No Worries

The 5430 long Course is in less than 3 weeks.
This was pointed out to me several times at the BTC Party on Sunday and normally would have been something to cause me some, if not alarm, at least a little worry. Am I going to be ready? Have I been training enough? Did I schedule enough swim time? Bike time? Run time? Too much? Am I over-training? How should I taper? Did I go long enough in my longest workouts?
Instead, I said “Wow, that soon?” and didn’t think about it again. I certainly didn’t worry about it. This time last year, you can bet your butt I was worried.
So what’s the difference? I’m not trying to set up my own training schedule anymore. I’m not flipping through books, magazines and websites trying to figure out what will work best. Should I be training by heart rate? Pace/Power? RPE? I’m not concerned about whether I should be doing drills in the pool. I’m not worried about how my training for the next race works into my long term goals of doing an Ironman and qualifying for Boston.
The difference, simply put, is that I have a coach; Mark Van Akkeren. Mark’s a smart guy, an incredible athlete and most importantly, he’s someone I can relate to and trust. He guided me to taking almost 10 minutes off my best half marathon time in May and he’s been open, honest and available. Having a coach, one I trust like I do Mark, has made training so much easier and more enjoyable. I don’t worry about the big picture like I used to, I just focus on getting my workout done for that day (and enjoying that workout!) and I believe that as long as I hold up that end of the deal and keep my commitment level up, that I can trust Mark to lay the right course to get to those big goals.
One of my favorite expressions, courtesy of Mick ‘Crocodile’ Dundee and the Aussies, is “No worries”. It also happens to be one Mark uses a lot as well.
No worries indeed.