Articles

Do you perform at the level you know you can?

The New Year is a good time to review your past year and plan for the coming year. You can learn from the past – from both the good and the bad – in order to improve. There are four main areas to consider in analyzing your performances: physical, technical, tactical and mental. Each of these is critical to racing success. Mental aspects are the glue that holds the other three together.

Physical
• Are you training specifically for your event?
• Are you cross-training too much or not enough?
• Do you have enough endurance?
• Is your speed where it should be?
• Are you consistent in your training?
• Have you fully recovered from your last race or big build up in training?

Technical
• Do you run tangents on the roads and curves on a track well?
• Do you draft appropriately?
• Do you train specific to your race environment, surfaces and location?
• As a tri- or du-athlete do you have efficient transitions?
• Is your equipment ready and in good shape and not worn out?
• Is your form optimal for your biomechanics?

Tactical
• Do you have a habit of going out too slow or too fast?
• Do you push too hard on up hills?
• Do you know when and how to pass someone?
• Do you waste energy getting caught up in the moment and take someone else’s pace?
• Do you save too much for the end of a race?

Mental
• Do you let things you do not control affect you emotionally or your focus?
• Do you lose concentration in the middle of a race?
• Do you feel deflated when you are passed by a competitor or your splits are off?
• Can you work through “bad patches” during a race or do you let them get you down?
• Are your goals realistic?
• Do you manage life stress as well as race stress effectively?

There are numerous reasons why we don’t perform up to our capabilities. The questions here are an excellent start in analyzing your performances. For a comprehensive look at your ability to perform, and a prescription to get you to perform at your best, contact coach.

Commit to making 2006 your best year yet!

!