Triathlon and Veracruz

I am trying to give you as much information about Mexico and what we have done to continue improving as a team in a nation full of barbaries.  No shortcuts are possible in life; sooner or later our education is going to limit us, paraphrasing Albert Einstein.

In his new book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond claims that the scenario is more common than you might think, and that it maybe responsible for the fall of many ancient cultures we deem “mysterious.” Environmental destruction and the depletion of natural resources create vulnerability, especially in the face of natural disasters. And just like the Maya, the ultimate fate is rarely disappearance or extinction, but usually a decline from opulence to poverty.

http://www.neatorama.com/2007/06/19/explaining-the-mystery-of-the-vanished-maya/

During the “Triatlón de Veracruz,” we saw improvements that will not change our way of looking at triathlon training because we are immersed in ignorance.  The fastest 2,500 kilometers after swimming 400 and biking 10k took place; 8:05 for a 14.-year-old who run more than a minute faster than the second competitor.  He had a team mate who ran 8:52 the run leg as the second fastest.  Only three kids were able to run below 9:00 in the category 14-15 at Veracruz over that course since triathlon started there for Mexicans.  Our elites, including Crisanto Grajales, were not able to run that fast at that age.  We can compare it with Rimini’s Duathlon World Championship (2008) because we are familiar with the course and it is equivalent; one of our athletes reached the podium then.

1	Richard	Murray	RSA		00:56:13	00:14:49	00:01:04	00:31:04	00:00:56	00:08:16
2	Alex	Ascenzi	ITA		00:56:19	00:14:48	00:01:00	00:31:27	00:00:51	00:08:09
3	Oscar	Vicente	ESP		00:56:23	00:14:49	00:01:04	00:31:22	00:00:54	00:08:11
4	Franz	Loeschke	GER		00:56:34	00:14:49	00:01:04	00:31:23	00:00:52	00:08:24
5	Mario	Mola	ESP		00:56:35	00:14:48	00:01:06	00:31:25	00:01:00	00:08:13
6	Felix	Duchampt	FRA		00:56:38	00:14:54	00:01:09	00:31:14	00:00:54	00:08:26
7	Tamás	Kéki	HUN		00:56:40	00:14:53	00:01:09	00:31:16	00:00:56	00:08:24
8	Mickael	Schwitzgabel	FRA		00:56:42	00:15:41	00:01:08	00:30:27	00:00:58	00:08:26
9	Tim	Van Hemel	BEL		00:56:47	00:15:23	00:01:08	00:30:44	00:01:00	00:08:30
10	Andrea	Vizzardelli	ITA		00:56:49	00:14:54	00:01:10	00:31:10	00:00:54	00:08:37
11	Peter	Bencina	SLO		00:56:50	00:15:20	00:01:09	00:30:47	00:00:56	00:08:34
12	Riccardo	Sterni	ITA		00:56:51	00:14:48	00:01:09	00:31:19	00:01:02	00:08:30
13	Jonathan	Brownlee	GBR		00:56:52	00:14:48	00:01:04	00:31:23	00:00:54	00:08:37

Great athletes were present then and nobody was able to run faster than 8:00 minutes the second part of the run (2,500 meters).  This is a benchmark for us; our athlete is a 14-year-old, the ones above are 18-19 years of age, but they are running the same distance after the bike.  Unfortunately, nobody can see what this means for the Mexican Triathlon, except for us.  Our athlete will not be competing for Mexico as a junior because he is unable to meet the requirements of “Marcas Mínimas” which for the Mexican Federation is the most important thing to manage the Triathlon budget for Mexico and the Federation’s athletes.  The right to compete does not exist because of the abuse exerted by the FMTRI.  The Mexican Commissioner for Sports, Alfredo Castillo (director of CONADE), says that he will change the Mexican Federation’s businesses but does not want to touch the Mexican Federation Business.

1          914      MORALES VÀSQUEZ RICARDO  Oaxaca                       Infantil Varonil 14-15 IC         

00:06:42 (17)  01:40

00:01:38

00:15:47 (2)    38.01

00:00:36

00:08:05 (1)    03:14

00:32:48         1          1

2          713      ALANIZ ORDOÑEZ JOSE ANGEL            Zacatecas       NINGUNO         Infantil Varonil 14-15 IC         

00:06:17 (4)    01:34

00:01:47

00:16:05 (4)    37.31

00:00:34

00:09:07 (2)    03:39

00:33:50         2          2

3          2847    RAMOS CRODA ERIK YAMIR      Veracruz                     Infantil Varonil 14-15 IC         

00:06:12 (1)    01:33

00:01:52

00:16:06 (6)    37.27

00:00:34

00:09:19 (3)    03:44

00:34:03         3          3

Richard Murray has been working on his swimming.  Swimming in a pool and open-water swimming are two sports, that is why testing in a swimming pool is useless for tirathlon.

After a somewhat disappointing end to his 2014 season Murray and his support staff have been working hard in rectifying what went wrong to make sure it does not happen again. In the coming season Murray will be smarter about his racing, traveling and where he spends his time. Murray is currently with the rest of the Joel Filiol training squad. They spend three weeks in Monte Gordo (Portugal) for the first camp. “I got in some pretty good swimming miles during this camp. The focus has been mainly on distances with two to three double swim days a week. It is a total of some 30 to 36km per week,” said Murray.

The Olympian added: “The goal has been to improve my swimming with lots of time in the water and to gradually work on the other two disciplines.” The big goal is to swim the 1500m in 17 minutes and 15 seconds.

Triathlon and Soft Power

Regardless of the name, I have seen the phenomenon of plagiarism when we translate to another language.  It could be the power of the language:  Germans have six different words for stairs (escalera in Spanish).  On the other hand, Mendel experimented with peas to see the genetic distribution called the Mendelian characteristics when speaking about genetics; it took more than thirty years to rediscover what Mendel worked on because he spoke a different language in an isolated environment.  Jean Baudrillard spoke about “seduction” and I won the New York State University, Syracuse, “Bruce Dearing” writing award using Baudrillard’s seduction to explain what happened to me practicing Medicine in the USA.  Baudrillard’s seduction in French is the “Soft Power” of Joseph Nye for Americans.  Seduction or Soft Power is needed badly to create triathletes.

The profound significance of Mendel's work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century (more than three decades later) with the independent rediscovery of these laws.^[3] Erich von Tschermak, Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns, and William Jasper Spillmanindependently verified several of Mendel's experimental findings, ushering in the modern age of genetics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel

Soft power is a concept developed by Joseph Nye of Harvard University to describe the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, use force or give money as a means ofpersuasion. Soft power is the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. A defining feature of soft power is that it is noncoercive; the currency of soft power is culture, political values, and foreign policies…He further developed the concept in his 2004 book, Soft Power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power

We previously posted an article dealing with this matter as well as Baudrillard’s video.  The problem of how to apply Soft Power still a problem for us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZDiN5yJxnM

18 août 2012

PSYCHOLOGY OF TRIATHLON FOR OUTSIDERS

Seduction plays a big role in our decisions.  The athletes mentioned were seduced by something different than triathlon, in place of the previous seduction by former coaches and environment.  When we keep the activity at the level of seduction instead of something that belongs to us, it is very easy to be seduced by something else.  Seduction as Baudrillard says:

Accordingly, Baudrillard argued that the excess of signs and of meaning in late 20th century "global" society had caused (quite paradoxically) an effacement of reality. In this world neither liberal nor Marxist utopias are any longer believed in. We live, he argued, not in a "global village," to useMarshall McLuhan's phrase, but rather in a world that is ever more easily petrified by even the smallest event. Because the "global" world operates at the level of the exchange of signs and commodities, it becomes ever more blind to symbolic acts such as, for example, terrorism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baudrillard

"Is it to seduce, or to be seduced, that is seductive? But to be seduced is the best way to seduce. It is an endless refrain. There is no active or passive mode in seduction, no subject or object, no interior or exterior: seduction plays on both sides."

-- Jean Baudrillard, Seduction

Psychology of the outsiders starts with the ABC (Physical Education 101) of physical activity and the search of enjoyment of this activity.  Without this requirement mentioned above, visualizing victory or something pleasant after more than 30-40 hours a week of training is impossible.  There are cultures and/or families that can teach the ABC of physical activity, now in extinction, which I do not call outsiders and are the “natural champions.” The Brownlees belong to this kind of culture.  They wereseduced by parents, teachers and environment to enjoy life the way they do. Years later, that way of living became part of them as well as victory.  We have to promote and be part of this environment if we want to raise champions.

Psychology is not a talking process; it is a doing processin the form of education.  There are athletes that pass the P.E. 101 but have problems with advanced courses like Helen Jenkins: “I couldn't train for the first two weeks, pretty much just swimming with a pull buoy, I couldn't run or ride. I went to see a few doctors and had scans, although the scans showed nothing that would be causing my pain. Which was good in a way as there was nothing hugely wrong like a torn tendon or fracture but very frustrating as I had a massive amount of pain.”  Please see, 3 août 2012Triathlon and the Denial of Saint Peter “Patients are often not reassured by investigations; in a study of patients suffering from NCCP (Non-cardiac-pain), 44% believed they had heart disease in spite of a normal angiogram.[9] There is some evidence that the process of investigation itself may entrench the mistaken idea of cardiac disease.”  WWW.MEDSCAPE.ORG Management of Noncardiac Chest Pain in Women.