After my swim workout this morning I was driving home and had some time to do some thinking. Of course I was thinking about all of the training I have been doing and all of the training that still lies ahead.
When I agreed to participate in this years Ford Ironman World Championships I knew it was going to be a lot of work. When I decided to do it I knew I was going to need some help in order to reach my goal of finishing this grueling day.
The only thing I knew about triathlons in general was that you swam, ran, and biked. I have been doing all of those things seprately for most of my life. How hard can it be? Individually not that hard. But when you combine the three and add some significant distance it can become pretty tough.
This brought me around to the world of diet and exercise. I’m sure I’m correct in assuming that most of us have been eating our entire lives. I’m also pretty sure that nearly all of us have exercised at one time in our lives as well.
The problem comes not in eating or exercising individually, but in doing them both properly. Many times we think that we can get away with one or the other when in reality in order to really be healthy we need to combine both exercise and nutrition.
As I have been training for the Ironman I have stopped losing weight. I am working out like I did when I was on The Biggest Loser and burning tons of calories. The problem is that I am also consuming a lot of calories to keep my energy up for my workouts.
I have always been on a diet. Even in wrestling I learned how to train and compete on very few calories. I can’t get away with that anymore. To complete the distances that I am training for, my body needs calories for energy. I have to learn how to eat properly.
So back to the idea of learning how to do the proper combination of exercise and nutrition. Having come to the conclusion that I have been going about it all wrong, I have built myself a team.
I want to share the members of team with you so that you too can see how important it is to have a support system. I know I could finish the Ironman training by myself. The thing is that I don’t wan to just finish, I want to finish the best that I can.
In order to do this I had to swallow my pride and accept the fact that I need help. Many times in our lives we think that the only way to achieve something is to figure out how to do it on our own. The truth is that there are a lot of resources out there that can help us reach our goals in a much more efficient fasion.
Here is a short list of my team. I have a personal triathlon coach. I have a team triathlon coach. I have a nutritionist. I have a mind coach through The Hypnosis Network CD’s. I have strength coach, and I have a massage therapist.
I have all of these people and more helping me to reach my goal. As I said, I could finish my race without their help, but having this team is going to help me be smarter, more efficcient, and better trained than if I was attempting to do this all on my own.
Who could you use on your team? Is it time to stop spinning your wheels and seek out those who can help you become more efficient at attaining your goals? Of course we can do it on our own, but why not build your team and see if you can do it better?
