Every athlete training and competing in an endurance sport such as Ironman, or any sport for that matter will learn quickly the importance of hard work and determination. Getting up in the early hours of the morning, battling through bad weather, keeping going when it starts to hurt. Doing this is essential to reaping the rewards. But what is something that many neglect? Do you know someone that appears to train just as much as a pro athlete, put in huge hours and miles, practically sacrificing anything else in their life, and yet still finish mid pack next to someone who does less training, has a life and realises he is not a pro.
For me, I see this a lot. Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with training hard, and yes you will have to give up certain things to get to the top, but there is more than just training hard to achieve in your sport.
There is another aspect that many people say they know about, understand, and work on, but do they really? I am talking about technique.
Lets get more specific. In Ironman, you have the swim, bike and run. Each of which is sport in itself. If you can master the technique of these different sports, so that you swim like a swimmer, ride like a cyclist, and run like a runner, and put it together, then surely your room to improve with hard work is greater. You become more efficient, and faster.
Now I’m not going to use this blog as chance to teach you technique. That is up to you finding a coach who actually understands proper technique and uses it as the foundation to their coaching. What I am going to talk about is how I am working on this, which hopefully can help dispel the notion that us pros just work really hard by slogging it out, which we do, but we do so on a foundation of improving technique.
There is always room to improve in your technique, and I have really seen how much I have to go after working with Greg Pain at Biosport here in Auckland, New Zealand. I have been working on improving my core strength and how it aids my body position in the cycle and run legs. Now you might think everybody knows the importance of core strength. This might be true, but does everybody actually walk the walk when it comes time to improve it?? Its not just core strength that is helping me to become a better athlete, but how it helps me align my body and activate the correct muscle groups for optimal performance.
Many athletes neglect this stage as when they discover where the improvements can be made, the initial phase might feel like one step back and hence they don’t go for it. I like to look at the big picture and look towards the future in order to take many steps forward.
So currently I am starting to feel very strong across the 3 disciplines, my technique is improving with constant work, and I continue to work hard to growing stronger, fitter and faster. What is really exciting is in doing this everyday I’m discovering more room for improvement across the board, giving me an exciting prospects for the future which will hopefully lead me to winning in Kona and becoming the World Ironman Champion.
Terenzo Bozzone
