A Family Day

Yesterday was about athletes, coaching and writing programs.

Today was about this:

A great day with the family today. A bit of time on the paddleboards before spending most of the day down at the local pool which was having a Children's Fiesta, ie loads of water play, bouncy castles and people dressed as pirates. You get the idea. Much fun was had by all.

As an athlete I always felt it was important to have some time of my week away from the sport. A bit of time to remind myself that there was more to life than just triathlon. As I have moved into coaching that hasn't changed. The triathlon related activities I am doing during the week are different, but the amount of time I spend each week focused on the sport hasn't really decreased all that much. Given the amount of time spent focusing on Triathlon each week, I find that having a bit of time to disconnect is important for long term sustainability of the training.

Triathlon is a sport that tends to encourage a bit of obsessiveness. The time commitment required for triathlon is high, so for a lot of people it can start to take over and become their entire world. While I feel that commitment is important if somebody wants to do well in Triathlon, becoming obsessed by anything is enver healthy. With triathlon that obsession can lead to people putting unnecessary pressure on themselves during training and racing. This can result in people doing silly things like over training, or trying to train to much when sick or injured. It can also lead to unnecessary stress as people get frustrated with below expectation racing and training.

I have always found that having regular reminders that Triathlon is in fact, just a sport and isn't a person's entire world can be a great way of disconnecting and maintaining perspective.

Today was one of those days for me.