Briefly contrast your hardest season to date, with your best season. What were the basic differences?

Question

Darrell Hill · Answer

This is a fantastic question. When I first read it, my initial response was, on my best seasons, I was happier, I enjoyed the process more, etc, etc. When I took a deeper dive into it, I realized that all of it centered around health, right? When I compare my hardest season to my best season, my best seasons, I was healthy. My hardest seasons, I dealt with injuries through and throughout the season, overcoming. There were seasons based around overcoming and triumph, etc. And not enjoying the process as much. I would say the basic difference was, on my best season, I was really making sure that I got 8 hours of sleep. I was making sure that on a daily basis, I was hydrated. I was making sure that I was on top of my massage, and my chiropractic appointments, and making sure I foam rolled, and making sure I stretched. All of those small things that helped keep me in the game on a consistent basis, are what I would say made me achieve my best season. In comparison to some of my worst seasons, where a lot of highs and lows, so the training might have been great. I might have had good competitions, but I wasn't able to sustain that level of performance because my recovery did not match the level of output I put in my training.

Ben Kanute · Answer

I'm gonna you know cheat a little on this one and my hardest and best season are kind of two in one and that was the 2022 season and you know the basic differences are probably just you know the consistency of the training and when I wasn't racing my best I was you know coming off of a bout of a lot of kind of family stuff so a ton of family sickness just with not being able to get in the best training so I built back the fitness relatively quick but to get to that top high level I wasn't quite there and I think mentally that's super hard and it forces you to ask a lot of questions what are you doing confirm that what you're doing is correct but it reinforces that you know you have to believe in what you're doing even if it's not successful right there that in the end it will be successful because that ended up paying off and when I had the best part of my season I had had that consistency in training I believed in what I was doing I could see it paying off and it translated into racing so I think in some of that middle part of the season I knew I wasn't quite ready I wasn't quite fit yet and we forced it a little because of how good the racing opportunities were so maybe that's the main contrast is is knowing when you're ready and also yeah it's taking the time to train and believing that training and then going out and executing

Emma Pallant-Browne · Answer

So performance wise I would say I probably had one of my worst race years probably one of the, I don't want to just say the first year that I started long distance triathlon because I think I did a lot wrong then, but probably the year after that, the year after I came second at World 70.3. I think I had my worst season because first of all I put an Ironman in there, I was very much doing so much mileage, like training massive hours in the day but very much in the grey zone and too many races, kind of trying to do half Ironman and Ironman, fainted at Kona, only came ninth at 70.3 worlds, compare that to the year just gone where I was really happy with my performances, I felt they were all super consistent, I do less training in terms of hours but a lot more intensity and I feel that's really working for me and I'm backing up races really consistently.

Matt Bromley · Answer

Yeah for me chasing big waves and big wave surfing it's really tough because it relies a lot on the storms and the swells we get. So I mean this last year I had, 2022, was probably one of my hardest years. We didn't get any major big swells around the world. Pretty much every day I'm waking up pulling up all the forecasts for the good big wave spots around the world and there was just nothing throughout the whole year pretty much. So yeah that was very tough but at the same time I was the most ready I've ever been to surf big waves, like the fittest I've ever been. And then contrasting that to 2018 which was by far the best year I've ever had in surfing and I ended up surfing Indonesia on the biggest day in history at a wave called Nyas, I had the ride of my life. We had the biggest waves I've ever surfed here in Cape Town and we had some big waves also over in Hawaii and it was just a year that was just filled with massive waves. And yeah it's really tough because as I said like this year, this last year, 2022, I was so prepared and so ready for big stuff and it didn't happen but I guess on my part all I can do is be prepared, be ready, have my equipment in place so when that swell comes then I can make the most of it.

Billy Mitchell · Answer

Briefly contrast your hardest season to date with what's your best season. What were the basic differences? In 2021, I had a great year as a senior amateur golfer. I was a low amateur in the US Senior Open. I was ranked in the top 10 in the world. And then the following year, I fell all the way to 34th. And I think the big difference was is in 2021, I didn't have super high expectations. I just went out and played golf and had fun. In 2022, I had such great success the year before, it kind of set some benchmarks and some unrealistic expectations. Part of being an amateur athlete is also having to work. So I just didn't put in the work off the course in the gym. I played more and I had higher expectations. And those things typically don't work out when your expectations don't match the effort that you put in. You can't just play on last year's results. You have to treat each day as a new day. So those were the things that were different. Lower expectations and having more fun, and then not putting in the work and having higher expectations. Hope that helps.

Petr Vabrousek · Answer

Briefly contrast your hardest season to date with your best season. What are the basic differences? This would be very difficult to pick one season and compare with another certain season as I'm in triathlon for 33 years. I did over 220 Ironman distance races but it would also be I think impossible because some of my best seasons were also my hardest seasons. Those seasons where I managed to win some big races at Ultraman distance, double Ironman distance or extra Ironman races. So having a very hard season doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't successful. I have those two things pretty closely connected.

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"Briefly contrast your hardest season to date, with your best season. What were the basic differences?"