How to pick the best Race Buddies
Are you planning on racing with a bunch of clubmates or friends? Do you know how you will cope? Will you be the easygoing traveller, or will you be the one who carries their nerves quite obviously? Coach Philip addresses some key points of self-reflection that athletes should go through before travelling to a race with others.
Everybody knows about the importance of having training buddies. However, training buddies can often evolve into travel and race buddies too. This is only natural because why wouldn’t you want to try and do an event with a bunch of your friends? But do the components of a good training buddy reflect a good race buddy as well?
Racing with others can be a lot of fun—many of our fondest memories at events often, including caring experiences with others. However, the lead-up to an event can be an exceptionally stressful moment. As a result, it can cause tempers to fray and friendships to fracture. You only have to think about a simple scenario: imagine that you have a good race, your training buddy has a bad one, or vice versa. How will the group dynamic change? You can start to realise how people may not always be as much fun in all the different scenarios as you may have hoped.
One solution is straightforward: don’t travel to races with other people! However, this is often not practical or fair. As somebody who has been in the industry for many years, I am not necessarily racing competitively as much as I was; however, I would be very hard-pressed to go to an event without bumping into somebody or a group I know or have encountered before. Triathlon or any endurance sport is a tiny family. And you will probably get to know somebody somewhere. Therefore, you have to start planning and finding solutions to travelling with and around other people, and this begins with knowing the people you are travelling with.
One particular memory stands out. I had been asked to attend an event with one of my great friends from university. His wife was pregnant, and her due date was too close to the event to travel abroad, so I went to her place!
As I was there on non-official business (a friend, not a coach), it was very straightforward for me to join in with his race preparation and get excited for him. However, having been involved in the industry for some time, it wasn’t long before I bumped into a TTH-coached athlete. I knew the athlete from our training camp, so we caught up with one another. It quickly became evident they were particularly stressed about the upcoming race, and the environment she had put herself into with her clubmates would not be conducive to her performance.
Quickly, we invited her to join us for a cold beer (and some carb loading) and walked away from the event site. After a successful race both the coach and also the athlete reflected on the importance of that small, simple, but essential interaction. Although she was terrific friends with the group she was travelling with. They happened to hit her nerves when surrounding the preparation for the event.
As a result, removing herself from the environment was the most important thing she could do. Although it may seem antisocial to many, for her performance, it was critical.
At the same time, you could look at this from the perspective of her group. They were all also racing, and to them, this was the way they managed their nerves. Athletes discussing the event, comparing one athlete with another (basically top trumps and predictions), and including some gentle teasing were how the group dynamic worked. Often, athletes put a lot of stress or pressure on themselves and, as a result, behave in their “stressed” state. Other people and their best intentions can often cause them to lose focus or get distracted negatively.
This problem of other people is unlikely to go away. Accommodation is the most significant reason people try to travel together. You can pay a fraction of the price of a hotel room by all pulling together and hiring an apartment or a house. Also, you get the added benefit of organising your food and having a kitchen. (Which, of course, can cause additional problems!).
So, we are not saying you should only travel alone, especially when it is often not practical or economical. We strongly recommend you consider who you’re going to bring with you and whether you can identify any potential annoyances or aggravations that they may cause you and mitigate them ahead of going anywhere. Also, identify any potential “isms” that you may have that could potentially be aggravating to other people.
For example, I had a friend I often used to race with. He would get chatty, jokey, and immensely engaging ahead of an event, and that was how he dealt with his nerves. To somebody similar to them, that would be okay, but for somebody who wants just a bit of peace and quiet, that can be annoying and ultimately distract that individual from their top performance. There are some tactical advantages to knowing how other people work best!
Ensure that you understand what each person in the group is likely to be like. Find ways to have your own space, focus, and time and commit to things only you want to do. This is important because athletes often stay together, travel, train and do things on mass. If somebody is always late and always early, then those two people will find it very difficult to get along unless they expect that they may just do their own thing. Again, with groups or teams, there are often many conflicting commitments that people may want to have. State your preferences, stick to them, and don’t succumb to peer pressure. You do you!
We took a relatively big group to IRONMAN Portugal a few years ago. Although it was a group, and we organised group sessions like swims and times to go to the café and as a coach or coaching team, we made ourselves available; the only thing that we wanted everyone to try and do if they could, (and we never made it mandatory) was to meet for a group photo a couple of days before the event this allowed us to showcase the group, but at the same time, not put anyone under too much pressure. We recognised that though everyone was racing in the same event, they wouldn’t always want to take the same trip to the start line.
As we began this article, we highlighted the fantastic and enjoyable experiences of racing with others. Many of these take place after the racing gun has gone off as you high-five your teammate on one of the laps of the run; the wave across the road as you do an out-and-back on the bike, or perhaps you enjoy a rewarding, cold beverage at the finish line and recount the hardships, excitement and tribulations of the fantastic and epic achievements of the day. But none of these things happen before the gun goes off, so plan for the time beforehand and make it as streamlined as possible. You will find your experiences are all the better afterwards, too!
Philip is the founder of Tri Training Harder LLP. He’s a British Triathlon Level 3 coach, and has been coaching for over a decade and is involved with mentoring and developing other coaches.
Philip has coached athletes to European and World AG wins, elite racing, many Kona qualifications, IRONMAN podiums and AG wins.
Alongside the conventional development through many CPD courses, he has also been fortunate enough to work alongside experts in the fields of Physiotherapy, Strength and Conditioning, Nutrition, Psychology, Biomechanics, Sports Medicine. Putting this knowledge into practice he has worked with thousands of athletes to various degrees, from training camps in Portugal and around Europe, clinics in the UK and online coaching.
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