Pressure or Expectation?
We live in a world of ‘results’ within triathlon and what ‘results’ are can be different between individuals. As coaches, we have the privilege to see under the bonnet or behind the curtains of many athletes’ performances and it is this perspective that gives us the ability to give a logical opinion on performance. Recently and more frequently we are experiencing athletes having difficulty digesting and sharing their experience of an event with what ‘everyone’ else thinks. Here Coach Alan has written about one of his races to give a framework to help structure planning, doing and reviewing a race.
Congratulations to Tom and Harry, I hope you are both pleased with how much you managed to get out of yourselves on race day.
Racing Aim - Plan
To extract the best overall time from the state of an athlete at the point at which they toe the start line.
What has gone before does not matter. To race well, an athlete and coach must accept and respond to the actual state an athlete starts a race in. Not what you should or could do with more training, but what you can do with what you have. There is no point in assessing the spending of a budget based on having £10,000 when you only have £4,000 to spend. Assess your race plan on the facts and not hypothetical scenarios.
Once this is accepted, a realistic plan can be made. Setting out to do what you aim to do creates pressure. Importantly this is the pressure you have chosen; how you frame your thinking and goalsetting around an event is entirely within your control. You can increase or deflate this pressure with your approach intentionally.
Outside World
What position do you think you will come in?
Do you think you will win?
I think you can do…
These are all external expectations. These are outside of your control. This lack of control is the critical difference between pressure and expectation. None of this is part of your plan but instead, other people’s expectations. Many athletes’ plans have been ambushed by external expectations. It takes a confident voice to stay focussed on a personal plan amongst the voices of numerous others’ expectations.
Pressure and nerves around executing your plan are part of race day. Externally orientated expectations are unwanted negative stress that distract you from executing your plan.
If you can understand that those are expectations and respond to them with your plan, this will help to keep things on track to stay on task and not be distracted before or during the race by uncontrollable expectations.
Reality - Do
Does looking at the results tell you the whole story? Do they give you any perspective?
The key in any assessment is to look at the difference between what was intended and what was done. The further the way you get from intent, the more risk is associated with the outcome.
At times athletes can focus on their pressure and then also on external expectation: an irrelevant uncontrollable expectation that becomes a distraction from process-orientated intention. For example, if you plan a shot on a snooker table and intend to pot the ball, you are disappointed if you don't make the pot that you intended to. You are not simply disappointed because the ball didn’t go in. This example is a very closed loop with little interference being run. When planning and assessing your races, it can help to focus on controllable intent. So what was your intent, and what happened?
To illustrate this point, I will objectively analyse my race result.
Swimming - 24.46
In recent weeks I have been holding 30x100 off 1.45 at a consistent pace of 1.22/23 per 100m
The approximate average pace for 1500m on race day was 1.39 per 100m. This pace in the pool would require some very significant control to swim this slowly. This is assuming (A HUGE ASSUMPTION) the course was entirely accurate, and I swam in a straight line. A slower swim was likely due to the water temperature, which is outside of my control. Could I have done more to control this? Maybe, but not without the significant expense of a new wetsuit. Instead, my disappointment is how I paced at the start of the race. I believe this was influenced by my answer to questions the day before on my potential performance; when asked, I said, “I might win.”
Indeed I fell foul of my own advice and was distracted from the process. I know that in cold conditions, controlling your breathing is important; I also know that I can be easily distracted by others and my own self-talk during open water swimming, and I hadn’t walked myself through this sufficiently to be focused.
T1 - 2.09
I had a fairly decent transition. especially considering I had to put arm warmers on and switched on a rear light.
Cycling - 2.55.04
Well, it started with the video below…
My hands were pretty cold after the lake, and holding the front bottle whilst going through a pothole and over a speed bump was pretty ambitious. I was pretty happy with the save, my race day could certainly have been shorter. Shortly after this, another speed bump dislodged the front bottle, resulting in a quick turnaround to pick up the bottle. Shortly after riding the rest of the humps with this bottle in between my teeth, a significant pothole at the first T-junction dislodged both bottles, cueing another quick turnaround. Three unnecessary stops in the first two kilometres. I know there are speed bumps at this race; my preparation here could be better.
During this time, two riders passed; the loss of position here is not significant, nor is any draft or pace benefit, but having riders ahead can be of considerable benefit to help read the road, which is incredibly helpful when you are riding slightly or completely unfamiliar roads. So one bit of lousy prep led to another downside. Mentally things were not off to a great start. Could I have driven the bike course? Yes, but I chose not to due to work and social commitments.
During the ride, my power output was highly variable (VI = 1.17) due to being over-geared on the rear cassette on the extended climbs. Could I have looked at the course in more detail to assess the gearing? Yes, again, another possible improvement.
T2 - 3.39
An accepted and pre-determined loss here. I chose to place my kit in a dry bag, ready to pour out to keep everything dry lying in the morning dew. I also chose to do a trial of toe socks under transition pressure to assess for an upcoming long-distance race. I’ve used them for a while and like them in training, but for obvious reasons, they might not be the best in a triathlon. I also chose to wear trail shoes which require lacing up, this was 100% a good choice! The only tweak I would make is to unzip the sunglasses case or simply have the glasses loose in the dry bag.
Run - 1.40.19
Lap 1 Average Pace 4.34
Lap 2 Average Pace 5.07
The above is based on where I lapped my watch, based on the 20.8km total recorded
1st - 10.4km = 47.26 at an average pace of 4.34 per km
2nd - 10.4km = 53.22 at an average pace of 5.06 per km
Not the best pacing here. However, this course is very tricky to assess until you have run one lap. Even if you are (un)fortunate enough to have raced here before, the changeable nature of the surface may mean that the weather conditions year to year and indeed on the day, or even the amount of wildlife shoeing the trails, could have a significant effect on your pacing strategy.
Could I have used a running power meter to help with this? Maybe, but again not without the significant expense of the power meter and a new watch.
Review
So my digestion of this race is that there were a lot of controllable errors. Therefore, I was pretty disappointed with my execution. Internally I could have easily done better. Externally, however, the message was very different;
3rd Overall, Simply amazing, you must be so pleased, wow!
Podium Boom!
“Nice Podium”
(It’s always nice to be congratulated, but I’m writing this to highlight the difference between internal and controllable intent and external expectations and perspectives, not to be ungrateful!)
This is something to consider when speaking to any athletes about their race, whatever the situation. It is equally possible that someone who wins may be disappointed or that someone whose race takes considerably longer than the majority may be elated with their performance. What is it they say about assumption?
Intent
There is a lot of information in my review. However, most of it is just ‘noise’ when it comes to assessing the success of the race as it must be digested through the lens of my intent. My intent for this race;
Race myself fit
Practice racing
Ride to run well
Did I achieve these things? Yes.
Did I get a really good reminder of how to be thorough? Yes
Will I make some changes? Yes
Will I be hard on myself and upset for anything more than a few hours? No, because I did what I set out to do, and I know how to respond to make improvements. Making a few errors in a ‘practice’ race is tremendously useful as it can help ensure that those small details aren’t overlooked when you reach an ‘A’ race.
Summary
Preparation in planning is everything, do your homework as thoroughly as you can (including prep races) to have the best possible information with which to make a plan.
Make a plan that is process orientated but with an overall aim. Understand the relative importance of any event amongst other events; not all races are equal. Know what you intend to do and welcome the pressure it brings as you have chosen that pressure.
Recognise external expectations when they crop up, respond to them with your plan and practice staying on task and avoiding distraction.
Execute the intended plan to the best of your ability.
Review the plan based on your intent.
As an aside, though, be aware of imposing your expectations upon other athletes. “How was your race?” is always a great first question that removes assumptions.
Alan has worked with Tri Training Harder since 2014. During this time working with a wide spectrum of athletes from beginner, to youth and junior elite athletes through to 70.3 and Ironman AG winners and Ironman Kona Qualifiers.
An active Triathlon coach since 2007 Alan has been fortunate enough to work with athletes, peers and support staff who have continutally challenged him to evolve and develop. Building on a solid foundation in swimming teaching, Alan has specifically developed swimming coaching experience having worked in High Performance Swimming environments. Alan's other passion is all things fast on a bicycle!
Since 2015 Alan has worked in conjunction with the other Tri Training Harder Coaches to significantly develop collective coaching practice both on camp and online.
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