Today I was supposed to go on my first group ride with the local cycling club. Luckily I didn´t make it in time, as I had some full body fatigue - probably due to the fact that I had just swam 3000 meters. Earlier this year, when doing the Roth Ironman-distance race, I found out the hard way that swimming 3.8 km is not just an hours warm up for a long duathlon!  Besides having a freaky cramp in my calfs, I was feeling tired when I got out of the water and, in hind sight, I think I spend quite a bit of time on the bike leg to recover from the underrated swim.
So today my hip flexors wasn´t the limiting factor, but just an unpleasantly empty feeling, that made me wanna turn around for most of the 2.10 hrs ride. After a nap I was ready to run for an hour and I have the feeling that my increased hip flexor strength and endurance are the reason for an seemingly easy stride. I would really like to try running off the bike in a race as the transition may feel a lot easier. I had the great pleasure of organizing a 1/4 Ironman yesterday for the students at the sports high school I work at. None of them had ever done a triathlon, coming from athletic backgrounds like soccer, dancing and so on. Normally the triathlon race calendar is pretty empty in December in Denmark as the weather can be quite nasty. We had semi-reasonable conditions (drizzle, 40 degree F and steady winds) with an indoor 1K swim, 45K on MTB and a hilly gravel 10,5K run. The finishing times were far from record breaking (3-4 hrs) but what seeing these young people doing their best, battling the elements and their deep fatigue and the happiness when they crossed the finish line made it all worthwhile. A lot of them broke several mental and physical barriers along the race and everybody was eager to try something like this again. I usually motivate the students with video footage from Hawaii Ironman, Roth, Norseman and the awesome Nice swim start and tell them that theseslim, tanned, cool and seemingly über humans had also started their triathlon careers/lifestyle at a more modest level and the biggest goal reaching limiters are in our heads and self beliefs.
The reason I like doing Ironman races is that they bring you through so many ups and downs that we never experience in our protected western life style. Finishing has usully meant going through lots of crisis and facing your demons/weakness that tell you to slow down or quit. But it´s right there that the scene is set for remembering  the reasons for being there in the first place ,all the countless hours of training, sacrifices and joy of being an athlete. When you make the decision to keep on going, despite the pain and doubts - that´s when you learn something about yourself. Whether the scene is finishing a mere 1/4 ironman or on course of breaking a personal record in an Ironman race or reaching your training goals, the rewards of completing is the same - the good feeling of trying to do your best.