Time for the Fat Lady to sing

“Two years,” Tadhg said. 

Two years. Those simple two words deflated my triathlon balloon for quite a while at the start of this season. 

The question posed by another of the newbies in Piranha triathlon club was, “how long does it take to get good at triathlons?”

Bloody hell was it disheartening. And chatting about it with other newbies afterwards they weren't overly enamoured either.

In 2011 I trained largely on my own and raced wit one of my mates. Badly. We had our usual head to heads over a few races (it ended 2-2) but no times were great and the main aim was survival. Each triathlon was an endurance race. Our main aim was the Ironman 70.3 in Galway last September, when survival really was the main aim.

So heading into 2012, with some races under my belt - I couldn’t quite say a year’s training, and I was carrying a few too many Christmas pound – I was hopeful to be able to make some serious inroads into the world of triathlons. And a few weeks training Tadhg’s kernel was put to the back of my mind.

The aim again this year was the Ironman 70.3 race, and this weekend I will race my fifth and last race of the season. Prior to this have been Galway, one sprint and two Olympic races.

Before each race I have set myself targets. Time targets. Something just that little bit out of reach but if everything went well, attainable. And to date I have managed to just get inside my target time bracket albeit at the wrong end. For each of the races, I have improved on my times.

Last year in my three Olympic races (it the two I finished) I didn't break three hours. This year I have been under 2:45 both times. My second race better than my first. And while my realistic target for the year was to try to get below 2:30, at least by knocking 24 minutes off my 2011 time I have to be happy.

My Ironman time this year didn't quite render the same difference on he clock. As you may have seen from my last post it was a mere 27 seconds. But with an improved swim (double last year's distance) and excellent bike times, I left Galway very heartened with my performance and it showed the work put in during the year really paid off.

Having only done one sprint, it was hard to properly give myself a target, but match one I did. But with the one under my belt (last May), I want to knock four or five minutes off that time tomorrow. Target time set.

So one last race, one hour 20 minutes before the fat lady sings, and the season can officially be called closed. So what have I learnt about this year? Stroke. Drafting. T1. Cadence. Power. T2. Nutrition. Reverse splits. Pacing. Endurance.

What can I improve on? Yes you guessed, all of it. And as for Tadhg’s two years? I’m going to need every single last day of it to become a better (hopefully good) triathlete. Target set for 2013.