A recap of the last and major triathlon events of the year: my story
I know that I've been pretty quite this year on my blog. If you see the new posts uploaded during 2013 you will notice that you can count them in the fingers of your one hand. Well, there are many reasons for this, mainly because I've been too busy with my full-time job and on top of this I've been dedicating almost my entire free time towards a potential job hunt all across Europe (applications, interviews, travelling, CVs, calls..).
It's the first time after many years that I realise my active participation into sports is at its minimum. In 2013, after 4 successful years into indoor rowing and systematic training, I decided to shift into triathlon. I have changed many sports in the past from basketball, into windsurfing, into rowing and now into triathlon, I like trying new things! However, for 2013 it was only during May-June and September-October when I managed to follow a rough training schedule - and still during those more active periods I didn't perform athletically in a structured manner. So, all in all, 2013 was a kind of 'time off-sports' for me as I had to sacrifice my sports for the things I mentioned above.
(shown on the left: Jan.2013, London from London-eye tourist attraction)
However, sports, training and racing has always been something inseparable from my life. I believe that sports must be integrated within everyone's routine, regardless how busy or free time you have available. Sports have always helped me to organise my mind and put things of life into an order.
In May 2013, after 4 months of complete absence from any real training due to an intense preparation of an important business trip to Ireland, I signed up for 2 Sprint distances and 1 Olympic distance triathlon races, which were to take place within a 5-week period! This sounds crazy, as everyone knows that triathlon in particular requires significant training in terms of volume and intensity. I will never forget my first ever tri-race in 2010, which left me with a huge surprise as to the amount of effort and pressure it is required to complete even a sprint triathlon race. But, for some unusual reason, this time I felt it was possible to go through this time-squeezed 3 race schedule - probably I've missed racing for triathlon and I felt that I was full of energy (mainly mentally) to accept the challenge.
