How to maximise race day?
In this blog article, Coach Alan shares tips on maximising your triathlon race day performance, helping you get closer to your goals and perhaps even exceed your personal best!
So, how do you nail race day?
Focus on Yourself
Firstly, focus on yourself! It sounds simple, but Alexander the Great won many battles by dividing and conquering the opposition. In a field of 200, you are one athlete with 199 possible distractors, not to mention the spectators.
To avoid these distractions, it's crucial to know your plan and how to execute it. Building this plan starts well in advance with baseline testing and an initial estimation of what you might achieve on race day. Combined with your goals and the evidence from your training and preparation races, you will have visualised, rehearsed, and dress-rehearsed what will happen on race day.
Stick to the Process
Stay on task. Even if you avoid the 199 external distractors, you can still get distracted by your thoughts. Conversations with your inner voice can lead to distraction—projecting your times, calculating, or rehearsing post-race conversations are all common diversions from the task at hand.
Recognise, Rephrase, Respond
Recognise: The first step to getting back on track when the inner voice kicks in is to recognise the distracting or possibly negative chatter. If you can do this, you're more than halfway to getting back on track. This requires a degree of self-awareness, but if you are prepared, your chances of success are significantly higher.
Rephrase: You should then rephrase the chatter. For example, “I’m not going to” might become “I might.” Or you might change “I need to swim faster” to “push back all the way.” This latter example is common because it switches an outcome statement to a process statement. It’s common to worry about the outcome of a race rather than focusing on how we are doing it or what goes into the process.
Respond: Responding to chatter with pre-planned, process-based cues can be a significant factor in race success for some athletes. What are your swim, bike, and run cues for success?
Have Bandwidth to the Plan
I’m going to start with a huge confession here: No coach knows 100% how a race will go, with uncontrollable variables like other athletes and weather being significant factors.
No plan survives first contact with the enemy, or so the saying goes.
With this in mind, it's best to have checkpoints within your race day that work like this:
Down on estimate
On track
Ahead
Vitally, all of these are part of the plan! Being down on estimate does not equal athlete failure; it’s possible the estimate is incorrect (for many reasons) or that conditions have changed on the day.
Being willing to slow down can be the best decision an athlete ever makes, so start the day with this in mind as a positive possibility. One standout performance from an athlete I coached was at Ironman Nice. The athlete decided, based on their perception, plan, and available information, to back off their bike effort to stay cool on the climb. They deliberately rode 10 minutes slower than estimated and conserved their energy for the run, improving their overall performance.
If this athlete had started the day with a fixed, pass/fail mindset rather than being mindful and adaptable, the negative thoughts about being hot and unable to run well could have led to a poor outcome and a negative psychological spiral, resulting in a long walk during the marathon.
Bringing the Race Together
To summarise, to nail race day you will likely benefit from:
Focusing on your processes as an individual and understanding what works well for you
Having bandwidth to your plan and expectations
Being willing to adapt and respond on the day
All that’s left is to wish you all the best with your racing in 2024!
