10 year rule

I had this thought the other day: "I have now been training for and competing in running races and triathlons consistently for 10 years." This was a bit of a revelation for me.... because it called to mind the "10 year rule" of expertise. I always think of myself as "still learning" but maybe I should think otherwise....?

Here is Wikipedia's characteristics of being an expert:

At a minimum usually 10 years of consistent practice, sometimes more for certain fields.
A characterization of this practice as "deliberate practice", which forces the practitioner to come up with new ways to encourage and enable themselves to reach new levels of performance.
An early phase of learning which is characterized by enjoyment, excitement, and participation without outcome-related goals[2]
The ability to rearrange or construct a higher dimension of creativity. Due to such familiarity or advanced knowledge experts can develop more abstract perspectives of their concepts and/or performances.[citation needed]

I like that last part, the part that talks about creativity. It made me think about my early years of getting into triathlon, where I had no idea and was just in overload on how much there was to learn about triathlon and training ... it was the early part of "enjoyment, excitement and participation"... who knew that it could lead to such an obsession and was going to shape my way of life in such a dramatic way.

In my first summer, I really just had no idea, I just did it in the summer between water polo seasons at Queens. I went out to a small Ottawa event, and did the full clothing change in the transition, I actually had a good swim (because of water polo), then I put on my running shoes, pulled on some spandex (not proper bike shorts) and a cotton T-shirt, and a ton of people passed me on the bike, it sucked, then more people passed me on the run and I was dying. I think I came 2nd or 3rd in my age group and I was over the moon, and also hooked.

Then I did another race later on in the summer (the Ktown sprint) and I can remember, that race was pivitol in me deciding to "get serious". I was on the big ferry, in that race they boated you out to a start line and you swam to shore, and I was sitting beside a younger girl, who was very intimidating, in her personalized tri-suit, spraying pam in her wetsuit (which I was in awe of, she seemed so "knowledgeable"!) and she was uber thin and fit looking, I knew she would be way faster than me, but my competitive spirit was firing!

Anyways I did end up swimming faster than her ... so as I climbed this first hill out of the city, wearing some old cotton t-shirt, my running shoes in my old school pedal baskets, trying to get my heavy steel Peugot up this hill, hair and snot plasterd on my face, panting and grunting ... then there she went just flying effortlessly by me. It was one of those moments you can't forget. After that I was determined to get good, to get good like that girl, she inspired me. The funny thing is ... that girl was Lauren Groves ... so had I known at the time who she was, or what she was going to acheive in triathlon, I might not have been so hard on myself.

So pretty soon I had bought a bunch of books, upgraded my bike, got some new clothes and also decided to get a coach, and join some training groups. And at first I was all about getting fast really soon, and am only just realizing the meaning of the words spoken to me by one of first coaches in Ottawa - the legendary Rick Hellard -"It's the guy who gets up and trains the most consistently, for the longest period of time, that's going to be faster." So it's really a patience thing, and doing these things day in and day out.. that finally led me to one year "suddenly" get fast. It took a long time for me to decisively break the 40min 10k barrier, the 1:30half marathon barrier and the 2:15 Olympic triathlon barrier.

I have some of my fondest memories of my early races. The first wins, the first medals, the hanging out in the sun after races. Next post I'll tell some more stories...