How to race

Spring time means the summer racing season for triathlons - and many other sports - is just around the corner, and along with it the hopes and aspirations of great racing and good results. But what about the people we all know of who train like machines but bomb when it comes to racing; what's going on there? Greg Norman was known for choking playing golf, but how does it happen in an endurance sport? How do you race well when you need to?

A race performance does not just start and finish on race day. It starts days and weeks before, and finishes in the days following the actual event. Thus a race is not a discrete event, it's an on-going commitment to performing at your best level, especially when it counts in the heat of competition. A better racer will often beat a better athlete just on the basis they know to race, and as they say, you're only as good as your last race!!

Any performance is a combination of three aspects - physical, technical and tactical. Physical relates to your physical fitness and conditioning for the demands of the event. Technical relates not only to your equipment, but also your skill execution level (eg, someone might be a very fit cyclist, but have poor Mtn bike skills). Tactical relates to your emotional control, as well as your race strategy. A great race means you're in control of each of these aspects in the context of the event you're racing.

The key to a great race is being able to control the controllables, but the difficulty in a race is there are so many uncontrollables...top of the list being other competitors, closely followed by the weather. Depending on your aspirations these things can / will have a different degree of impact on you. If you're racing for a placing then you need to respond to the actions of your competitors, whereas if you're racing for a goal time (or to finish) then the weather might be your biggest issue.

Either way, the vast majority of things that contribute to your performance are within your control, so let's look at how you can use these to race well.

Physical Race Preparation
Training for an event is a huge topic, and the subject of volumes of books. However for the purposes of maximising the effectiveness of your current training there's things you can do right away, including the following:

• Know yourself. Understand how your body performs, responds, adapts and more. The more you know about your body in every different kind of scenario you encounter - good and bad - the better prepared you'll be for the uncontrollables on race day. Learn from training.
• Also, know your strengths, weaknesses, capability and current fitness. This will help to plan your tactics for the race.
• Prepare for the demands of the race. Your training in the immediate weeks (and months) pre-race should be more and more like how you expect to perform on race day in terms of terrain, intensity and duration (in key sessions). Think specificity.
• Rest. There's simply no excuse for turning up to a race tired. A race is a race, not a training session, so treat it with the respect it deserves otherwise save yourself the cost of the entry fee. Even if you’re not at your fittest, you can still race to the best of your ability on the day and take something away from it. Don’t waste the opportunity.
• Know the course and the likely weather conditions. Know what the swim course is like - salt vs fresh water, deep water vs beach start, single vs multi-loop, river currents or waves, etc. Know the bike course - the profile of hills, protection from wind and sun, nature of road surface, corners, etc. Know the run course – exposed and/or sheltered, hilly or flat, aid station locations, type of surface, etc.
• Warm-up before the race…just like you do before any other hard session!! Sure, modify it for the nature of the race and the scenario, but warm-up to get your body, mind and emotions on the right track.
• Know the race schedule, location, parking, services, etc.

Technical Race Preparation
This aspect includes a range of items, including the following:

• Know your equipment, and have confidence in how it works, it’s suitability and reliability. NEVER use something new on race day.
• Be self-supporting of your equipment and avoid reliance on others. Eg, know how to fix a puncture and carry spares. Of course, there will be things you can’t plan/cater for, eg, broken chain. In that case you are at the mercy of others…
• Make sure you have the necessary skills to compete at the level you aspire to, in the conditions you expect on the day...they might range from cool and dry, to hot and windy, or wet. Being skilful both improves your performance, your safety, and the safety of others in the race.
• Knowing the race rules and requirements for competition is critical for how you participate in the field of play.

Tactical Race Preparation
This aspect is perhaps the most complex of all, as it relates to what goes on in your mind and how you actually execute your race - these things are directly in your control. They include the following:

• Visualising the course, and your journey around it. Being able to see yourself at points throughout the race, from the first-person rather than third-person point-of-view, will help you to be ready for the physical demands of the course, the corners, the conditions, your competitors and more. Familiarity is the key to preparedness.
• Visualising your physical state during the race. Thinking about how you want - contrasted with how you expect - to feel at points around the course is key to race execution, and is closely tied to pacing. Know that at the start you'll likely feel some nerves and anxiety, over taken by the rush of adrenalin as the gun goes, then the initial surge of fatigue after the first minute or so...and later in the race the burn you'll feel and the associated fatigue. Your race will be marked by many physical highs and lows, so visualising what those feelings will be like help you to plan you race execution so that it works out that way.
• Visualising your emotions during the race. As with your physical state, your emotions will fluctuate during the race and the better you can anticipate - and subsequently manage - your emotions the better you'll be able to execute your race to plan. Emotions include your motivation and arousal for the race ahead...it's hard to race well if you're not excited by the prospect of the event.
• Having a race plan. Taking into account various visualisations, having a plan for how you want to execute your race in terms of pacing, dealing with the various stages of fatigue, emotional variations, using your equipment and more, will help you to execute your race with greater certainty than if you make it up as you proceed. Having a race plan will also help you to better deal with variations to the plan, eg, flat tyre, because you'll have greater mental capacity available than if you're making up your plan as you go.
• Planning your race tactics, whether you're racing for a win, to beat your mates or to achieve a goal time. Having a tactical plan is like scenario planning, where you consider various scenarios that might occur during a race and decide what is the best thing to do - or how to respond - if/when that situation actually comes to fruition in the race.
• Being able to respond when things become desperate and/or when your race does not go to plan. This situation is the most the telling sign of great competitors, when you're forced into unplanned or unexpected territory. This might be because you're reaching new levels of intensity in a highly competitive situation, through to grovelling from extreme fatigue. The athlete who keeps their nerve, concentration and relaxation are the ones who will prevail best when things are not to plan...and these are also times of greatest achievement, satisfaction and learning.
• Review the race afterwards - what was good, bad, average or expected about your performance. How good was your physical preparation? Your technical preparation? How did your tactical planning and execution go? Learning from what you did provides valuable input for your future performances.

Racing is a lot of things, where a lot of variables are exposed which may affect your performance. The key to racing well is planning ahead to manage these factors as best you can, and then being ready to change your plan if/when variations occur. These cover physical, technical and tactical aspects that make up a race performance. But even once considering those, there is a further 'X' factor that changes a good race performance into a great race performance - this is personal and is the secret weapon each person must find within themselves. Each race is practice for each of these things. Race hard and race well.

Blood on the streets!!

I donated blood last night for the first time in 3 years. While I didn't get dragged in there kicking and screaming, it was close...there's a good reason why there's been a 3 year gap!! Nevertheless, I fulfilled a moral obligation that comes from being employed by the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, and you know what, it wasn't too bad...or perhaps the milkshake and hamburger afterwards has dulled my memory...

Although I was a semi-regular donor a 3-4 years ago, it was always easy to think of a reason not to go, and only one reason (or maybe two if you count the moral obligation bit) to go - the chocolate milkshake and sausage rolls afterwards. My favourite drink is indeed a milkshake, although the blood bank could improve their blend with a scoop of ice-cream...in my opinion!!

Each time I went to donate I'd fear the initial pin prick to test haemoglobin levels, then the needle to get the blood out. In my mind I likened it to a pipe and a foreign object that is jabbed into my arm where there is not natural entry point except a bulging vein - having bulging veins is one thing I do well at!! I'd be paralysed while the blood flowed out of fear of moving and breaking the needle, leaving part of it left stuck in. Needles and me don't go well together.

Then there was the feeling of lethargy during training the next day due to fewer red blood cells. Although I found this only lasted 24 hours or so, it's not much fun.

So you can see it was a major effort to even front up to the donor centre in South Melbourne last night. The reason(s) I actually did go were already sitting in the waiting room, Ms A and Ms E, knowing full well the angst and torment this impending date had been causing me. They are both regular donors, and always donate together which I think is fantastic, and openly acknowledge them for. Then they suggested I should come. Actually, they suggested a number of times before I relented to their mention of something about the level of respect (or not) they'd have if I went (or didn't) to donate. So in fact it was out of fear for the consequences that I first booked in, then considered all kinds of (very valid!!) reasons why I couldn't follow through. In the end someone won the battle and someone lost...but I'm not sure who either was!!

I'll spare you the gory details of blood, anxiety, blood, cold sweat, blood, needles, dread, blood, fear...and some blood, but suffice to say I survived the needle prick, passed the interview, remained conscious during needle insertion, pumped blood out at rapid rate, came away with a little bandage on my arm and enjoyed the chocolate milkshake, sausage rolls and then counter meal hamburger with foresaid protagonists. I guess I should thank them for co-ercing me into donating and their support during the whole process. If I was truly honest I'd say that the fear is worse than the reality, and it wasn't too bad. But as any journalist knows, don't let the facts stand in the way of a good story!!!

My arm the morning after the donation - you can still see the hole they left!!

Return of the good old days (of sorts...)

As a kid we moved around a bit, from farm to farm where dad was farm manager thereby earning us the honour of living in the managers house...while not plush with all comforts, certainly a cut above the houses of jackaroos and other farm hands. These were big farms, the largest called Bannongil at 12,000 acres where the homestead had a front lawn "the size of the MCG", a grass tennis court, expansive gardens with thousands of daffodil flowers and Mt Emu creek running through it. While being just a creek it was at the foot of our house, down a steep bank which sometimes flooded and which was also home to platypus'.

The final place we lived at before I moved out to go to boarding school and then Melbourne for uni was just out of Ballarat, near a town called Learmonth. This time we owned the farm while dad drove to Mawallock each day where he was manager. Our farm was called Mt Bolton as it was perched on the front of the foresaid Mt Bolton, where our 230 or so acres included small sections of bush and from the top of the hill offered amazing 270 degree views of the countryside, taking in Mt Bunninyong beyond Ballarat, to Mt Ercildoune and Lake Burrumbeet and Lake Learmonth.

Mt Bolton was my most favourite place to live because of the beauty of the place and the surrounding hills, roads and tracks along where I did my first real running and bike training at the start of my triathlon career. Our house was itself built from granite rock which meant the walls were about 1m thick and with the hard work we put in, ended up with a fabulous garden around it.

My memories also include countless hours riding my motorbike with our neighbour, Adam, and building an amazing cubby hut in the bush on top of the hill - a hut with million dollar views. During winter it would be wet and sloshy as we span our wheels going up the hill, and in summer it was dry and dusty - this was a repeating cycle where the weather was fairly predictable albeit with some years somewhat wetter or drier than normal.

Our nearby town, Learmonth, was famous for it's naturally occurring lake on which sailing and power boats skimmed across the surface, and on windy winter days the chop would splash over the road that went around part of its perimeter. The local footy team (who I played with for a while) were known as the "Lakers" not just because the oval was only 100m or so from the lake shore. Footy players mostly came from the potato and dairy farms nearby, including the coaches for our junior teams.

They were great times living at Mt Bolton until mum & dad moved away in 1989, alas.

In the last 10-15 years, however, Victoria has been in the grip of a drought which has dried up not just the land but many lakes. Lake Learmonth was one such lake, as was Lake Burrumbeet just 15km or so away, and Lake Wendouree in Ballarat, just 20km from Learmonth. So instead of glistening water there were grass flats with rocks and debris previously unknown...including some tools of crime (ie, guns) disposed of where the perpetrators thought no one would ever find them. In Ballarat a local running club even held a race across Lake Wendouree, rather than the usual route around it.

It almost bought tears to my eyes to see my beautiful Lake Learmonth like this, where we hear some enterprising folks would hold B&S balls and other parties on the old lake floor. I really wondered if I'd ever see Lake Learmonth with water in again during my lifetime, although it never stopped me from visiting Learmonth if I was ever up that way.

Anyway, the recent months have seen a lot of rain with floods in the nearby towns of Clunes and Creswick, and generally high rainfall across the region. The immediately visible signs are the fields of green grass waving in the wind, plus crop of canola, wheat, oats and more. There was barely a patch of dirt to be seen...even the forever brown Pentland hills on the climb out of Bacchus Marsh have grass on them.

Last weekend Ms A and I went to stay with some of her friends up near Mt Cole, about midway between Ballarat and Beaufort. The ring road skips Ballarat (new since we lived there) and scoots out in the direction of Learmonth, joing the old Western Highway just near Burrumbeet. Then, as Lake Burrumbeet came into sight we were amazed to see it full of water. Not just puddles but full right up to the old waterline with chop being blown up by the stiff wind. My jaw dropped. This lake would be probably 15-20km around which means there must have been a LOT of rain and water flow in to full it up...it was wonderful to see.

Right then I wondered if Lake Learmonth was also full? There must be a good chance, we thought, although Ms A's friends weren't sure as they hadn't been past it. So on our return to Melbourne we took a detour along some familiar old back rounds to Learmonth. The beautiful sights and views were again there (albeit with a wind farm on some hills), and long green grass to be seen everywhere. Then Lake Learmonth came into sight....and it had water in it!!! From side-to-side and end-to-end it had water. We stopped on a hill above the town where the lake forms a wonderful foreground to Mt Bunninyong in the distance, with the pine trees along the far side now had a lake to overlook again. It was magnificent.

We drove through the town a little, passing the Stag Hotel, the general store, the primary school, the old (now closed) bakery and then turned towards the lake shore, just around from the sailing and power boat sheds which have been locked up for a long, long time. Stopping beside the rusted out weighbridge we got out and looked in wonder at Lake Learmonth again, certainly not full to the depth it used to be, but with enough water to cover the entire surface. Birds had flocked to the shores, lured by a new place to call home. Although Ms A had only ever driven through here once before (I dragged her there back in April when it was dry) I think she could see and feel the beauty of the setting of the lake surrounded by hills, with farmland, some bush, and open space to seen in every direction.

For the short time we stayed there it was a return to the good old days. I wonder how long the water will stay there for...

 Looking over Lake Learmonth with Ballarat, Mt Bunninyong and Warrenheip in the background.

 Looking towards the sailing and speedboat club rooms.

Looking back towards where the top photo was taken from.

More on stretching

A few months ago I posted a Stretching Q&A which debunked a few myths about stretching based on the advice from a sports physio. In essence, stretching is useful but not to the extent that is commonly believed, and the timing and type of stretching is critical to performance.

The latest edition of “Modern Athlete & Coach” (published by the Australian Track & Field Coaches Assoc) reports on some recent studies on the topic that have been published. Here’s a summary of the key points:

• There is increasing evidence that stretching before exercise does not improve performance or reduce injury risk.
• Do not complete static stretching during your warm-up – it has been shown to decrease subsequent performance**. Only dynamic stretches pre-activate the muscles and prime them for performance.
• The warm-up is not the time to develop flexibility.
• Do not ignore static stretching. It is essential for flexibility but NOT in a warm-up context.
• Static stretching MAY increase the range of movement after fatiguing exercise, and some people gain a sense of well-being doing so. However there is no evidence that it reduces muscle soreness after heavy training sessions.
• Examples of dynamic stretching that are beneficial during a warm-up include ankle flicks, buttock kicks, knee lifts, skipping, walking lunge and stride-throughs.

** - There are 2 mechanisms that may explain why pre-exercise stretching is detrimental to performance. It damages the contractile proteins in skeletal muscle. Skeletal muscle contains thick filaments and this is connected to cross-bridges. When a nerve signal reaches the muscles, the thin filaments slide over the thick. Movement cannot occur if the cross-bridges are broken. In animal studies, the bridges are broken if the muscle is stretched 20% beyond its resting length. The nerve signals are electrical. Electrodes have been used to monitor muscle activity and force production are reduced after stretching. These findings suggest that stretching produces some kind of neural inhibition that is detrimental to performance.

The "take home" messages from all of this are:

• Pre-exercise you should only perform dynamic stretching as part of your warm-up routine.
• No static stretching should be done pre-exercise.
• Post-exercise there is no evidence that static stretching helps recovery or prevent soreness.
• However many athletes will feel an improved well-being from post-exercise stretching in which case there no reason to stop doing so.

Ownership

If you have a coach think for a moment what you rely on them for, why you need them and what you think they're responsible for as part of your performance. I'm guessing the list will be long and varied...it's a tough gig being a coach!! But now draw up another list of what YOU, the athlete, are responsible for. What can you think of? What are YOU doing to contribute to your performance?

The people who perform closest to their potential are the ones who take the greatest ownership of their performance. They rely on the guidance and support from those around them, but ultimately they realise that in order to get the most from themselves they must fully own their performance and everything that contributes to it. It's called taking ownership and controlling the controllables.

Repeat this mantra to yourself, "If it is to be...it's up to me.".

The relationship between an athlete and coach is a complex one, and is where the art of coaching comes to the fore. Each athlete has different needs and wants from both their coach, and their training experience. But above all the relationship is a journey and a on-going process of information transfer - from the coach to the athlete, and from the athlete back to the coach.

The trick is at the same time for the athlete to assume ownership of each bit of information they glean from their coach (and other sources) and learn how to apply that to their own circumstances, and ultimately for their own performance. While each coach will have their own style, essentially they should be facilitators and motivators. There is a fine art in allowing an athlete to grow/improve without relying on the coach for success. A good coach promotes self-reliance.

Athletes will respond to the stimulus a coach provides in different ways. Some coaches earn the respect of their athletes to the extent that they almost hand over their soul to the coach who could then mould the athletes into finely tuned machines, and where results usually follow. One coach I know used to think the best athletes to coach are those that don't think, they just do...which is correct to an extent.

However I believe that in these (modern) times it is crucial for athletes to think for themselves, to develop understanding of their own body and what they are doing in training. People support what they feel part of, so in encouraging ownership of their training and performance, athletes will be more empowered to seek to maximise what they have influence over. The coach is required for objective feedback, guidance, support and more, but it is the athlete who does the work.

Many, if not all the top athletes (juniors through to seasoned professionals) are the ones in control for driving THEIR performance agenda. Accountability sits with them first and foremost and the coaches are adding the shine. This is not a new phenomenon. Ever since the sport was born the athlete has played a much bigger role then the coach and this will continue like many individual sports.

These same modern times are also populated with people who want someone to share the hard work, and to literally hand feed them to achieve their goal. Just look at the companies set up to get people to the top of Mt Everest, at almost any cost. It's the same in sports like running and triathlons where goals like finishing a marathon or Ironman inspire people to achieve amazing feats.

But while congratulating them I also feel they're missing out some of the full experience of the journey, and the learning and personal growth that comes with taking ownership for getting themselves to the goal. Sure, surround yourself with a team, but some more independence on the part of the athletes is paramount to sustained and long term success...in any field.

All systems go (achilles update)

It's been almost 2 weeks since I laced up my running shoes to go for a...walk-run...for the first time in many months. That day was full of anticipation and it coincided with a lot of people asking how it was going, to which I could give a meaningful and positive answer that I was about to start running!!

That first run was fantastic albeit it bloody cold on a windy Saturday afternoon where I was rather under-dressed and naively though that eight lots of 30 sec running would actually warm me up a little. It didn't. Nonetheless, the feeling of freedom of being out running was wonderful...and time really does fly when you're having fun since that run, and the subsequent runs, all pass in a flash.

This update is to explain just how it's all gone. In a word, good. In two words, really good!!

In the first week I did four "sessions" of 2 mins walk, 30 sec jog/run for 20 mins. This week it was 2 mins walk, 1 min run for 25 mins. Next week it is 1 min walk, 1 min run for 25-30 mins...and I can't wait because I think that will be long enough to actually do a full lap of the lake rather than just small portions!!!

On the non-running days I'm doing sessions walking up the Airlie St hill, which I fit in during lunch-time at work. 8 reps during the week and 10 reps on the weekends. This has been great for regaining function in my calf and ankle.

My achilles feels really good. I have no problems, stiffness, soreness or anything from it before, during or after. I actually feel like I'm running rather than shuffling, with a hint of the magical feeling of running lightly over the ground...like a gazelle!!! It's both a relief and joyous. I feel like it's all forward progress ahead, albeit at a slow and measured pace.

The only problem I am having is related to weakness in my left calf muscle. It's noticeably smaller than the right one, and consequently weaker. The consequence is that it overloads the peroneal tendon on the outside of my ankle, but that is improving as my calf gets stronger.

So it's all systems go. Just try and stop me when I really do get going!!