Skillz

I fell in the river today. The river is currently about 12 degrees so trust me, it wasn't something I was keen on, but there you go, it happened anyway.

Why did I fall in the river you might ask? Seem like a good idea at the time?

Well I was paddling with a friend and he suggested we do some technical work, skills stuff. The skills were ones that deep down I know I should have been practising for a while, but I just haven't been. I haven't had time, or when I have been training I have preferred to be working hard rather that doing technique work or any number of other excuses. Pretty much me falling in the river was a direct result of that. Not enough skills.

Once I was out of the river and the shivering had subsided I was struck by the parallels of my dunking and triathlon. Triathlon requires a whole bunch of skills other than swimming, biking and running hard. Skills like mounting a bike, running with a bike, getting a wetsuit off fast, picking up bottles while riding, getting running shoes on quickly, moving from a bike leg to a run leg, the list is a long one.

All these skills are very important and they are nearly all skills that aren't practised enough by most adult triathletes. I differentiate adult and junior triathletes because in my experience junior triathlon squads are great at practising these skills.

For adult triathletes usually they have a bunch of good excuses, just like me. They don't have enough time, they need to squeeze in another run or a longer ride etc, the skills part takes a back seat. I have spoken to some who have assured me it will all be fine on the day.

But the thing is with these skills is that when done poorly they will, at best, slow you down, at worst they can be a bit more dangerous. I saw this first hand when an athlete I knew crashed while trying to use an aid station on the bike, something she hadn't done before.

For a sport where we spend so much time training to shave seconds off our swim, bike or run legs it seems ridiculous that we don't spend time practising skills that could save us minutes on race day, or cost us minutes when done poorly.

As athletes we find it so easy to concentrate on doing the hard work bit but we so often overlook the physically easier, but technically trickier training. We all know we should do it, spend five minutes per session mounting or dismounting a bike properly, or getting our wetsuit off quickly or something similar, but we do rarely do it. We do ourselves all a disservice.