How to Break your Personal Record? Lessons from IRONMAN 70.3 Venice-Jesolo

Personal records always made me feel a bit ambivalent…

Do they matter? Why? How are they achieved?

Last weekend was a race weekend in Venice-Jesolo. The race is in Jesolo itself, 40km from Venice, but many take a few days off prior to the race to visit Venice ??. My wife and I did the same, and it was as always fabulous to be back in the city of canals and history.

In Jesolo, on Sunday I set a new personal record on the half-distance Iron Man: 5 hours 19 minutes (an improvement of 15 minutes on my prior best time in Luxemburg more than 5 years ago) ??

How do you set a personal record?

1. Choose an easy high-speed race: Jesolo is known for its high speed. Complete flat bike ???? and complete flat run ????. It has an ocean swim ???? costing 2-3 minutes extra and a long transition 1 with a 500m run from the beach to transition… but other than that, super fast.
2. Dare to change your routines: at some point, your routines have maxed out and your personal best is not going to budge. Thus the only thing that can move the needle is to change them. In my case I did two things differently: (1) with gratitude I departed from my coach who had been with me 6 years and changed to a new coach, the Belgian champion duathlon (Angelo Vandecasteele, thank you: first race together rightaway a PR!); (2) I did more dedicated work on the bike than ever, which made my bike course finally comparatively stronger than my swim.
3. Show resilience: I came into Jesolo with a knee injury. And it stuck with me. It kept me completely at rest for a full week and hurt during the entire run course. But something is always off and no race is perfect. Stamina and resilience are always an element in PRs. ???? You need to want it.

Why do PRs matter?

This is different for everyone. For me:

1. It supports my lifestyle change and is an incentive to keep on moving. Life’s progression is a fight of experience against aging. As long as PRs happen, experience is winning and aging is losing! Even though one may have to be more careful about which PR one wants to beat…;-)
2. It empowers. Even though I am, as many are with me, an average athlete, a PR empowers me. Empowerment is an important trigger to keep on going on to other again empowering experiences feeding a self-reinforcing cycle.
3. PRs show training in a certain manner is working and thus it signals learning. Learning the triggers of your body is fuel for the brain and soul. Every athlete learns the words “listen to your body”; a PR makes it a symphony, albeit temporarily.

Afterthought

For me, it is just the start of the season, although my doctor tonight will tell me the knee damage and what it means for the rest of the season. For the athletes among my followers I would strongly recommend IM70.3 Venice-Jesolo for the following athlete groups:

?? first-timers: if you choose to do a half iron man for the first time Jesolo is the place to be (well organized easy track; just do not get scared because of the ocean swim as the water is not too chilly, it is very calm with low waves and it is a wetsuit guaranteed race);

?? for anyone who wants to set a PR (note for full disclosure: the bike track is not great and you easily get a puncture ruining your PR attempt; many athletes were on the sides of the roads with punctures some also with injuries from falling);

?? for anyone who loves the duet with a visit to Venice;

?? athletes looking for a race feel training early on in the year. All others should probably consider other venues for IM70.3. There are many more beautiful races out there… my favorite: Marbella, one of the toughest but also most beautiful. Not fast though…

Good luck to all my followers on your athletic adventures!