The Fourth Discipline is ... Tapering? Or Checking the Event Website.

The first olympic distance triathlon of my season is tomorrow morning.  After I contested Rumpus in Bumpass last year, I swore I would never undertake a spring triathlon again.  But training for over 6 months without a multisport event gets old.  For example, since last November, I've logged over 60 miles in the swimming pool.  Back & forth, back & forth, back & forth -- 3,840 times.  As cold as Lake Anna is in April, at least I'll be justifying all the mind-numbing hours in the pool.

I've heard that "The fourth discipline is effective tapering."  Tapering is the period between hitting your training peak and race day.  The smart athlete tapers the workouts just enough to allow the body to recharge, but not so much that essential form or fitness is lost.  It's a difficult balance, and it is made more complex by the three disciplines.  Running, for example, requires a very long taper (10-14 days of reduced mileage), whereas biking can be tapered in 4-5 days, and swimming requires a day or two, at most.  Because I started long-distance events with marathoning, I have unfortunately attempted to apply my running tapering to all 3 sports in the past, and the results have been disastrous.  I'm experimenting with a much more refined tapering system this time around, and I'll be sure to report the results.

One minor ... okay, major pet peeve.  In preparing for a triathlon, I run through all the steps over and over.  Swim:  Where does the swim start and end, where do they place the buoys, from which direction does the "chop" come, where are the biggest waves, what are the sight lines, where will the sun be at 10:12 am, etc.  T1: What am I wearing, what am I eating/drinking, what do I put on first, second, last, etc.  You get the picture.  One reason why I like repeating a race is because I'm comfortable with the course.  Imagine my surprise when I checked the race website today and found out that the course has been changed -- significantly on the swim and run. 

Here is the old course:

And here is the new course:

I certainly haven't swum in "Boxley's Cove" before, but this appears to be a rather significant change.  I hope the seaweed is minimal.  And I hope there aren't any sharks.  The water certainly looks a lot greener on the new course.  I suppose I'm glad that I found this out now, rather than tomorrow morning (at the empty Lake Anna Marina).  Time to start re-visualizing the race.  Apparently "Checking the event website obsessively many times before the race" is the fourth discipline.