Racing consistantly

I have just watched an interview with Simon Evans, Australian Rally Champion.

It’s amazing what we can pick up from different sports and the people who excell at them. Most of the books which I read are biographies of successful people. The common thread, whether the person is a business leader of a champion sportsman, is consistant performance throughout their event/life.

In Simon’s interview he told how he was good at what he did. He was agressive, fast, a risk taker. He would fairly regularly find himself on the wrong side of that invisible line which separates winning from failing. In rally driving when you cross that line the results are often catastophic.

He became the Australian champion by doing a little less than he was capable of in a lot of situations, but doing what he did so consistantly that the end result was outstanding. That is giving 96-98% consistantly, rather than giving 100% here and there and risking it all.

Most of us racing triathlons could always find a little extra at any one time, if we had to. If we needed to beat another athlete over the next hill, we could but we don’t bother because we don’t need to win that one hill. We could go around a corner a split second quicker, but we could be risking not even finishing the race.

Triathlon, like rally driving, the margin between first and fourth is very small. So we can’t afford to waste any time. Approaching our race as a race from the swim start to the run finish is common sense. But it’s not that common. Lots of athletes have not got that total view of the event.

You hear them all spruiking about their swim times and their run splits. Who gives a damn? The time which the medals are awarded for is what the clock says when the run is finished. Triathlon history is full of cases, like where Mark Allen won the Nice race in the last kilometer. He started the run thirteen minutes behind. Mark Allen did this to many other athletes, the Germans all remember him for his exploits in Hawaii.

Yet with examples like this, so many athletes allow their emotions to become involved in their racing. Instead of taking a whole race view, they are constantly checking where others are. Thinking about swim times, bike splits etc.

So if an athlete took a view, where the race starts at the swim start, everything is done efficiently throughout the swim. The race goes on uninterupted through the first transition onto the bike and through the bike leg. If energy is measured out with a total race plan in mind, and an equal amount of energy is used in the bike to run transition as was used on the bike. Then the same amount of energy is applied throughout the run. Still focussing right to the end. Then when the race is completed the emotional energy output has been paced evenly right from the start to the finish. No highs, no lows, just a constant flow.

Are your days like that, a constant flow throughout the day. Or are they a series of lurches from one crisis to the next. Try a training day where your emotions are level throughout the day, you finish the workout less tired than when you add a few highs and lows.

It’s this emotional levelling which helped Mark Allen win Hawaii six times.