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The Motivation: If not now, then when? Life is too short to stay inactive.
The Challenge: If you are not willing to suffer, then you shouldn't be racing
The Dream: Staying fit and feeling younger day by day!




Showing posts with label championship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label championship. Show all posts

23 October 2013

From no training to achieving a PB finish time in Olympic triathlon distance: My quick story for the 2013 tri-racing

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.


19 December 2012

2012 Greek Indoor Rowing Championship - My road to sub 3 minutes race time

2012          

Video: Mens 30-39 2012 Greek IRC
(Me with white t-shirt, next to me standing my coach, Makis, with red jersey)



If there was just one word I would be allowed to pick up to describe the 2012 Greek indoor rowing national event that would be *exhaustion*. And this description doesn't only apply for the race day, but for the whole training season leading to this event. Below, I expose the training stages that allowed me to break the 3 minutes race time. Hope my story below will motivate all those athletes, new to indoor rowing, expand their ambitions.

Preparation
Indoor rowing requires maximum effort to reach a top level performance. The effort required to achieve even the tiniest improvement is significant. When you watch rowing live on the TV you might have noticed that the whole race lasts only a couple of minutes (less than 7 min for a 2000m race and 3 min for a 1000m race). Believe me, for those athletes who target a medal position, racing those few minutes feels endless until the moment they cross the finish line. Both in physical and mental terms.


28 March 2012

7th place - 2012 British and Euro Open Indoor Rowing Championship



Scroll at the end of this article to view the official results of the Mens 30-34 HWT Race

Above: 2012 BIRC in Nottingham. Fun pre-race photo shot. What an amazing feeling to compete on my first ever IRC abroad. My dream came true, same for the race time with a PB.

My history
What a great event to be at! My first ever indoor rowing race abroad is something that will stay happily in my memory forever. An event that has motivated me to train harder and target higher expectations with more confidence.

My rowing background started at the beginning of 2009 when I was mainly using the indoor rower for general fitness and during winter time only. Soon though, I realised that the indoor rower, when utilised properly, can offer the best physical conditioning between other gym facilities, more than weight lifting or treadmill running can offer alone. On December of the same year I finished first on the Greek indoor rowing championship and set a new national record. It was that instance when I realised that indoor rowing matches my body shape well.

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