Marginal Gains – A Sub-Elite Obsession
The Emergence Of The Infatuation
In the summer of 2012, Sir Bradley Wiggins made history by becoming the first British Tour De France winner as part of the Team Sky cycling team. I remember it well as this was also the same tour in which Welsh coaching genius Dave Brailsford, the Team Sky performance director coined the now infamous term “marginal gains” in an interview with the BBC. Brailsford explained that Team Sky had broken down all the components that made a rider great, simply improved all of them by 1% and when put back together, those marginal improvements were a game changer.
Of course, at the higher end of all sports the gap between the winners and losers is exceptionally small and so marginal gains are what sets rival athletes’ performances apart. However, since that first British TdF win, hundreds of age group athletes across running, cycling and especially triathlon have developed an obsession with the idea of making minute improvements. This has led in many cases to an astronomical amount of time and money wasted to no avail and in this article, I’m hoping to point a few of you in a considerably more fruitful direction that will do a world of good to your wallet and your race performance.
Remembering the 99%
When chasing the one percenters, people tend to overlook what has got professional athletes to where they are today, hard work! Lance Armstrong, said, “It’s not about the bike”. Whilst the attitude that led him to so much success also led to his downfall, and his idea of marginal gains was Performance Enhancing Drugs, his message is something every athlete should live by.
The idea that you can simply buy success, either through buying new race wheels, paying for questionably legal race shoes or hiring an expert coaching is the downfall of so many athletes. The message that “It’s not about the bike”, or in other words that the only thing that makes a real difference is yourself is often ignored. Nothing will ever beat hard work, and if you continue to rely on carbon footplates and aero water bottles to hide your lack of commitment to training then you’ll never achieve what you’re looking to get out of your sport.
There is no escaping the fact that the hours spent training in the cold, the early mornings and the sacrifices can never be replaced by anything of material value. It may be a massive cliché but the only way to improve is by investing your time, not your money. Bekele knows that, so does Froome, and McElroy. So why is it so hard for anyone else to understand?
A Ready-Made Excuse
Generally, the athletes who are happy to spend thousands on a bike after a poor race are the same who blame everything and anyone else for their poor performances. The only attribute as important as hard work/drive for being successful in sport is accountability. If you can’t pick up the buck, if you find excuse after excuse for why you’re underperforming, you will never get to the root of your troubles – yourself.
If the first thought you have before a race is “Look at his/her bike, I’ll never beat them” or “If I had vaporflys like them I’d win” then you’ve already lost, immediately. There is no way back from setting yourself up to lose before the gun has even started, no chance of reprisal if your mind is swirling with excuses, just failure. Forget about what you can’t control, forget about everyone else, just race for yourself. Train for yourself and you’ll never let anyone down, pride comes with recognition of your own hard work. Be accountable, own your wins and your losses and you’ll be content.
Analysis Paralysis
Lastly, the obsession with marginal gains has also led to a plague of over analysis of everything possible, and with the emergence of more and more data spewing products, the obsession is only becoming ever more consuming. A lot of people lose motivation when training isn’t going too well and a great way to avoid this dip is by turning off your devices. Whilst many athletes would be petrified by the idea of not recording a session, swimming, cycling or running without a watch or GPS device can be the best thing for your mental health and motivation.
In addition to switching off your watch being beneficial to your health, you may also find you suddenly have an abundance of time. Triathletes especially are sometimes guilty of spending more time looking at how many calories they’ve burnt or how hot it was during the 67th kilometer of their bike ride, than training. Concentrating on what matters, training, will make the biggest difference.
My Experience
Whilst this may have seemed like a personal attack for a lot of triathletes, my main motivation for writing this article was because I have experienced all the issues mentioned above. Starting Triathlon quite late at 16 meant that it quickly became an obsession, and everything there was to know about triathlon I wanted to learn about. I would obsess over training programs for hours, meticulously plot graphs from my training data and waste hours overthinking the smallest issues, and after months of thinking I was the most dedicated athlete out there, I got my ass kicked…in every single race. It dawned on me that whilst taking a multivitamin tablet every day or switching running shoes religiously every 200 miles didn’t make up for the fact that I was only training on average for 12 hours a week. I changed my priorities, and the results improved.
Triathlon is a simple sport, keep it that way.
Article written by Welsh Triathlete Tomos Land. Tomos is an 18 year old triathlete from Maenan. He has competed for Wales in Cross Country, Road Running and Mountain Running and has represented the Welsh Development Academy in the British Super Series.
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