m2sport

Rich Strauss is an excellent coach and teacher. After the race on Sunday we had a talk about the path ultra-distance athletes take. From entering your first Ironman to qualifying for Ironman Hawaii. He has coached 100’s if not 1000’s of Ironman athletes so he see lots of patterns. The following is an excerpt from an email he sent to all of his athletes. It sums it up pretty well. I’ve completed 3 Ironman events, so you can see where I’m at below.

First Race: don’t know what to expect, a good bit of fear and intimidation, leading to a healthy respect for the distance. Focus on execution and “the experience” rather than performance. LOTS of pre-race nerves, as everything is completely new to you.

Second Race: immediately after the first race, you begin thinking of all the things you could have done better in training and racing to go faster. Your head moves to the right, from “experience” to “performance,” but you still know enough to know you don’t know enough to think you can “race” the thing. Actually, hanging around me for the past year has likely kept you focused on execution instead of performance and racing. You know what to expect on race day and therefore have less fear. You’re still nervous, however. (more…)

Third Race: very often this is where it comes together and you are likely to have a good performance: your fitness, execution experience, respect for the distance, and general calmness during the week create the conditions for a good performance. However, you are likely focused much more on performance than on the Ironman experience. This can create its own challenges.

Fourth Race: it can get tough here. Your body will have developed a “ok, I get it now, this is going to hurt” tinge to it. If you had a great performance in your third race the challenge becomes repeating or better that day. Consequently, you can become a bit bored and tough to satisfy.