I love to learn. Every year I invest in myself and sign up for a new professional course. And I try to do that not only in triathlon coaching: in two week time I’ll actually follow a master class in coffee making, a Xmas Present from my wife. Why? No, not because caffeine is the only performance-enhancing drug that is still allowed by the anti-doping regulations, but because I love coffee. Visiting a coffee farm in Colombia few years ago was revelatory.
Now I want to know a bit more about making coffee and the act of planting the seeds, but also I want to know when it’s the best time to picking them from the plants, how to dry them and which roasters make the coffee I prefer.
These are coffee beans!
They call these courses (well, not the coffee one in my case) Continuing Professional Development. In some cases, these courses are even mandatory. But the idea of a never-ending process of development and learning is an old one. The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Frederick Hegel used the German concept of aufheben to describe his own dialectic process towards an always more detailed and profound knowledge.
To make a harsh concept very short (but probably not clearer), in English we could translate the term aufheben with the verb “to sublate”. This is the moment where — at least for Hegel — the individual goes beyond its limits and becomes something new, something more. It expands its knowledge and becomes more aware of its path. This idea was so important and its core so powerful that even the main critics of Hegel (Karl Max included), kept Hegel’s idea of aufheben and used it to enrich their own philosophical system.
That all sounds so transferable to the world of sport performance, isn’t it? Well, although this is true to so many levels and for many reasons (reasons you can find out by yourself), that is not the point I had in mind here.
I would love to spend days in here!
On top of being a mere exercise of style, this long intro was only meant to say that — although keep learning and developing is desirable and beneficial — try not to stop enjoying what you do to get there. Read: keep enjoying your training and racing.
It’s not the first time I say it, but it’s always worth remember it. Don’t get obsessed with the mantra of improving your performances, always, and at all costs. Don’t get obsessed with the green lights on Training Peaks and do not complete all the sessions just because you would feel better. There are no badges of honour for those who keep pushing just for the sake of pushing. If you don’t enjoy training and racing anymore, there is something that needs to be addressed.
Please stop racing and training if you feel that way and let’s find out why that is the case. If you put the goal of improving in front of the fun you get from training and racing, your own sport performances will stagnate, at best.
This is Saint Moritz, where I’ll spend two weeks with the Doc.
And because I love to learn, this year I signed up for the Trisutto coaching qualification and over the next season I will spend two weeks on deck with Brett Sutton (former coach of Chrissie Wellington and now coach of Daniela Ryf). I can’t wait for those weeks!
Trisutto training methodology resonates to me to many levels: it is simple, it is hard and it’s born and bred in the mountains. But above all, its Training Principle n.1 is: Enjoy your Training and Racing.
So please keep learning and improving, but do not loose the focus on having fun while doing it.
I just love learning.