{"id":14474,"date":"2020-08-19T14:10:31","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T21:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/?p=14474"},"modified":"2020-08-19T14:10:31","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T21:10:31","slug":"new-psychology-of-triathlon-series-begins-monday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/new-psychology-of-triathlon-series-begins-monday\/","title":{"rendered":"New Psychology of Triathlon Series Begins Monday"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m pleased to announce that I will begin a new blog series, Inside the Tri-Mind<\/em>, devoted to exploring the psychology of triathlon. You may ask: why triathlon and why now? A little backstory.<\/p>\n

I don’t usually mix my professional and personal lives on my blog or social media. But I’m making an exception here because each bleeds into the other. I take great pride in my athletic accomplishments, from my international ski racing career as a youth, to my 2nd degree black belt in karate, to my sub-3-hour marathons, and culminating in two Ironman finishes. I also believe that my athletic experience helps me in my professional life as well. It gives me credibility with the athletes and coaches I work with because they know I’ve “been there” and know what it’s like. I can better understand their challenges (while being careful not to project myself in their sports lives). And I’m able to actually train with the athletes I work with in a number of sports in which I have some proficiency, which gives me an entirely different and powerful way of connecting to and helping them.<\/p>\n

As some of you may know, I was a pretty serious triathlete 2002-2008 after transitioning out of marathon running. During that period, I also got married (I met my wife through triathlon!), had two children, and, as I turned my focus to my family life, my competitive life slowly faded away. To be honest, I simply lost my competitive mojo. I stayed active through the years, of course, continuing to bike and run, as well as alpine and Nordic ski during the winter. I always had the idea of returning to triathlon at some point, but never felt the urge…until last summer.<\/p>\n

All of a sudden, my tri-mojo was coursing through my veins again. So, I pulled my old tri-bike out of storage and began training. To my surprise and satisfaction, I had two victories, as well as 3rd and 4th place finishes in my age group in my four Olympic-distance races in 2019. I also earned a USA Triathlon national ranking and an invitation to the National Age-Group Championships this summer. I spent the winter training really hard, with a special emphasis on improving my swimming and biking (both real liabilities) and bought a rocket of a new tri-bike<\/a> (I bought the frameset, sourced the parts myself, and had it built locally, so it wasn’t nearly that expensive!). I began my 2020 race season with a gratifying 2nd place finish at a sprint-distance race in early March (pre-COVID), just behind the #6 USAT-ranked triathlete in my age group. Then, of course, COVID struck, derailing my race season (though I have a race this Sunday and several more that appear to have received state approval to be held). I used this “down time” to continue to train intensely (including far too much time in the very cold water of San Francisco Bay because all the pools were closed).<\/p>\n

Now returning to my professional life, a few months ago, I was interviewed for an article on triathlete.com (they also publish VeloNews , Podium Runner, Women’s Running, and Climbing) and was invited to become a twice-monthly columnist<\/a> writing about the psychology of triathlon and endurance sports in general. Alongside my column, I will be posting my\u00a0Inside the Tri-Mind<\/em> here on my blog and on my social media. I welcome topic ideas that, as a triathlete or endurance sport athlete, might interest you.<\/p>\n

If you are a triathlete, cyclist, or runner, I encourage you to sign up to become an “Active Pass” member at triathlete.com<\/a>. For just $99\/year, you get a ton of great triathlon, running, and general endurance sports information that includes race reports, gear reviews, training ideas, nutrition recommendations that will inspire, educate, and entertain you.<\/p>\n

So, be on the lookout for my\u00a0Inside the Tri-Mind<\/em> series beginning Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m pleased to announce that I will begin a new blog series, Inside the Tri-Mind, devoted to exploring the psychology of triathlon. You may ask: why triathlon and why now? A little backstory. I don’t usually mix my professional and personal lives on my blog or social media. But I’m making an exception here because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1557],"tags":[1458,1056,1459,1460,1035,1039],"class_list":["post-14474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-triathlon","tag-bike","tag-endurance-sports","tag-run","tag-swim","tag-triathlete","tag-triathlon"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}