"Stick To The Plan" ... Easier said than done? In reality the plan should alleviate stress and doubt in an athletes race execution and make the process easier. That said, before you Stick To The Plan ...1) Have a Plan
2) Believe In The Plan You Created
3) Trust in The Plan on the start line
.... then you should
4) STICK to The Plan (being adaptable is always part of the plan, by the way)
In my previous post I discussed many of the items and details as a coach I help an athlete with (outside just training) in a lead up to their races, and creating a RACE PLAN is a crucial piece.
Over the past few weeks two TTE athletes in particular stand out as epitomizing the 1-2-3-4 when it comes to the plan. Through adversity, doubt, and mental toughness their ability to "Stick To The Plan" provided rewards at the finish.
Julie Vieselmeyer (a Coach and Doctoral Candidate in Psychology) and our own Jen Latourette (Coach, M.S., Exercise Professional) have two unique, YET similar stories I'll share here. Both athletes going into recent races were in a less than optimal point in their hormonal cycle when it relates to peak performance, plus each had other small "things" that effected the races. (Yeah, not many people discuss hormonal cycles and racing, BUT, for the men out there? It's real boys and it would only give you another excuse for why you didn't run well ;-)
JULIE'S race was the The Redman 70.3 distance race in Oklahoma City. Julie is a recent transplant to OK. as she is working on her Doctoral Dissertation and Residency at The University of Oklahoma. The goal(s) for the race were very simple: 1) Get a solid race in her new environment before Austin in October 2) Build effort across the race AND negative split the 13.1. I felt on that course, in those conditions, the strategy would prove fruitful for Julie. Her race snapshot looked like this:
-SWIM ... VERY choppy water, warm for wetsuits, a bit of chaos, goggles knocked off
-T1 ... methodical
-BIKE ... windy & warm ... between extra sighting on the choppy swim and the inconvenience of the female hormonal cycle Julie experienced what for her is VERY rare cramping. To the point that she actually took a few minutes off the bike to alleviate the issue. In the end she averaged 8 more watts over the 2nd 28 miles of the bike ... still building the effort.
-T2 ... lead female leaving as she was entering T2
-RUN ... early in the run the leader was slowly moving away but Julie held steady, adapted nutrition to the weather and to feel, and with 10k to go was trailing by 4min entering lap 2. With belief and trust Julie held steady and began to build as the leader started fade and came back into view. With less than 2 miles to go, sticking to the plan AND being mentally tough paid off with a race victory in Oklahoma City! (and a negative split run per The Plan)
JEN's race was the SANTA ROSA MARATHON and to run a Boston Marathon qualifying time. ------When we worked together on the plan it included items that we used / practiced in training: fueling, hydration, course segmenting, pace / heart rate / perceived exertion. (AND we did make some alterations pre-race based on some outstanding physical limitations) The BIGGEST goal for the race regardless of anything was build effort across the race (this is, in fact, is the way almost every single endurance contest should be approached to yield peak performance) and if she could do that the result would be fair. So race morning pace goals were tempered a bit but we kept HR / PE goals in place and felt she could still hit a BQT. We were able to see Jen in a few places on course, and the race broke down something like this
- Mile 8 ... :02sec off BQ pace - "man i have no legs"- Mile 11 ... :02 off BQ pace - "I feel low on fuel" - we make a slight adjustment to fueling based on her feedback
- Mile 14 ... :04 off BQ pace - new goal was just get to mile 20 and then decide what to do (Jen knew what i was up to at that point :-) but the goal really was to see if the nutrition and caffeine would take effect)
- Mile 16 ... :02 off BQ pace
- Mile 20 ... :01 off BQ pace ... things have turned the corner, GAME ON ... BUT what this means is she still has to pull back those 20+ seconds over the final 10K
- Finish Line ... BQ time with 38 seconds to spare (so, from 20sec over BQ time to 38sec, a 58sec swing over the final 10k)
You can see the HR profile of the race. This would be a great profile for any quality
endurance performance as we relate it to building effort.
We see so many athletes who either have no plans or really struggling to trust their plan on race day for whatever reason. Out of simplicity, the ability to build intensity across the race should be the #1 goal regardless of anything else. If we review a race, and an athlete fails to build the effort we look at the following items:
* Poor pacing? or poor pacing plan?
* Poor fueling?
* Poor pacing plan relative to actual fitness?
* Improper training?
* Poor Mental Toughness
... to get it right all those items need to be in place. Or when all else fails, start easier to finish faster!
Here's To Good Planning!
DL
