The Art of Repetition

A lot of athletes, myself included, are always looking for new workouts. New training routes, interval sessions, and gyms to keep things fresh. While it is occasionally a good idea to shock your body and make it adapt to different things, (and ultimately necessary to keep from going insane!) a consistent routine should not be overlooked.

First of all, a lot of this idea comes from accessibility. Living in Denver, I would love to be able to get out to the mountains and pedal around every day. It would be awesome to have a different right for every day of the week. This is just not realistic though, so what do I do? I bike on the trail! It is a lot easier to find time and motivation to just pedal from my front door than to pack up and drive for 30 minutes just for a workout.

Secondly, you learn a huge deal about yourself and your ability to push paces, attack hills, and handle your bike (and your body!) by doing the same routes/workouts and getting really familiar with them. If you know the route and are very comfortable with it, you are much more likely to feed your fast... God knows it's hungry...

Thirdly, by doing the same workouts you have a relatively standardized set of data to track your progress. If you averaged 18 MPH on this ride last week, you can try and average 18.5 this week. If you held 1:00 hundreds last week on this set, go for :59.5 this week. This goes back to my college coach, TJ, always telling us to just get 1% better each day.

This one is a HUGE plus for me since I am pretty much completely self-coached, it allows me to make sure I am on track for my goals in all three disciplines of triathlon simply by jotting down a few metrics and some notes after each workout.

Granted, as I said, you've gotta switch it up every now and again, or you will either a) go crazy from the repetition, b) get bored with your workouts and thus lose motivation, or c) just get flat and stop pushing yourself to your fullest. But, don't forget about the art of repetition!

Aristotle said "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an art, but a habit." Key word here being "repeatedly," people! Thanks for listening to my silly rant again. Next time, I will include a sweet video clip of me juggling chainsaws while pedaling up Loveland Pass......

....On second thought, maybe just a couple pictures... FOLLOW THE PACE RABBIT!