EXECUTION
DAY
By
Mitch Gold
It
takes more than just solid training to have a successful
day at Ironman. Take
a look through your collection of Ironman videos
and you can
see world-class athlete
reduced to walking, crawling, sitting on the side
of the road…even quitting. And guess what folks,
if it can happen to athletes at that level, you better
believe
it can happen to any of us.
There
are four main ingredients that go into making a successful
Ironman: training, nutrition, psychology and race execution.
It obviously takes training to get physically prepared
to race Ironman distance, but that’s just one piece of
the puzzle. Ask anyone that’s had a bad day at the races
and they will probably tell you it was either nutrition
related, a psychological meltdown, or most likely, how
they executed the race. This article will&nb; discuss
the importance of proper race execution.
Effort & Capabilities: From
the time the gun goes off in the morning to when you
cross the finish line, you should be monitoring and regulating
your effort. Your proven capabilities, not your desires,
should dictate your effort (heart rate monitors and
power meters are great tools to help you along the way).
Nothing
is more important on the swim, bike or run, than settling
into your sustainable effort. That’s the effort you know you
can sustain; not hope, wish or want to sustain. There’s
an expression that says “Ironman is not about who goes
the fastest, it’s about who slows down the least” I disagree.
Ironman is about settling into a sustainable effort so
you don’t have to slow down. Once your settled into your
sustainable effort, stay there! There’s no need to
risk increasing your effort over the last 10k of the
marathon.
What can you really gain? 10 to 20 seconds faster per
mile over the last 10k will get you one or two minutes?
Think
about how much time it will cost you if that increase
in effort forces you to walk the last mile. Your best
Ironman
will leave you feeling like you could have gone a little
faster.
Race
Tactics: Unless
your name is Peter, Tim or Cameron, Ironman is not a
tactical race. As we just discussed, focusing on your effort
and your capabilities will produce your best
Ironman. Beating someone out of the water or trying
to keep up with someone who may be a stronger cyclist
than
you are tactics that will get you into trouble. Staying
with someone on the run is another tactic that often
ends up ugly. I know, the first 10k “felt so easy” (can’t
tell you how many times I’ve heard that one) Guess what?
The first 10k should feel easy. Remember, your sustainable
effort and don’t entrust someone else to establish it
for you. Run your own race and avoid running someone
else’s race.
Focus: It
takes tremendous focus to avoid getting caught up in
the excitement of Ironman. Trust me, I’ve been there. It takes
a lot of focus (and confidence in your plan) to let all
those people ride by you during the first 30 miles of the
bike. But don’t worry, if you stay focused you’ll see all
of them again at about 90 miles and they won’t look so
good. It will also probably make the difference between
walking and running a solid marathon. Limit your focus
to things you can control like your effort, form, technique
and nutrition/hydration. Focusing on these types of things
contribute to a successful performance. Avoid focusing
on thing you can’t control; the course, the wind, the heat.
There’s nothing to be gain by focusing on things you can’t
control.
Expectations: Nothing
magical is going to happen on race day (sorry). I’m not
suggesting that you shouldn’t set challenging goals for
yourself, but by race day you should have a pretty good
idea of whether your going to break nine hours or finish
with a glow stick so set your expectations accordingly.
If you haven’t been able to do it in training, you’re probably
not going to be able to do it on race day just because
you’ve got your fancy race wheels pumped up to 180lbs.
If you want to race faster then prepare for it in training,
but don’t ruin your race with expectations that are
clearly out of reach. My goal going into an Ironman
is always
to finish, anything beyond that is a bonus. Hope
this helps, Mitch
Mitch
is a CpC Coach and can be reached at mitch@counterpartcoaching.com
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