without the exceptions of the ‘ultra’ endurance athletes.
However, just like in road cycling or running, triathlon has different styles of racing. Continue reading Drafting versus non-drafting triathlon
A piece of script
“The problem is that once this happens, it almost always happens again. And if it does, I don’t know what I’m gonna be able to do for him. He’s an older dog. I honestly don’t think he would survive the surgery.”
“Well, we have to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
“Well, most likely, it is gonna happen again.”