FEET

You know, I think I blame my feet for my nonconformist streak. They are big. Not hugely big, but big for a girl, if you know what I mean. I have to work to find shoes my size. As per usual, though, when I complained to my mother about their size as a child, she listened patiently and then asked the crucial questions: "Do they hurt?" "No." "Do they get you where you want to go?" "Yes."

So there was no problem after all, of course.

The first inkling I had that I wasn't like everybody else probably had something to do with my feet or my height. (I was almost six feet tall by high school, and topped out at an even six by the end of college. So the feet thing was really a given, wasn't it, to keep things in proportion.)

But here's the thing I've learned over the years: I'm not the only one who doesn't quite fit the mold. None of us do. Sure, you know this—intellectually, anyway. So why is this such a difficult concept to apply to our training and racing?

As I work on our Slowtwitch product reviews, I read the claims of each product manufacturer and think, "You know, this might be just the thing for somebody." Then I wonder how I'll like it, and how it'll work for the mountain biker on our tasting panel. We are two very different athletes, after all. Different sizes, different fitness levels, different body chemistries, different everything. Different shoe sizes, that's for sure.

What I'm trying to say is, this is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. None of it is. Not training, not racing, not fueling, not any of it. General principles apply, absolutely. There are wonderful guidelines for all of the above.

And there's the rub. It's like walking a tightrope. Certain immutable laws apply. As the tightrope-walker has to deal with that ironclad gravity thing, so you have to deal with the reality of lactic acid buildup, glycogen stores that are finite and a stomach that requires very precise chemical reactions to do its work.

You also have to follow certain general guidelines—mind your electrolytes, train properly, listen to your body, eat a good balance of carbohydrates, protein and fat—even while figuring out which rules you maybe should bend a little. Or break altogether.

The rules you break probably won't be the biggies—running a marathon, for example, on 10 miles a week—but they might be the smallies, like "Avoid acids like orange juice the morning of a race." Well, sure, I know that's true for me, but maybe it isn't for you.

So you can, and you should, color outside the lines. Or use different colors altogether. Find out what works for you. Experiment. Have fun. Learning about yourself, and how your body works, is just another fascinating part of triathlon training and racing, after all. It's not all about pushing limits and finding out how far, and how fast, you can go. It's also about finding out about yourself.

But the time to do this is in training. How else was I able to figure out, for example, that the optimal pre-race food for me is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat toast? The toast part is important, because the warmth is crucial—it's a comfort thing, I guess. I figured this out after weeks of hard Saturday rides. If I ate poorly, or less, or more randomly (if orange juice were part of the equation, for example), I might find myself in a spot of trouble. I once put cream cheese on a bagel and nearly was sliced in half by a side stitch during a run. Hm. Dairy and me and long runs don't seem to go so well together. Lesson learned.

Keep track of your experiments with food, just like you keep track of your workouts, in a training log.

It seems that people sometimes want a quick answer to the question "How do I train?" The fact is, we're all science experiments. That the great George Sheehan was right when he said "Every runner is an experiment of one," is of course a given. But how many of you are comfortable experimenting with yourselves?

Do you know how your body responds to training of different varieties and intensities? How does it recover, and what is the best strategy for you? How closely are you paying attention, because this is important stuff.

Your resting heart rate, for example, can tell you lots about how your body is responding to training, as well as to external factors, like viruses. Is it elevated? Is it low? How will you know if you don't check every morning and find out what the norm is?

How do you eat after a hard workout? Do you know what works well for you? The way you feel the next day can help show you. Maybe a little post-workout self-massage would help with soreness. A good night's sleep never hurt either, or maybe you'd rather nap. Or maybe you're like me and want it all—all the sleep, all the time.

So put yourself up on that tightrope. Mind the rules: Be consistent in your training. Build your mileage up gradually—and this definition of gradual is probably more time than you think, or would like it to be. Pay attention to your nutrition and electrolytes. See how your body responds, and—I cannot overstate this—respect what it tells you.

But then, like the tightrope walker, take a flyer. Maybe your favorite workout is a 60-mile ride followed by a five-mile run followed by your favorite recovery meal, a big turkey sandwich with mustard and an ice-cold root beer. Maybe you race best on pancakes and bananas.

Me, I'm hoping that big feet and PB&Js might finally be an advantage here.

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