Art or Science?

How about a little of both?

As I mentioned in the race report for Tri-ing for Childrens, I had a pretty satisfactory race.  Strong swim, decent bike, and weak run.  Yesterday after the race I rode home from the race and pondered the question – Why did I run not much faster today than I did last weekend at SORT?  My thoughts focused on other races this year and previous years- when I had good runs, when I had bad runs and what I did before them, and tossing in my bike pacing during said race.

The unfortunate conclusion I came to is that while there are some common threads – there isn’t anything super concrete take for instance –

My fastest 5k run was done at the end of a sprint race with a TSB of -32.

Yesterday one of my slowest 10k runs was done at the end of an Olympic distance with a  TSB of 9.

The 5k week I did a two long rides in the 10 days before the race, several 3-4 hour rides and a Tempo run and a long run.  The 10k week only had a Half Ironman + a Long run.

Which leads me tobelieve that numbers alone does not predict performance – they are useful for forecasting potential – but exceptions to both sides happen.

It also highlights that sometimes it’s not always in how much you did – but how you did it that is important – so while raw numbers can help guide you – some artfull interpretation and subjectivity is definately required.

What’s for this week?  No races and lots of training.  Been pondering what to focus on and how much to do.  A bit unsure yet, but I’ll figure something out soon.