Enough is a complicated word.
In many ways, though, it encapsulates the challenge of being an elite triathlete. How much racing is enough? How much training is enough? When is a result enough?
In many respects, Márk Dévay typifies the conundrum of enough.
Regarded by many as one of the best swimmers in the WTCS (perhaps the best), Dévay is in the midst of a deep block of racing in July. Having already raced throughout May and June, he took on the Tiszaujvaros World Cup and WTCS Hamburg on consecutive weekends. Just to be safe, he also threw in the World Mixed Team Relay Championships in Hamburg. Coming up next, he will sign off his month with WTCS Sunderland.
Far from contemplating a rest between all of his exertions, Dévay is more concerned by keeping up his fitness.
“I’ll try to get some training done,” he said. “I think my body needs to have some harder sessions looped in and not just rest. If I rest too much I end up on the other side, over-rested, and my body hardly gets going.”
Three days after the relay in Hamburg, he was back at training with a hard run session. Another would follow on the weekend and then, during the race week of Sunderland, one more is pencilled in.
“I do taper before the race but because there’s so many races I really have to find the perfect balance between getting enough rest after the race and doing some proper work to keep the fitness high.”
All of the training and racing can be a thankless task. Such is the nature of the sport, only a select few can ever really be happy with how a race went. Some will medal, some will log a new best finish. For most, though, races can blur into a sea of nice, but not enough.
“Most of the time, after most races I feel like I could’ve done something better,” explained Dévay. “I’m very rarely satisfied, unfortunately.”
When it came to Tiszaujvaros, he was equanimous.
“In Tiszy, it was ok. Coming in the top-10 in a World Cup is always good for me. I wanted to do a bit better but we were a really big group on the bike, with over twenty athletes out of thirty in the final, so it was a pretty fast running race.”
Having been out-gunned on the run and denied the higher finish he had hoped for in Tiszaujvaros, he ran into a similar problem in Hamburg.
“On Friday morning, in my heat, I had most of the fast runners,” said Dévay. Almost immediately on the bike, a pack of twenty-eight men came together with only the top-10 able to qualify directly for the final.”
“I believed I could qualify until the second lap of the run.” As his odds slimmed, though, Dévay eased up in preparation for the repechage later in the day. Unfortunately, he missed out on the final again.
“I worked really hard with Jonas (Schomburg) on the bike, like insanely hard. I felt like Vingegaard in the TT! We had like 7 seconds at the end which was not enough against the fast runners like the German guys and Jawad (Abdelmoula).”
Even with his swimming prowess, Dévay also found himself in trouble at times in the water.
“In the morning, it was pretty rough in the swim. I had three guys pulling me back at the same time, two on my feet and one on my shoulder, so it was a rough fight instead of actually swimming.”
Having not made the final in Hamburg, on paper it would have appeared that he had Saturday to rest and recalibrate for the relay. The reality, though, was a little different.
“I actually went out for a bike ride and a run because I didn’t know I was going to the relay until the Saturday evening,” said Dévay. Still, he was happy for the chance to prove himself over the shorter distance and to push for a better performance than his individual event in Hamburg.
“I’m more focused on the individual. In Hungary, individual qualification is the main focus. Of course the athletes and federation take the relay seriously, especially after a result like Hamburg (Hungary finished 5th).”
Dévay added that he likes the Super Sprint distance and that “the relay is fun, but I prefer an Olympic distance race over anything.”
After Sunderland, Dévay’s schedule shows no signs of lightening with the Paris Test Event next up. Unlike several other countries, Hungary has no specific criteria to achieve at the event.
“For us it is like a regular WTCS event,” he said. Whereas some of his counterparts will have set targets to hit, Dévay will be able to focus purely on executing his race plan without worrying about position. That being said, position will still play an important role.
Hungary is enjoying a period of unprecedented strength and depth in triathlon. As a result, Dévay is up against three outstanding domestic rivals in the race to Paris: Csongor Lehmann, Gábor Faldum and Bence Bicsák.
“I don’t want to say its a surprise, but its very different to the qualification before Tokyo. Back then I was the third man and just outside the top-55. Now we have four athletes going for the top-30 which is crazy – crazy good!”
Even with the close competition from his compatriots, he remains focused on himself.
“Most athletes, like me, just want to get the best possible result, to collect enough points, to have a good race. It can be destructive if you focus on the others, which can happen, but we all have to focus on ourselves.”
When it comes to his ambitions, a World Cup medal sits firmly among his short-term goals.
“I was told once in a race that when the athletes are called in before the start they weren’t going to say any results after calling my name because I don’t have a World Cup podium. That was pretty painful to hear right before the start of a World Cup.”
When it comes to how he will get to his coveted podium, he noted the run as an obvious starting point. “I’ve also experienced very tired legs after the bike at some races which obviously does affect the run,” he added. “So it’s running, but off the bike”
“I’ve been improving, but slowly improving. I’m not one of those athletes who can instantly from one year to another go from an average athlete to a top athlete. I wish I was! I’m trying to keep improving consistently all the time and hopefully, eventually, getting to the top places.”
Luckily for Dévay, he will have plenty of opportunities to push for a World Cup podium this year. The autumn is awash with events with World Cups taking place practically every weekend. Indeed, after the Paris Test Event, there will be eleven World Cups in less than three months. However, the one Dévay had pinned his hopes on will not be on his schedule.
“I really wanted to do Arzachena but it was cancelled unfortunately. It’s my course; it’s my bike course with the hill.”
In the absence of Arzachena, “Karlovy Vary is one of the main ones for me. It is quite close, so I don’t have to fly, and it’s a good race. It’s long and intense.”
“There are so many World Cups it’s actually insane. Maybe its a bit too crazy, having Paris and then one week after an Olympic distance World Cup in China. One week after that there’s an Olympic distance World Cup in Valencia. One week after that: Olympic distance in Karlovy Vary. Two weeks after that: the WTCS Final in Pontevedra. You can end up racing too much.”
Like everyone else, Dévay will have to tread that fine line in his racing over the rest of the year. In his eyes, though, he is an athlete for whom the threshold of enough racing sits slightly higher.
“I’m usually an athlete that races more. Some athletes do 6-8 races a year. I basically do 15.”
On the one hand, he professes to love racing. The decision to race so often, though, is also strategic. “Sometimes I feel like I need it, to improve, to get better in racing, to use them not just for races but for training.”
In the middle of October, there are World Cups scheduled in China and Brazil on the same weekend. When presented with the suggestion of doing both, Dévay politely declined. Even for someone as fond of racing as him, that was beyond enough. While he did not volunteer himself, he conceded it would be funny if someone tried.
“Again, its a bit too crazy putting so many World Cups in such short periods. We had no racing in March and April and then August, September, October and even November there’s World Cups on offer.”
When the autumn swing comes round, then, expect Dévay to be in the thick of the action as he hunts his continued growth in the sport on the path to that first podium. With his ability and improvement curve, a world-level medal seems to be around the corner for him.
Yet even if it arrives, the question will linger for him, just as it does for everyone else. What is enough?
