How many rivets could you leave out?

Today I was walking my dogs on our standard Monday morning walk,across the cycle bridge under the train line underpass to the little coffee shop. Where they patiently sit while I have a coffee, read the paper, chat to the regulars and then we walk home. They have lots of friends who say hello to them and give them a pat. This is the highlight of their day.

As we cross the cycle bridge over the river we walk alongside the railway bridge. It’s a fifty year old steel structure held together with thousands of rivets. I looked at it and thought, how many rivets could be left out, and the bridge still be strong enough to carry the heavy goods trains. It could certainly hold up is a few were missing. In fact I’m sure you could go through the bridge and remove twenty percent of the rivets without the bridge failing when a heavy train went across. But this would put more stress on the remaining rivets, more than the designers would want.

The engineers have obviously designed the bridge to hold up under much greater loads than would ever be placed on it. Engineers do that. They won’t sign off on a job which has not been done to the plan.

I started thinking about a typical Ironman preparation. In that preparation there are many small things which make a difference. A very small difference but grouped together make the athletes structure so strong that it is unbreakable under pressure. Every vitamin tablet, every hour of sleep, every stretch plays a part in creating the unbrakable athlete.

This could even be broken down to every thought having some effect on the athlete’s confidence on race day. If every doubt was washed away by a reasuring affirmation, it’s negative impact is neutralised. This is a good argument for avoiding negative people, and seeking out the company of motivated people who encourage excellence.

So back to the “rivets in the bridge” theory. How many stretching sessions could you afford to leave out? How many times could you train without refuelling well right after? How many swim sessions could you miss, before it cost you some performance on race day?

If every rivet does a small job in making the bridge unbreakable, then every fish oil capsule has a role to play in your “A” race of the season. If we had an engineer inspecting every part of our training, recovery and body maintenance program, would he sign off on the way we’ve put the job together?

Do you want to stand at the start line, feeling “unbreakable”? Or the alternative is to race with your fingers crossed, hoping nothing goes wrong. If we took twenty percent of the rivets out of the bridge, the engineer would have trouble sleeping when the big freight trains came through.