Race Faster and Smarter

• Posted onjofrancis
• in Masters Article Library, Mixed Bag
• onJuly 31, 2014
• No Comments.

By Liz Scott

So how did your last race go? Whether you achieved a personal best or had a shocker, you should sit down and review your race carefully if you are going to improve your racing and race faster next time.

You need to assess what went well and should be repeated and what didn’t go so well and should never be attempted again. This is also a good time to plan the execution of your next race and decide what you will do differently in order to make performance gains.

Here are a few areas that you may want to think about as you reflect on your race. This has been written with standard distance athletes in mind but many of the areas of review will be directly applicable to you long distance racers too!

Swim

Where did you start your race? Did you start towards the back and find yourself having to swim through too many very new swimmers or were you too confident and found yourself shoved and jostled by more developed athletes – plan now where you will start your next race.

How did you start your race? Did you swim very hard for 75 – 100 m to get ahead of the pack? How did that work for you? Or maybe you were cautious and kept it very easy for the first part of the race. Now that you have got this race under your belt will you push harder next race? Plan now.

Bike

Equipment and set up. Are there changes to your bike set up or equipment that you will try next race? For example, if you are starting your triathlon career you may want to think about using cleats on your cycling shoes or clip-on tri bars. Experienced athletes may want to look at their gear ratios i,e, if you are riding on a compact chain set should you be looking to race on a standard chain set?

Pacing and cadence. Consider how you rode the bike leg of your race. How would you describe your effort? Were you holding back because of the fear of the run? Should you be holding back? Most age group athletes should be working harder on the bike. If you decide to bike harder in the next race how will you measure your effort – how will you know that you are working harder? And review your average cadence. If you were pushing a hard gear at 60-70 rpm, consider how your your legs may feel if you increase your cadence and reduce the gear ratio for the next race?

Run

Nutrition and hydration. This is a key area for review and is applicable of course to the bike as well as the run. You should have had a clear fuelling strategy at the start of the race. In a standard distance event you would have planned to have one or two gels. When did you take them? Will you change the timing for the next race? Will you try another type of gel or another brand of energy drink. What did you eat before the event? Anything to change here?

Pacing. Did you go off too hard and run out of steam? How are you monitoring your pace?

Your transitions

Shoes on or off. Transitions are always full of opportunities to try new techniques. Are you ready to ride into transition with your bare feet on top of your shoes? (This is a no brainer that we can all do well – give it a go next race!) Did you have your shoes already on your bike? So – did it work? If it didn’t work well (and it often doesn’t for age group athletes) will you commit to spending time to practice and perfect or will you opt for a simpler and sometimes quicker approach?

Insanity. Whatever you do – unless you won your age group – you should try something different next race. After all, didn’t Albert Einstein define insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?