Anyone who is not used to competing will find the choice of shoe accessories to be a trifle, but when your life revolves around a race, things change, even when those competitions are just part of your “leisure”, as is my case.
I don’t make a living from triathlon events, but for me it is something very important in my life. Apart from family and work, it is what occupies the most time. Even, let it be between us, sometimes we sacrifice a little time from work (and/or family) to train a little more in order to tune up before a test.
And when every second counts, all the elements are decisive, even the small details, because it is precisely the small details that can easily give us a considerable profit… or ruin a test. Something as seemingly irrelevant as changing laces for rubber bands can be key. And I’ll tell you why.
A close friend of mine, a fellow trainee, was rushing through the final rehearsals ahead of an important triathlon event. At the last minute he decided to go back to laces, after several tests with rubber in the shoes. He was not entirely sure about the use of these rubber bands because he considered that they might not fit well and he thought that the most logical thing was to go back to the laces. It can be a second up or down, but if you don’t adjust the shoe well you can be uncomfortable throughout the race.
But the laces also have their negative side and that is that they can be released at a given moment. And that’s what happened to my friend, with such bad luck that when he let go he got caught and fell. There was no injury to regret, but the pain of the fall ruined the race test and with it the mark. Just for having decided at the last minute to change a shoe accessory.
So the next time you don’t take things seriously, such as changing laces for rubber bands on your shoes, keep in mind that even the smallest details can be decisive.