We’ve been talking a little lately about how to pick races, and whether or not short races are cool (hint: they are), but now I want to talk about how we review those races.
There are three main factors that go into performing as you want to on race day. First, is luck. By luck, I mean that things outside your control go well, or at least don’t go poorly. Second, you have the choices you made in training. Obviously, if you train really poorly, you’re not going to perform well on race day. Third, and what we’re going to focus on today, is what are the choices you made in and around the race itself.
One of the distinctions I like to make is that a “good race” is defined by your CHOICES ON RACE DAY, and nothing else. If you had bad luck, but made good choices on race day, you had a good race. If you had great training, but made poor decisions on race day, you had a bad race, even if the results were “good.”
The purpose of defining things in this way is because racing itself (and here I include logistics, warmup, etc) IS A SKILL. If you’re really fit, but you’re bad at the skill of racing, you won’t have good results. To have the best results, you need all the skills of training, as well as all the skills of racing.
SO, what are the choices we want to analyze on race day?
Fuel
– When was your last meal before the race?
– What was your last meal before the race?
– Did you eat/drink anything between your last meal and the race?
– When did you eat during the race? What did you eat?
Warmup
– When did you arrive at the venue?
– When did you start warming up?
– Did you follow the warmup plan?
– When did you arrive at the start line ready to race?
The Race
– How was your start? Too slow? Too fast? Just right?
– Did you feel in control early in the race?
– Were you able to pay attention tactically to the racers around you?
– Were you able to stay focused on your technique?
Cooldown
– How long after you finished did you eat your post-race snack?
– How long after you crossed the finish line did you have your cooldown clothes on?
– How long was your cooldown?
– How long after you finished did you completely change into regular clothes?
