The Real Reason Your Race Falls Apart (It’s Not Fitness)

You trained for the race.
You put in the hours.
So why didn’t your performance reflect your fitness?

In this episode, we break down the real reason so many endurance athletes underperform on race day—and it’s not because they’re not fit enough.

From pacing mistakes and poor fueling decisions to hydration errors and lack of race-day awareness, small execution errors can quietly build throughout the race until everything starts to fall apart.

And the hardest part?
 Most athletes don’t even realize it’s happening until it’s too late.

We walk through the most common race day mistakes we see in both triathlon and running, how those mistakes show up during your race, and what you can do to avoid them.

Because race day isn’t about perfection.
 It’s about making the right decisions in the moments that matter.

In This Episode, We Cover:

•  Why fitness alone doesn’t determine your race outcome 
•  The most common pacing mistakes that lead to late-race breakdown 
•  How fueling and hydration errors quietly derail performance 
•  The compounding effect of small decisions over the course of a race 
•  How to think through race execution before race day

Who This Episode Is For:

•  Athletes preparing for their first race 
•  Endurance athletes who feel like their results don’t match their training 
•  Triathletes and runners looking to improve race execution 
•  Anyone heading into race season who wants to avoid preventable mistakes

Resources & Next Steps:

If you’re tired of putting in the work but not seeing it show up on race day, this is exactly where coaching makes the difference.

For coaching inquiries:

Coach Katie → https://fuel2run.com

Coach Justin → https://tabularasaracing.com

Podcast Email → theenduranceathletejourney@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome everyone to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. I'm your host, Coach Justin. I'm here with Coach Katie. And today is episode 87. And we're going to be talking about the top 10 biggest race day mistakes and how you can avoid them. Um, so I want to frame this in a way where we talk about failures, quote unquote failures. I don't want to call a race a failure because there's something that we can always walk away from, even though the result that you get may not be in line with your expectations or even in line with what you perceive to be your potential. So there's always something that we can walk away from, but race outcomes, in my opinion, rarely are limited by your fitness. I believe that it is an accumulation of small decisions that you made throughout the execution of your race contributes to whether that race met your expectations or somehow fell below them. So I this is not going to be an episode on, you know, how to train better or you know how to get faster. That's not what I would consider to be a mistake or not even necessarily maybe a mistake is a poor way to to frame to frame this. It's uh a non-optimal decision, you know, because you know whether something is a mistake or not is is kind of relative. So, but we wanted to uh bring this up because you know, we're getting closer and closer now to really the big kickoff of a race season. And so we wanted to put this in front of you as something just for you to think about as you are in your prep phase, or maybe you're starting to reach like a race build phase and you're doing some some race specificity training. And these are these are some of these small decisions that I want you to really consider and think about during maybe some of your race simulation workouts and and things as you start to prepare for race day. So uh these top 10, what what we believe to be the top 10 uh mistakes that are made on race day really fall into like three primary buckets. We'll say that one bucket is going to be pacing mistakes, the next bucket kind of falls into is gonna be fueling and high and hydration mistakes, and the third overall bucket is gonna be execution and planning mistakes. So we're going to go with these uh one by one through the top ten, what we believe to be the top ten. You may have a different list of top ten, but this is what we've got. And so we're going to let's just kick this off and deep uh and just drive right into the discussion. These are not ranked in terms of like order of importance, it's not that number one is more or less important than number 10, all right? So keep that in mind. These are just uh numbered. The first one is going to be a pacing mistake, and it's starting off too fast. We see this uh commonly and routinely in both single sport race events as well as multi-sport race events. Um I I can I can tell you from my own experience, I've fallen victim to this as well. And it's not necessarily the result of just poor race execution or poor planning, because you could line up on race day and have every intent of, you know, hey, I'm going to start off a little bit slower, I'm gonna let this build, and really kind of control, control the effort at at the first part of the race. You may have that intention, but it's really, really easy to get wrapped up in the adrenaline and the excitement of the day to be really flow with the crowd rather than standing your ground. And I I think that that's one of the things that that I've seen as as a coach and experienced as an athlete is that you're surrounded just by hundreds of people. And it's easy to get swept up in their pace and trying to flow go with the flow rather than sticking with where it is that you feel you should be, and kind of what I call claiming my ground, putting a stake in the ground. This is my area. I'm going to execute my plan. And sometimes it's easy to get pulled into somebody else's. And what that really does is it starts to sabotage, and that will snowball in how how your day is going to ultimately wind up, is because as you get swept up into them, you're really chasing paces that maybe you don't have any business chasing, or uh you start to get behind the eight ball on things because you're trying to keep that pace, i.e., you know, you're trying you're you're you're sacrificing the intake of nutrition and hydration, which we'll talk about in this in this episode as well, because it's got to be like one of the common mistakes that we see. And as you get, as you start to really push that effort at the beginning, it's easy to get behind the eight ball on these other things that are just as important for your execution of your race. For multi-sport, this is this is absolutely something that I see all the time. Um, you're you're coming into these races and you're tapered and you've got these fresh legs and you're not used to having them. So it's really, really easy to say, I feel good, and get wrapped up in that feeling rather than saying, I feel good, but this is my strategy, this is my plan, and stick with the plan and not go with how you're feeling. Now, that's not to say that later in the race, if you're still feeling that way, maybe you start to be a little bit more aggressive with your strategy and plan. But we're talking, you know, the the later portions of the race. That kind of decision should not be made at the fire of the gun. Within the first half of your race, I want you to completely ignore your feelings because your feelings will get you either they will get you in trouble. Yeah. I've seen it, I've experienced it. Uh I but the the oppression, the the expression that I see on Katie's face, she's seen this as well. I have an athlete.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

I was just like this this week I was talking to her about she's running the London Marathon, which is April 26th or something like that. She was saying that she starts out their last race started out too fast because she got swept up by the crowds, you know, and those marathons are huge numbers of people. It's very easy to kind of get swept up into with adrenaline and just the excitement of all the people cheering and all the people around you to just get swept into a pace that you're not comfortable with. And she said she had been running, I think her last one, I couldn't remember which one it was, but she said she'd been running and she finally looked down at her watch and she was kind of in the like um red zone, or she, you know, and her heart rate was higher than it should have been. And this is now, you know, I don't know what what point, but three, four miles into the marathon, she's already sort of been swept up into this and she's realizing it. And, you know, for a marathon, it's it's a really tough thing to be um, you know, going out too fast because if you do, you start to accumulate fatigue, you know, you get potentially lactate and things like that building up. So it can be a really tough thing to be, you know, doing that early on. And then she said she sort of suffered. I think it was maybe Tokyo was her last one. So she definitely had some issues um with that. So this time I'm talking about maybe even setting parameters on her watch or like, you know, th certain things she could do to kind of slow, slow down a little bit in those earlier miles. So just this week, you know, I mean, it's common for people to kind of get swept up, I think, into the paces and into what everyone else is doing and not even really paying attention because you you're feeling so good in those early miles. But for something like a marathon or a longer course race, that can get you later. I've experienced it myself. Happens often.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah, so I I think that the the kind of the big takeaway that I have from from this particular uh quote unquote mistake is I want you to keep in mind that the race doesn't really start until that last half. So, you know, we're not racing the first part. We we execute our plan in such a way that sets us up to race the second half is really kind of what I want you to kind of keep in mind. Um you know, for for a triathlon, the race does not start until the run starts, honestly. I mean that's that's where really the rubber kind of meets the road. And absolutely for long course uh triathlon, the race doesn't start until that second half of of the run. The first half of the run, you know, you're still kind of like into it and everything. So it's it it can really kind of set you up. But really, that last half marathon or even the last 10k of a full Iron Man, that's when your race starts. That's when all of the decisions that you've made from you know chip time zero to wherever it is that you are right now, this is where those decisions come to uh come to roost. You'll start to kind of see the impact of those decisions that you've made on where you are right now. And I feel it's so important, and I try and get this through to my athletes, and I I try and do this as as I am an athlete as well, is I I've been working hard to completely ignore feelings and emotions when it comes to judging how you should execute. Because that that will that just snowballs and it gets you in trouble. I've seen it, I've experienced it, and so it's really common, like I said, when when you're tapered and you're rested and you're not used to feeling that way, because you know, throughout the the training process, the idea is to accumulate fatigue, uh, you know, to build that adaptation. So you're never really rested. I don't care how many rest days you take throughout your training plan, if you're consistent and even if you have just one rest day in there, that's not enough to shed uh all the accumulated fatigue. It's enough to kind of like, you know, as as we've used this uh this illustration before with the the paling of the water out of the boat, like the bucket example. You know, having just one rest day in there, you get a couple good buckets of water out of the boat, but that boat is still taking on water, and there's nothing that you can do about it. So when you come to race day, if you tapered properly, you should feel the best that you felt throughout the entire training process. So it's easy to get caught up in how how you're feeling then is like, oh, this maybe this race is going to go a lot better than than what I thought it was going to be. That may definitely be the case, but don't make that assessment until you know it's appropriate, which you're in the race. Make the assessment when you've actually got a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

And hopefully, like you've you've I mean, some people who are new maybe don't always it, you know. I think it's hard when you're new because maybe you've never done a marathon before, you've never done some of these races before. And so you really have to trust, like at some point, hopefully, if you have a coach, you've kind of had a discussion about, you know, how your training has gone and kind of a discussion about pacing. Um, what pace you want to start out at? What you know, what when when do you decide like to go for it if you're feeling good? For the you mentioned the last, like the like half mar last half marathon portion of an Iron Man. For a marathon, the race really starts around mile 20. That's when the it gets tough, and that's when, yeah, exactly all of the decisions you've made, those last 20 miles, it's gonna like that last six miles can make or break your entire race. Um, and I've seen it happen. I've had I've had it happen to me where I started out too fast or made fueling mistakes early, earlier, and um it it didn't fare well for me those last six miles. So it's so important to to but thinking about the pacing, because I think if you're not really sure, you can feel really good. Um, I do think it's important to kind of really figure that out because you are gonna feel good. And if you don't know what pace you're supposed to be at, then it's hard to know how to kind of keep that in control for the first half. But it does take a lot of um kind of trusting, you know, like it does take a little bit of like looking at your watch and you know, kind of paying attention to heart rate. And sometimes I know people don't like to do that, and I know people kind of like to go off of feel, but in this case, I do think this is important at least to kind of check in to see where you're at, make sure you're not pushing too far beyond your abilities that you know, you know, from all the training you've done. If you're like a seven-minute marathon runner and you're doing six thirties, the first several miles might catch you later because that's a huge jump in pace, and that might be more like a 10K pace or half marathon because of all the you know damage you're sort of doing early on, trying to hit those faster paces. Once you get later in the marathon, you're not gonna have the ability to kind of recover from doing that if you're doing it for too long. Now, if you start out too fast for like the first half mile or mile, you might you might be able to slow down and kind of catch up and and and recover a little bit. So, you know, don't be freaking out if you're like, oh no, I'm a mile in and I'm going 15, 20 seconds faster than I should. I think it's just that's why you want to check in and be like, okay, I need to slow down a little bit, you know, kind of catch up, you know, make sure I'm not overdoing it, kind of give my ch body a chance to kind of recover, then you should be fine. I mean, it's not as though if you start out too fast and you know, the first hundred meters, you decide you're gonna kind of sprint. You know, that as long as you're catching yourself, uh, I think you're fine. It's just if you're if you're getting so caught up that you're racing, you know, halfway through your Iron Man and you're like racing as if it's a half Iron Man, that's probably not a bright idea, right? It's gonna be a rough day. It's gonna be a rough one. Uh the rest of that race, I mean you might be able to cat hang on for dear life, but yeah. Yeah. So all right.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

So this takes us, I think that we've uh we've kind of exhausted that one. So let's let's roll into the to the next one. And I kind of alluded to this a little bit. So Katie, go ahead and bring us the bring us the mistake number two.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Yeah, so fueling uh strategies. So like a poor fueling strategy, you're not executing your fueling strategies. So um this would be like kind of that thinking, like, oh, I'm just gonna take something in when I kind of feel like I need it. No, I'm not, I'm not really gonna have a plan. I'm just gonna have some things with me. And then when I feel like my energy is starting to run low, I'm gonna take something. Or I think this happens a lot where maybe you do have a plan that you've thought about where you're like, I'm gonna fuel and you just are like, oh, I feel good, you know, or I just don't want to have to take my stuff in, you know, right now. I I feel I'm feeling good. I don't want to take it. I know I'm supposed to start fueling at 30 minutes. I'm gonna, I'm gonna wait a little bit. Um or you know, or maybe the opposite, you get caught up in all this high carb fueling, you know, stuff like David Roach or some of those other people out there that are really like um taking in tons of carbs. Like maybe you've never practiced it, but you're like, I'm gonna try to take in a whole bunch of carbs on race day. And you haven't maybe done that before, um, or you haven't practiced it. So you're just kind of taking a ton all at once or way more than you need, um, or even just trying a totally new product or fuel the day of the race could be just like, you know, we'll talk a little bit about trying new things, new things, but um, those are all common mistakes. I think it's really important that you not wait until you're feeling poorly because once you're starting to run out of glycogen, so let's say, you know, that could be potentially like in a in a marathon, you know, maybe an hour to 90 minutes in, you're already behind the eight ball. Once you start to have those feelings of you know, fatigue or just kind of like your energy is starting to drop a little bit and you need something, you're it's too late. You've already dropped you've you're already in trouble. There's not really much you can do at that point to to to recover from that. So you could take in some fuel at that point, but you're already starting to run low on glycogen. And then if you do decide you're gonna then smash three gels all at once or something like that, then you run into this maybe potentially like GI issues and um, you know, over doing it all at once. So it because it's a little bit better if you can kind of take in the fuel, let's say just as an example, every 30 minutes. So you're sort of slowly taking it in, you're not doing too much all at once. You know, you might take in a few gels at once if you've been practicing that, but you're not then taking, you know, 10 gels or something in the course of 30 minutes and trying to take in all of the things that you forgot to take the first, you know, 90 minutes, for instance. So you you can't really, even if you did that, your body can only process so much carbohydrate at once just from exogenous sources eating it. So you're just behind the eight ball, you're gonna have a struggle the rest of the time. That is why, like one of my mantras is like fuel early and fuel pretty often. You know, for each person, it might be a little bit different, how and often they're fueling, but starting out, you know, 20, 30 minutes in, which is really hard to do when you feel good during a race. Like for a triathlon, you're probably not taking in a gel during the swim, but you're probably gonna get out of the water onto the bike. And at some point, really soon at that point, you're starting your fueling, um, either in transition taking something or on the bike. And so it's just really, really important that you do that. And it's hard to do because you're like, I need to get going. I'm feeling good. I'm just gonna wait, right? But you can't, like, is then once you wait, and once it's too too far and you've kind of started your fueling strategy is now off because you're now waited and then everything's backed up a little bit, then you run into the issue of you know, kind of hitting the wall sooner, and you can't recover from that really once you once that hit uh starts or once you get that point. So if anything, like please make this a priority because you, you know, I've made this mistake before, like early into my marathon journey. I'm just either not feeling enough in general or just feeling good and being like, I'm gonna push this off. I'm gonna push this off. I'm feeling good now, you know. But once you are feeling bad, there's no coming back. Really, you can't recover. So important. Yeah. Do you have any like, I don't know, any experiences or thoughts yourself?

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Yeah, so that this is one of the things that I think that I struggled with primarily in my in my early the early times of when I started doing racings. Uh I've learned a lot over the years about this particular issue. I I still don't have it right. And so after after over 10 years of doing this, there's still stuff that I'm toying with. There's still stuff I'm experimenting with, and I still make mistakes, but I think I've gotten a lot better. Uh for a trathlon, the way that I would execute it is typically I'll take in maybe like a honey stinger waffle before I get in the water because I don't want a gel because I'll be eating I'll be taking in gels during the swim during the bike and the run. So I want some different texture. So I'll go with a honey stinger waffle before the swim and then uh do swim and then get on the bike. And I don't take in any nutrition until I'm about like maybe five or ten minutes into the bike because I don't want to be fumbling with packaging and and trying to take in stuff while everybody's trying to get on their bike and settled. So I like to get a little bit more spacing because it's just too chaotic at that bike mountain line where people are like hitting buttons on watches and they're trying to get clipped in and all this kind of stuff. It's too chaotic. So wait, you know, until like between that five and ten minute mark and then start, you know, taking in some fuel. So I'll hit a gel then, and depending on the the length, you know, I'll eat, I'll consume on a schedule. I don't I I've learned that lesson to where I cannot trust myself enough to eat based on when I feel like I need it. Because, like you said, once you feel it, it's too late. You know, there's nothing that there's nothing that you can do, and you can't play catch-up. Um I I've I've tried to play the ketchup game once several times, and it's just led to GI issues, and then my stomach shuts down, and then you can't take in anything because your stomach is like, nope. We're not we're not doing that.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Even if you have to set like a like an alarm, I don't know. I'm not very set it on my garment.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

I get it. When when I go through training, I have my garment will buzz to me like every every 10 to 15 minutes, and that's either buzzing to tell me, hey, look at me, and we're either going to take in some water or some liquid nutrition or a gel. So it's keeping me in the moment. I I never kind of get settled in because then once I start settled in, then I'll zone out and then I completely disregard my fueling strategy. So I have that little reminder just saying, hey, at the 10 minute mark, we're either going to drink some. Some water, we're gonna drink some electrolytes or you know that type of nutrition, or we're considering a a gel or some other kind of fuel like that.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

It's a good one to have that. Because I think a lot of people kind of do get like sucked in and they're focused, which is great. You're kind of maybe in the zone, which is a good thing, but we do need to take in fuel. So I think it could be common, especially for like an Iron Man where you're riding your bike for 112 miles to just sort of like get in locked in, but you don't want to be like, oh no, now 30 miles have passed or something like that, and I haven't, you know, or to 10 or 20 miles or however, depending on how long that's taking you, but you don't you don't want to be like caught off guard with that and like, oh no, you know, so to have something to remind you with I think, yeah, if you can set that on your garment or your watch that you use, that would be probably the best strategy. Um I do check my watch quite frequently during my marathons just to kind of see if I'm on pace or you know where I'm at. So I I generally kind of know, or or a lot of times, and this is probably true for a triathlon or um most races, there's like mark markers where you are. So sometimes I'll I will actually be like, okay, at the 5k mark, I'm gonna take in my first gel at that 5k mark and then at the 10k mark. You know, so it's kind of like it that could be the way you do it, is like, okay, I'm you know, once I hit this point, and then my watch does buzz at me when I hit like a mile each mile. So it's like I kind of I have that setting on there where it just kind of like tells, you know, gives me the pace sometimes. So I'll uh I'll uh use that, you know, as a as a way to do it to just kind of know where I'm at. But sometimes, yeah, it'll just be just some sort of way to remind yourself, okay, I'm at this point, this is when I'm taking in. Okay, I made it to mile 10, you know, on the bike. I'm gonna take in or five or whatever it is, you take in your gel or your fuel. And so some sort of strategy to figure out when that's gonna be and as it kind of individual to each person.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah, I found that I find that the that the time-based strategy works better. Better, yeah. Probably a distance based, a distance-based one can really kind of come and bite you uh a little bit later because as pace as pace as pace degrades, it may, you know, you may run that first 5k pretty speedy, and then what's going to be the pace that you run the second 5k in the third K? It can take you longer and longer to get these 5Ks done, and what that's doing is it's forcing you to go longer and longer before you refuel. Yeah, I think too much. That's just something to keep in mind.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Iron Man, maybe where you're in the marathon where yeah. But for if you've executed like a marathon correctly, hopefully, you know, you're doing it close. I mean, you might slow down a little bit, but hopefully your pace is staying. Unless you really like negative or positive split it, like where something's slowing down or speeding up a little bit, like you're hopefully the strategy is like it's only off by a few minutes each time, you know, if you're doing the the execution of the race correctly. Hopefully you're not degrading that much that it's a huge difference by the end. But I know that does happen. So you may want to have some other um, okay, if if I slow down, I'm gonna have another gel. But you're gonna have to think about this, is part of I think racing is kind of thinking about the different scenarios. And then um, you know, you don't want to be overly thinking about it so much as causing anxiety, but you want to kind of think, okay, maybe if I do slow down or if something happens, I want to take in another gel, or um if it's a hot day and everything's kind of out the window, like my whole fueling strategy needs to be changed slightly because I'm maybe gonna have to be out there longer because I can't run that same pace and I'm gonna have to hydrate differently. Like you might have to just kind of think about like some of those scenarios and have like a plan B sort of situation too, so that you can kind of okay, well, I might have to take that in a little bit more frequently, uh, potentially. So, anyway, just something to think, you know, to have. I think part of racing is thinking about a few of those scenarios that might be common and how you might adjust things for that, you know, not oh but you don't want to overly think about it to the point you've analyzed everything in, you know, either.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Yeah, so let's let's go to m uh mistake number three, and it's ignoring hydration. So this is something that I want to make a distinction between, and I'm curious on what your thoughts are. Is the way that I think about this is I think of hydration as just pure water. Now that's different from what I would call like a nutrition strategy, which can be fluids with electrolytes and carbohydrates in it. So it's like your tailwind, your scratch, uh, all your other kind of uh electrolyte products. I consider that to be part of the nutrition strategy. It's just a liquid-based nutrition, and then you can work in the solids as well. But for me, hydration is just water-based. No, nothing added to it. So what I what I typically will do for my for my execution strategy, what I work with my athletes on, is that we have we have this nutrition strategy, which can be a combination of liquids and solids or just pure liquids, and then we have a hydration strategy as well. So there's going to be a need for just some just plain water. This is especially true uh during hot and humid races as well. I I just from my experience, if you're only taking in stuff that has electrolytes in it, it just kind of sits on your stomach a little bit, especially in the heat and the humidity. And so I find that if I'm maybe rotating in uh you know a sip of electrolytes at one at one feeding spot and then just do pure water at the next feeding spot, it's not getting me behind the eight ball, but it is keeping that palate cleansed and it's keeping my stomach balanced. Um but does but I'm proactive about it. It's it's part of the schedule. So it's not I I do not ever, ever, ever drink to thirst. Because then if you're drinking when you're thirsty, again, you're you're late. You're you're already behind the eight ball.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

I do think you're right, but I do I think it's hard because the other fluids do count towards your hydration. So any fluid you're taking in during race, whether it has electrolytes or carbs or just plain water, is all contributing to hydration, you know, because it all contains fluid. So I think it's, you know, it's like you kind of want to consider both, like you're saying, but I also think you do need to make sure you're also considering it all together. Like how much total fluid are you getting per hour? Have you kind of calculated that? I mean, to get to like the nitty-gritty, there's a lot of things you can kind of do to figure out your hydration. One would be just weighing yourself before and after uh workout, you know, making sure every other parameter is the same. Like if you do go P, you kind of also have to account for that. So that's kind of the hard part is um how much fluid are you actually losing and trying to get an idea of how much of that's coming from sweat. Um, and you do to do that kind of maybe weight naked, and then you know, you're kind of calculating out that, you know, hydration rate of sweat loss. And you might want to do that in different conditions, like when it's cooler, warmer, or really hot out. Um, and well, you can wear like sweat sodium patches that you can find that are pretty cheap through like Gatorade makes them to get an idea of your sodium losses during different scenarios, and that's you know, so there's a way to kind of figure this out. I think um, and then you kind of come up with like a hydration strategy. And within that, you should be um consuming enough fluid to meet that, so that whether that's coming from an electrolyte drink or pure water, um, but you do want to make sure you're also getting in that sodium, at least um, you may not be able to get 100% of it, but trying to get in that sodium you're losing. Because on the flip side of this, believe it or not, there have been times where an athlete has only taken in water, no electrolytes at all, or no sodium. And then they, you know, there's there's actually been times, and this is rare, very rare, where somebody has died from hyponatriumia where all they're taking in is water, water, water, water, and no sodium, and they're basically like diluting the cells. And, you know, there's a whole cast. I think we've talked about this a bit in our hydration episode. We talked all about this. So go back to our hydration episode and like to sort of get the the nitty-gritty here. But the concept here is like you you do want to have kind of a plan, um, and it may involve both like plain water and electrolytes and um whether you kind of think of your them separately or not all at all as one part of your hydration strategy, just making sure you're doing both and you're not just like taking in tons and tons of water without the other things that you need, because it can like it can ruin your race. Like you don't want to be on the sidelines with either extreme dehydration because you didn't take in enough and now you're you're underhydrated and you're having cramps and they have to pull you because you're so dehydrated, or on the other side you're you're so overly hydrated with water and not enough sodium that you're um having to be pulled from the course and then maybe even go to the hospital because that's a serious condition. Um, and so it's just it's really important to kind of get this at least figured out before race and then yes, and then execute it. Just like with the fueling. Don't think, oh, I'm like feeling good. I don't need to hydrate. It's the same, you know, you need to be on on your schedule. Uh it's important.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

I think the bottom line that we can come we can come to a conclusion about is that the these hydration and nutrition strategies, the problems will show up later in your race, but really they start at the beginning of the race. And so it it's it's a it's a accumulation over time. Yeah. Whether you're perform uh you're uh not executing your hydration or nutrition strategy appropriately at the beginning, and then you start to really kind of see things fall off. And I think what happens is that athletes will interpret that as poor fitness, and so then they go into the next race thinking that they need to train harder and longer in order to improve their fitness, because they think that the the degradation in their performance by the end of the race is because they just weren't fit enough and they didn't train enough, rather than looking at the other the flip side of the coin and saying, No, your fitness was fine. The the way that you executed your nutrition and hydration strategy needs some work. And so really kind of stepping back and looking at really kind of like what is the is the reason for my perceived poor performance at the end of the race and critically evaluating that is is really, really important.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

I think really like this is where the practicing, you know, this is why we said this so many times, like practicing these things in your training is so important. So you know what it feels like to have fuel and trying to get the hydration practiced and and so you know what that's gonna be like and how that makes a difference, you know, when you are like I know it makes a huge difference for me when I'm doing my fueling right, and not only how my my training's going, but also like how I'm recovering from that. And so it's just even seeing that in my training. The other thing I just want to say too is for a marathon is some people take hydration with them and that's fine. If you're relying on the cups on the course, um, it just take your time. Like, don't you have to stop totally and like drink, but slow down a little bit for those eight stations. Slow down, take in what you need. It's okay to slow down a little bit and then just speed up for a short period of time to kind of catch up a little bit, but you don't want to be. Um, I think sometimes people just kind of blow through there, grab like one thing to drink, especially if it's a hot day. You're gonna want to slow down and just take your time getting in that hydration that you need. Because if you don't do that and you think, oh, I don't want to waste my time in the aid station getting some fluids, it's gonna catch you later and you're gonna slow down inevitably anyway. So just don't um that's another mistake I see people make, is just blowing through. I mean, some people are very skilled at taking in the water and some, you know, but if you're not or you're you want to make sure you're getting enough, just slow down, jog a little bit, take in what you need, and then take off then. And then if you have to increase the pace just slightly to kind of catch up a little bit of time, it's better to do that, you know, for sh you know, maybe a short period just to kind of get back to where you were than to like just blow through the eight stations without taking in fluid. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

One of the little tricks that I use when I go through an A station is because they're all paper cups. And so what I'll do is I'll grab the cup and then I pinch, I pinch the top of the cup so that it it creates a little narrow crepe, and then it's easier to get everything in the cup because what you find is that people will just go through there and they get m they spill more on their self than they actually get in their mouth, and they think that they're fueling appropriately. It's like you just missed half of the cup, and there was hardly anything in the cup to begin with. So that's a little tricky.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

And then I take if it's hot, I take another water and just pour it on my head. Yeah, you know, to cool down. But yeah, yeah. You just it takes a little bit of an art. You can even practice if you have like a low-key race, you know, where uh you could just practice that strat, you know, just the cup strategy.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Um, so number four.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Let's let uh give us number four.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Yeah, so we'll do that one's like doing new gear on race day. I think I don't know, I feel like this one most people hear, but I still have those stories I hear of people who bought that new pair of shoes like the day before at the uh expo. They're like, oh, I'm gonna try these shoes, or I'm gonna get some of those super shoes with uh carbon plates the day before and try that, you know, the day of um I just it it could work for you. But I mean generally like I even think about the shoes that I wear for uh even like the shoes that I like that I wear just general for training, I will wear those things a few times on an easy run before I actually do like a long run because it takes a little bit of time to just sort of like each pair of new shoes has it almost has a little bit of time that you need to wear it, wear it in a little bit. I never judge that shoe until I've had a few runs in it because sometimes the very first run doesn't go well or I have a little bit of chafing or something, but it just generally um it gets it gets a little bit better after I've worn it a few times. So don't it's probably a mistake generally just to try new shoes or even just a new like clothing is another example where it something like if you have a kit or something you're gonna wear um or you're gonna have like a race jersey or something to wear it ahead of time a few times because you may not know, or even for a long run, hopefully, because you can figure out if it's gonna have some chafing somewhere. I wore a pair of shorts for my last half bar thought, which was warm, and they're it they were a little bit short and they chafed like the inside of my thighs, and it was like it was like bad, you know? And I'm like, I shouldn't have done and that was a pair I've had, but it was just that the warm day and just the con like I was throwing water on my head and all the, you know, kind of caused some chafing. And sometimes that just happens and it's uncomfortable. But if you can make sure whatever you're wearing um doesn't cause those issues that ahead of time, that would be gre my suggestion. So just nothing really new that you haven't had a chance to break and like goggles, you know, like you could talk a little bit about triathlon um nutrition we've already talked about. But again, don't try a new nutrition gel or something you haven't tried before on race day because it's a it's like GI issues are such a bummer, you know. You just having to go to the porter potty midway or having to have several, or even just like they could take you out completely, totally ruin your race. Um so yeah, I mean I think that's pretty self-explanatory, but do you have any uh anything to add to this?

SPEAKER_00 38:18

I don't know if I have anything to add, but I do I do have a story uh from from what I've done. And it's just such a a bad it's such a bad example, but um I did uh this was years ago, uh and the race is no longer with us. Uh so I did Iron Man Syracuse 70.3 uh up in upstate New York. And I picked the race because I was like, oh, it's early in the season, and so you know it's in upstate New York, so it should be fairly cool and temperate and no problems. And I said, Well, I kind of want to try some race wheels and put some put some nice like deep dish race wheels on my bike. But I didn't own a pair, so I rented a pair and found a I found a shop that rented race wheels, and uh because of course I was renting them and I was cheap, I didn't rent them early enough in order to ride them before race day. I just went like before we left town, picked up the race wheels, and it's like, all right, let's go. And I had no idea what these things were going to feel like. And I I get I get into the race and the swim went well, and I got on the bike and it was windy. Oh my the wind was insane and up and down these huge hills. I don't want to call them mountains, but they were hills, they were some significant hills. And the the winds were coming across they were coming from every direction. But if you've ever ridden on deep dish wheels, when that crosswind comes, that will turn your handlebars faster than anything you've ever experienced. And I was on edge the whole ride, scared to death, riding my brakes because I did not know how to ride race wheel, like deep dish carbon wheels in high wind conditions, going up and down huge hills, but like halfway through the bike portion, I wanted to just take the wheels and just throw them into the woods. I was so I was so done with that stupid bike, uh, and just a bad decision that I made. And I, you know, I I think that I've seen other posts about people is like, hey, can I rent a bike or whatever, you know, at the race? I understand that for travel purposes, but unless you're renting a bike that you've that you've actually trained on, then you know, I don't want you training on a road bike and then renting a TT bike for for your race because it is not going to go well. Yeah. Even different brands. So if you've trained on a TT bike, but you don't have the same brand uh at at the race venue that what you've trained on, I could argue that's that I don't know if that's going to be a very good decision to make. It might be worth just sucking it up and just you know going with the expense of shipping the bike or you know, having a bike box and carrying it with you on the plane, because there's nothing worse than being on that bike, and the bike is the longest portion of the race and you're not comfortable, you don't know how it handles, you don't know how to work with it, uh, and the conditions that you're having to face, whether you have high winds, are they are they tailwinds, front winds, crosswinds, you know, how how does the how how are you able to reach behind and grab nutrition? If you're not used to handling this bike, then you're less likely to take your hands off of the handlebars and go grab a water bottle. Now, not only have you screwed your whole bike portion, but now you've you've you're way behind the eight ball on nutrition because you didn't know how to handle the gear. And so that's one of the things that I can recommend just based on my experience on what's what I've gone through. Uh it's it's frustrating.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

I did triathlon, I only did like local races. I never I never flew anywhere. We always drove somewhere, so I didn't ever have to like bring my bike or rent anything. So I never had any of the it issues like that. But yeah, that makes sense because I could see that for like a triathlon for sure. So even the bike, you know, isn't it obviously a big piece. Um, yeah, I I feel like we I feel like people hear that a lot and believe us, like it's not a good idea to try something new.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

I don't I don't buy anything new for a race. You know, if if I'm buying something that I want to use on race day, it's like a month before the race takes place, and then I'm using that during training.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

And so for instance, the like for my race, I'm actually bought a cheaper pair because they're so expensive. Like the older pair of a carbon shoe, uh, a new bal a new balance because I've been liking their shoes lately. And I if I like it, like I just bought the older version and then I'm gonna probably early May or sometime mid-May buy maybe another version of it or the newer version, which is so expensive. But I, you know, I do like the carbon-plated shoes. They do make you feel fast. Um, and then try them out and wear them a few times at least, uh, like to really understand if they're gonna work for a race day. Because also the other thing is if they don't, I want to have enough time to to pivot. And and I know there's a pair I've worn before, like the ultra-carbon shoes. So I would just have to pivot and maybe try a day, you know, going back to what I know, but I want to have enough time to be able to wear them a few times before the race. So I don't want to be like figuring out that this isn't gonna work like three days before my race, and then having to pivot at that point isn't gonna work so well. So really kind of having like especially for those types of shoes, you don't want to wear them a ton, like because they work best when they're a little bit more fresh, but you do not wanna like have a new fresh pair generally like the day. Of the race. You do you want to wear them? And no, because I had a pair I bought of that the it was another another brand and I wore them for like, I don't know, like a workout, and 10 miles in that my my feet were killing me. And I tried it again, and yes, like the longer I went in them, the worse I f the my feet started to like have a lot of issues. And so it was just really good to know that, you know, and I didn't wear those shoes for a marathon because I could couldn't get that far, you know. So you don't want to find that out on race day because then you'll be in a lot of pain. Yeah. Anyway. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

All right, so let's we'll move on to mistake number five. So this is poor bike pacing, and so this is kind of more uh multi-sport specific, or even if you're just a single sport cyclist as well. I see this way more than what I would like to see. Uh and a lot of it is uh it's ego riding, but you know, it's really easy to get caught up when when somebody maybe if somebody's passing you, uh to release like, heck heck no, that person's not gonna pass me, and then you just kind of open it up a little bit, or you're trying to stay with with a pack uh that you may not uh should uh uh try and associate with. I mean, I I've just I've seen it so much that because when when you get on the bike, you're still feeling really, really good. I mean you've you've only swam so far, and so you're really kind of early into the day. And it's you didn't really use your legs at all for the swim, very minimal uh in order to just maintain balance uh within the water. And so in it, and if you wore a wetsuit, you really didn't have to kick that much anyway, because that thing kept you up. So it's really easy to kind of get into the bike with feeling really, really fresh legs and to really kind of open things up. But what I've found is that there's no such thing as a good bike split and a bad run. What that is the result of is poor bike pacing. You rode the bike in such a way that did not set you up for a good for a good run performance, so you overbiked. And this is something that I see a lot of. And it's something that that I've experienced as an athlete myself. Uh the bike is my favorite part of of the triathlon. I love it. And so it's really easy for me to get swept up in the emotion and the feelings because I'm really enjoying myself and I'm I'm seeing great performance, and my power is right where where I want it to be, and I'm passing people and I'm gaining ground and I'm having fun doing it. But I have to constantly remind myself, hey, do not get swept up in this moment, do not get swept up in the emotion and the in the quote unquote enjoyment that you're feeling being on this bike, because that means that that run is going to be a lot harder than what you want it to be. So you have to ride it in such a way that sets you up for a good run performance. And that really takes a lot of discipline uh to really kind of hold back a little bit and you know, not ride, not ride your bike as a cyclist, but you're riding it as a triathlete. And so a lot of times what I'll see is uh what I've experienced is a lot of triathletes will go and talk to cyclists on how to improve their riding. The one thing that I caution about that is because yes, cyclists are are really good at cycling, but they don't ride their bike in such a way that they have to run afterwards. And so I've I've talked to people where there's like, oh yeah, you you you should pedal down hills and all this kind of stuff. You're giving up free speed. And I think that there's some validity to that kind of methodology, definitely as a cyclist, but you really have to consider, well, what is the what are going to be the cost of me, you know, really pedaling down this hill at a higher cadence, higher gear ratio in order to gain speed? If that means that it's going to take a little bit more out of my legs, why don't I maybe coast a little bit down the hill, give just a few seconds of of rest to the legs, really get them to reset, and then start to pedal again? Is it going to affect your your cadence and your overall, like uh your your variability index, which is that spread between your normalized power and and your average power? Yeah, it will, because it means that you're not being as consistent throughout the pedal, throughout the pedal stroke and throughout the duration of the race. But we're thinking big picture here, right? I I want to ride the bike in such a way that allows me to run well. And poor bike pacing uh is what I have found to be the main culprit for bad run performance for for a triathlon. And uh yeah, I I don't know, I don't know how else to to to talk about that one.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Yeah, I don't know. Like I'm like trying to think of my own experience. I don't I don't know. I always felt like I just kind of got through the the swim of the bike and then the run was when I was actually like uh in the race for me. I always felt like I got to the run and I was like, oh, here I go, and I was always good to go. So I must have never gone too far on the bike. I don't know. I don't I don't remember. Yeah, I don't have my own experiences with that, and I never did anything longer than a half-iron man.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

What what I've what I think is that a lot of athletes will will come back from a poor performance during a race where the run kind of fell apart, but they had a really good bike, and then they think, Oh, I need to focus more on my run.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

The run. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:30

So they're really kind of putting the focus on the wrong piece of their training. No, your run, your run may be perfectly fine. You need to learn discipline on the bike that allows you to run off of it. So and I've made that same mistake as well, you know, early on in my career, where it's like I was like, man, my my bikes are great, but my runs are in the toilet. I was like, I need to run more. No, I needed to learn how to use the tools that I have as a part of the overall strategy. So I don't I don't want you to think about okay, I don't want you to think about the bike as you're on it. I want you to think about the run while you're on it. It's like, am I riding in such a way now that is going to allow me to capitalize on my strengths? You may have felt great on the run because you are a runner. Yeah, that's that's your background. So that might be kind of contributing to it's like, oh, well, you know, my bike was great, but I when I got on the run, I felt fantastic because that's that's your strength. But you know, if if the run isn't necessarily your strength, then you really should start to consider putting more focus on your bike fitness because the stronger you are in the bike, even though your run isn't up to par with the bike, it will improve the quality of your run performance as you get more and more fit on the bike.

SPEAKER_01 50:47

Right. That makes sense. Yeah. Makes sense. Um, so let's yeah, let's dive into the number six one. So no, no warm up, not warming up. I think this this one, I think I'm I'm kind of thinking from the perspective of any race distance. I I do think like the shorter, the faster the race, the the longer, the more time you kind of want to spend warming up. So like for a 5K, for instance, I will do a bit of a longer warm-up because I really because of the the pace or even like a mile race on the track or something, because I need to be able to like get going very quickly, very fast. It doesn't, it's whereas like a marathon, I do think there is uh you do need to do some sort of warm-up, but because you're going to be out there for so long, you don't want to overdo the warm-up because then you'll be, you know, have I've kind of burnt a little too much uh energy, you know. So it's it's a little bit dependent on the race. But for um for like a 5K, you might want to do like a 20-minute jog and like some of those activation drills and some and some strides and things like that beforehand. Um whereas for a lot of my marathons, I might do like five to maybe 10 minutes of very easy like jogging just to warm up my legs a little bit, some activation movements, some like hip swings, just like various things to just kind of be ready for the race to activate those muscles. And then um, you know, if I do a stride, it's like maybe one or two, but I'm not overdoing that either. It's just to get my body a little bit ready and primed, but I'm not spending a long time warming up. But I still think it's important to do some form of a warm-up because if you just do nothing and you start your, you know, for a marathon, maybe you can kind of warm into it. I don't generally recommend doing that. But you know, if let's say you're running late to it or something and you just have to jump in, at least to give you have 26 miles, so you can kind of use the first few miles to kind of warm into it. And that, you know, maybe is one way to strategize not going out too fast for those faster races where you really need to like be able to get into that pace and be going out a very fast clip. It's it's extremely important to warm up because you need to let your body like you need to get your body primed to do what you need to do on a race. Um, so I don't I know for for running, that's kind of my my thoughts about that. I I would just never do a race and just start unless you're just kind of jogging it for fun, and then it's not a problem. But if you're actually racing, you need to really have it and even practice kind of what you're doing for a warm-up on race day, maybe even and before some of your harder workouts, just to kind of have that that down and and know exactly what you're doing um and and kind of how the flow is gonna go. Um, but yeah, I don't know. For triathlon, I'm trying to think how I used to do it. I think I used to jog a little bit and then maybe get in the water a little bit and swim a bit. You kind of do a little bit of swimming just so I wasn't totally like the swim was my always my like hardest one. And I just wanted to kind of like be kind of used to what the water temperature was gonna be like and be kind of get, you know, get a little bit in the water and just okay, I think I'm gonna be okay. I had to do something in the water before the swim start. But I don't know what you recommend for a triathlon because I it's been a while since I've done it. I don't even know if I was doing any of it correctly.

SPEAKER_00 54:01

Sometimes I just do what felt right, but yeah, I I can tell you what what I typically will do is I mean, I I see a lot of people at triathlons and they're out there running or they're jogging and stuff like that. I've never I've never gone with that approach, uh, mainly because I don't feel like I need to warm up for the run because I'm doing the run after I've already biked. So when it comes time to run, my my legs are all going everything's going to be warmed up already. So I don't need like that kind of specificity in my warm-up. Likewise, I don't I don't really warm up for for the bike either. Um well you so my my appearance going out of the swim into the bike, so you're already your body is already kind of like your heart rate is elevated, everything is flowing, your muscles are already kind of loosened up during the swim to prepare you for the bike. So I don't find that that's particularly useful either. So my focus uh for for warm-ups is purely swim-focused warm-up. Uh unfortunately, the way that that Iron Man does it is they don't they don't allow you to get into the water race morning uh prior to a race. That's especially true if you have you know uh river swims, things that are like point-to-point, like Chattanooga and things like that. But even something like Lake Placid, where it's in a lake, you still cannot get into the water race morning. They do open it up for I think it's like the day before or maybe a couple days before they'll have a swim practice where you can come in and they've got support out there and you can swim parts of it. Um, but that's not the case at places like Chattanooga because it's a free-flowing river and it's a point-to-point swim. So you really can't can't get in there. Um what I did for Chattanooga is I went across the river and swam against the current and just jumped in and just tried to swim against it because it's effectively like you're swimming in place because the current is so strong that you really don't go anywhere. It's like it was like an endless pool when I did when I did it. And so that was that was kind of my warm-up. But I find now as I'm getting older and you know, the joints that I have and the tight muscles and things like that, I just focus purely on just uh dry land, dry land movements. So I went and got some really light resistance bands, and I used just different muscle activations, you know, pull aparts and things like that to really kind of get my lats to activate and get that uh range of motion in my shoulders. And that's that's the my primary warm-up. I I'm not really I I don't get into the water beforehand, but I've been doing this for for quite a while, so I I know what to expect. I will show up to the race venue like those few days earlier if they if they have those swim practices. I do get in there. I do take advantage of that since you don't get it on race day. Some of the local races will allow you to get into the water and kind of warm up. If that's the case, then definitely take advantage of it. Um, at least that gets your body used to the temperature of the water so that you know what to expect when the gun goes off. Because there's nothing worse with the water being colder than what you expect it to be. And now you're trying to settle into a swim, the water is colder than what you thought. Uh, you've got all the congestion and all the people and the adrenaline and the excitement, and it's just one more sensory overload to the body, and it's kind of hard to get settled in. So if you can do it, do it. But I find for me in particular, just doing those dry land warmups in order to get the mobility and the elasticity and the muscle that I need for the for the swim is sufficient. And by the time I get out of the water, my body is warmed up, muscles are loose, and so I just jump, I just go right from the bike and then to the run. Right. I don't I don't I don't find it particularly helpful to to do those sports-specific warm-ups.

SPEAKER_01 57:46

Yeah, I just like jogging just because it kind of warmed up just generally my body, but it wasn't like I did much of it. And then I think it was just, yeah, kind of getting in the pool water a little bit. For the races I did, they let you kind of get in the water.

SPEAKER_00 57:58

But um I mean, I understand it from a perspective of like you want to get the heart rate up a little bit and you want to get away.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Yeah, that's just what they're a runner. It's just was you know, I'm used to just jogging a little bit, but um, it wasn't like anything crazy, maybe like five minutes of just a little bit of jogging, then I would put my wetsuit on and then kind of get go over to the water. So um I think it's just kind of figuring out what works and makes you feel ready. You know what I mean? Like that's that's the key. But you don't want to just like maybe jump in totally without any sort of activation, or especially for running. I for me as a master's athlete, I you're like, do need like I can't, I could never just like get to the 5k and just run it. I would it would take me the first mile just to like feel like my legs and be able to like get to the pace. I have to I have to have some sort of warm-up to like get my legs going. And it's I I mean, maybe when I was 20 I could do that, but now not so much. So it's really important, I think, also as you age. But yeah, let's go, let's move on to the next.

SPEAKER_00 58:57

Yeah, so number seven is letting others dictate your race. And I think I alluded to this uh several times already. Uh definitely I alluded to it in the in the bike, in the in the bike pacing, so this might be a little bit short, but it's really it's really easy to get caught up, caught up in the moment. And you know, I I definitely see this more on the bike than I do in the other two disciplines. Um and it's really kind of like chasing after these paces and efforts that that are aren't necessarily advisable at that particular stage uh of your race. Uh like I said, a lot of it tends to be ego riding. Um for for running only for for running events, uh I I I've seen where it's it's similar as well. You know, you get you get caught up, you get caught up in the corral, and you know, you're trying maybe you're trying to keep pace with something.

SPEAKER_01 59:50

But I mean usually you're in a corral in those big races with other people who have run that same pace. So generally they kind of group it. But you know, you always have those people, and this is where you have to just like be able to have yeah, have your ego check your ego because there's always those people that just go out too fast, and you'll catch them later, I promise. They're doing especially if they're in the corral with you, they're unless they really somehow like underestimated their pace or something weird happened with their pacing to get into that corral and they they're actually much faster than they are. Um, you know, let those people go because they'll probably be caught later in the race, especially for a really long race like a marathon, you'll get them later. Just be patient. I think patience here is a little bit important. I mean, quite important. Um, you know, I think for if you know somebody like is at your same pace, you can let people kind of pull you along a little bit. I think having competitors, like as long as they're not like going way faster than you're capable of, kind of pull you and having that sort of motivation is great. But if that person is going faster than you're capable of, or there's something, you know, you can't like totally dictate your whole race on what that other person is. You can strategize, you can use people to help pull you along. I think that's great, or even like kind of tuck in behind people if it's windy and maybe let them be your windbreaker, maybe. But don't um, I mean, you can only do that in in a in a running race. I mean, obviously there's rules for triathlon in the bike that you cannot like tuck behind people. So don't do that, you know. But if for a running race, you want to, you know, kind of utilize other racers to help you, um, but don't follow exactly what someone else is doing because maybe they're surging ahead or whatever, and maybe you just that's not a time for you to do that. So you have to really think about your own strategy and not someone else's, and you know, yeah, that's where I would leave leave that when I thought.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:43

I think that the primary thing the the primary uh takeaway is that I I don't want you to think that you know what that person's strategy is because you you don't you don't know what that strategy is. So you don't know that you know, why are they riding in a way that they are riding could be because that let's say that they think that their run is going to be poor. They're not fully trained on the run, so they're trying to quote unquote bank time by riding hard because they know that they can't run the whole the whole segment of the race or they have a different strategy for the run, if they're going to use like a run-walk method or or whatever their strategy is. So they're riding the bike purposefully hard because of their strategy for the run. Now, if you try and catapult yourself and piggyback off of that strategy, you're going to be riding the bike harder than what you intend. And now you've sabotaged your run because you assumed what their strategy was and you allowed yourself to get caught up into it. This is a discipline thing. Yeah. This is this is a focus thing. You know, I need to this is my race. This is my strategy, and I'm responsible for executing my plan, not trying to piggyback off of somebody else's plan because you don't know what their plan is.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:59

Yeah, absolutely. All right. Let's do the next one. I think I can talk a little bit to this, and then I think I want you to chime in too because you have more experience, but poor transitions. So this is really kind of more for obviously like triathlon, where you're gonna have those transitions. Um and I think from my experience, I th I was never like great at transitions. I never got like super speedy through them, but I do think over time I kind of learned, okay, I've gotta when I go to set this up, like it's gotta be set up in a way that kind of makes sense. Like, how am I setting up my bike and how am I putting my helmet so that I can just like grab these things and throw them on and um throw my shoes on. You know, some people were able to like actually put their shoes on their bike and then like take run and get their shoes on. I, you know, there's different ways you can do it. But I think maybe you, you know, when when I was in college and doing the the team, we actually had times that we like just practice transitions and um getting the wetsuit off and getting the run, you know, the bike stuff on. And um, because that was one of my hardest things is getting that dang wetsuit off. And sometimes they would have someone pulling them off for you. But um those, you know, just being prepared for that because it, you know, I think having some practice is really important. And if you just sort of shove all your stuff around and you have no organization to it, then it's gonna be really hard for you to find the things you need and make sure you're organized to get everything going in those transitions. So I don't know if you have any other um tips or thoughts on that, but I I I think practice is again something that would be worth it for triathlon to really figure that out.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:35

I I did an episode uh the from the triathlon 101 series where it was like what to expect on race day. And in that in that uh video or in that episode, I did talk about setting up your transition. And so if you want if you want some more specific insight into how to set up a uh an efficient transition area, check out that episode. So it was part of the triathlon 101 series, and it was like what to expect on race day, don't panic, or something like that was the title. Uh, and that content is in there, so I don't want to rehash that a lot, but I I will absolutely piggyback off of Katie's statement. It's like this is something that you have to practice. You can't come in, you've practiced swimming, you've practiced running, and you've practiced cycling. So it's unreasonable to think that you can perform efficient and quick transitions if you have not practiced those, just like you practiced the other three things that you're going to be doing that day. It's definitely it definitely requires more experience and trying to minimize those. I still struggle with this, you know, and trying to get fast transitions. But for me in particular, if I can keep them under five minutes, I consider it to be a success. Many people will say, well, five minutes is way too long. You know, if you're looking at it, that's an extra, that's like ten minutes of non forward movement for your race, and that's a lot of time. I agree with that, but there's a reason that I use that particular strategy and method and And, you know, uh to me, it helps calm my nerves a little bit. I don't like feeling rushed because that increases my anxiety. And so now, you know, if I'm going into the next thing already anxious because I tried to get out of transition quicker, uh, to me, that just kind of like backfires for me. So I may take a little bit more of my time. I'm not I'm not by any means like sitting there eating stuff or just you know camping out, but I am purposeful, but I'm not rushing myself because I know once I rush myself, I may miss something. There's something like that you need. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

Um and that is episode 78. That your first travel on race day, what to expect. So if you if people want to go back, they can look at that.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:43

So the but the flying mount that you that you alluded to with your bike with your shoes on the bike, uh, many people have have come to me about that. It's like, hey, is this worth it? You know, you know. My my thing is I've never done it. I've always put my shoes on in transition.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:00

Like I crashed.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:01

And I've I've seen so many people execute this so badly that the time that you think that you're saving trying to get your feet into the shoes and things like that, and the the distraction that you're going to be under while you're trying to settle into the bike and everybody else is around you, to me, it just doesn't pay off. So unless you really practice it and you become really, really efficient at it and good, um, it's not something that I recommend for people. It's like, look, just put the shoes on, put them in transition. Make your time just it's it's fine. You know, if it if it takes you another 30 seconds to put your shoes on and run with your shoes uh or a minute, think about the time that you're gonna spend trying to you're riding slower because you're looking down at your feet, trying to put your feet into the into the shoes, whether you have yeah, whether you have the mobility and the flexibility to actually lean down and and put and strap the shoes on or tighten the cable and still maintain forward momentum on your bike. Uh but I've seen so many people just fall right over, and so it's like, okay, well, what purpose did that serve? So if you're gonna try it, practice it. It's not something that I find to be all that rewarding and for a big ROI on a pro or something, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:15

But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

Um, all right, let's I think that's so the next one is going to be uh the poor race day logistics. And uh this is this is something that's near and dear to my heart because I have big time anxieties, and so the the funny thing about trath on is there's a phrase it's like it's hurry up and wait. You know, you're you're rushing to get somewhere just to stand around and and wait for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:39

It's true for sur for certain races and marathons too, because yeah, I know Boston or even like New York City, we we had to get on the ferry and we had to get over there, and then it's like you're just I mean, I think we were over there by 7 or you know, 7 a.m. And it's like, oh, now the race doesn't start for two hours, you know. But you because of the logistics of it, and in that race particularly, you can't, they don't really have people like dropping you off. You have to take like whatever mode of transportation, like the ferry or the bus, or um, maybe there's other ways to get there. Yeah, it's like hurry up, get on. You gotta get on at 5 45 onto the ferry and then get over there, and then you're just waiting around, you know, till you start. Um I think that's true for certain races, but it's that anxiety of like making sure you, you know, get there on time, you know that you're there, and even if you have to wait, it's that anxiety of making sure you get to the ferry on time or get to the bus or you know, get in the car and get to the race start on time. Um and then it is a lot of times then you once you're there, you're kind of like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:41

Unless it's a local race, but we we always underestimate the the time it's gonna take to get to the venue because now you gotta deal with traffic, you gotta find parking, and you know, actually, and if you can't park close to the venue, now you gotta walk in. So those are always underestimated. Uh and so there's nothing worse than showing up to the venue, and now you feel rushed. Now I've got to like lay my stuff out, I've got to get prepared, I gotta do my warm-up, and maybe you're gonna have to sacrifice some things because you didn't plan appropriately or accordingly. So it in this particular instance it's for the running. You have to use it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:18

Like that's what causes me the most anxiety is like, are there enough porter potties? And am I gonna have to wait in line, you know? And then if I have to wait in line, am I gonna make it to the race start on time? And that causes, I think, more anxiety than anything else for me for running because otherwise running is pretty simple. We don't have like a bunch of transitions, but it's you know, just kind of logistically thinking about that piece, you know, and getting there on time so you have a chance to use the bathroom before it gets super busy. And then if you have to use it again, maybe allowing yourself some time to have to wait in the line, you know. Um, yeah, that's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:54

The old saying, the saying that where if you if you're on time, if you're early, you're on time. If you're on time, you're late. And if you're late, it's unacceptable. I don't I don't particularly follow that, follow that thought process, but for race day, I do.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:09

Yeah, yeah. So I think it's important. I mean, if you get in it, you know, you want to be there on time, and it does cause a lot of anxiety if you're running behind, you know. So just trying to think about it ahead. Okay, when does this start? You know, really thinking about the time it's gonna take to maybe walk or to park and and and consider all of that. And yes, you may have to wake up a little earlier, but um it's it's worth it to get there on time and not be stressed about it. And um, yeah. And, you know, they say the night before the race, most people don't sleep well anyway. And it's not that night that matters. It's the night before the night before the the race or the nights before the night before the race. So, you know, just kind of keeping that in mind, like getting that extra 30 minutes of sleep, but getting there late isn't probably worth it. Um yeah, so let's go to the next second.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:56

Number 10 is no clear race plan.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:58

So no really clear race plan. No thought at all to how your race is, you know, how you're going to execute your race. And I mean, that might be I don't know. I guess it's I think it depends on it depends on the race. Yeah, it depends on the race what you're like if I'm just getting into a just like a local race and it's just kind of for fun or I'm just trying to see where I'm at, I might not have like a true, clear race plan. But for the most part, when it's like my A race, like for me, grandma's coming up, like I've already I'm not this early, but I I already sort of have a pace in mind, and I and but at least a month before I start to look at the race um course map. And I'm I'm starting to study a little bit. What is this gonna be like? What are the landmarks? Like maybe there's videos I can watch, maybe there's a course preview. I'm starting to really think about this and I'm thinking about how I'm gonna execute the race. How am I gonna make sure I slow myself down so I don't get caught up, like we talked about and going too fast early on? What points I'm what are when are the aid stations? When am I gonna fuel? Like this is all things I'm thinking about at least like probably a month out, really trying to figure this out. Um, and then yeah, like some of those if this happens scenarios, like if it's hot, this is how I might change my plan a little bit, or if you know, something kind of comes up, uh, you know, how I might pivot a little bit, but I'm thinking about that, you know, earlier on and how I might manage different scenarios that happen and might come up during the race. Like, like I I'm not tolerating the fueling, or something happens like in the race, how am I going to kind of manage that? You know, you don't want to think of every single scenario. I mean, it's it's a it's a fine line because you don't want to cause so much anxiety thinking of every possible scenario and everything. Um, I mean, sometimes there's things that come up that you just don't know, you didn't expect. You can't think of every scenario, but thinking of like the major things and then kind of how you're going to execute it. And then just really um like the pacing, the fueling strategy, like for for New York, the pace, there's a lot of hills. So I had to kind of think about how I was gonna pace differently each mile almost because the hills were throughout the race. And I think there's even a thing I used, like a pace. I had like a little wristband thing that I'm I created, or you can even purchase. It's like race band, and they have them for different races too, where they actually like each mile split is a little different based off of the terrain. I mean, you can even get that specific, you don't have to, but um, I just wore it just it wasn't like I was trying to hit each pace perfectly throughout the race, but I would I wore it so I had an idea at certain markers, especially like 5K, 10K, where I wanted to be and what my time was. Because once you kind of get further in, it's harder to do the math. You're like, well, where am I? You know what I mean? Like, what's am I on pace? You know, it's sometimes so having like a wristband or something to kind of keep you accountable or to be able to see if you're hitting your paces might be worth it for a marathon specifically. And then it kind of takes some of that anxiety out because you have a plan. You know what you're gonna do, you get there, and all you have to do is kind of execute your plan. There is no guessing. Yeah, that's my two cents anyway. Anything else?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:03

I think that this one, this one is basically a wrap-up of all the nine previous ones that that we talked about. So if you've if you've thought about those first nine ones, then this one really kind of takes care of itself. I agree that uh a race plan is all should only be as detailed as its importance to you. So if you're going in and it's a C race, it it may not be worth it to really kind of like come up with a race plan. It might be something where you're just like, I want to try a new strategy or something. I want to try a new, you know, I want to go my goal for this C race is I want to ride the bike as hard as I possibly can to see how that affects my run. That's that's your strategy. Now, if somebody's gonna piggyback off of you because they didn't have a strategy, then they're they've now sabotaged their day. But that that was your that was your plan going in. But you didn't you didn't set a plan to maximize overall performance, you set a plan that to specifically test a particular aspect of your of your racing. So you know your race plan is going to be, like I said, a function of what kind of race that you're doing. If if you're going into your A race, and I agree with Katie, if you're going into your A race and you have you don't have a plan, then what have you been doing for this entire training period?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:19

Right. Because it's like everything should be kind of a accumulate into that final. That's all what we're doing. We're we're practicing, we're training, we're practicing stri fueling strategies and things. That should be what you've been doing all along. So um you should it shouldn't even take that much effort, really. You should have been doing all this all along. It shouldn't be like a a a thing you're doing, spending hours on trying to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:46

Because I I think I think the purpose of the of the purpose of the race plan is to give you pre-made decisions because your ability to make good decisions is affected by your fatigue levels. So as you get more and more tired throughout the duration of your race, your ability to make rational decisions may start to fall off a little bit. So if you have this plan already set, then there's nothing for you to even have to decide on. You you're just executing it. You're just following, you're just following the plan. It's just like, okay, well, I don't have to really think about a whole lot. Uh that's not to say that there's not going to be decisions that you have to make because there's going to be stuff that falls outside of that plan. You know, how is my plan now going to have to change now that it's we've got dew points in in you know the upper 70s and it's hot and humid or it's windy. You know, now you're you have some decisions to make, maybe on the fly. You didn't expect that to be on race day and you formed your strategy ahead of time and you didn't have enough time to go back and change that, then yeah, you're gonna have to make some some on course decisions. But I I think that those situations are probably more rare than they are. Not this the exception to the rule and not the rule itself, is the way that I would characterize that. But you know, a failure to plan is a plan to fail. That adage still remains true, uh, especially when it comes to endurance sports. And exactly, you should be testing this plan, this strategy throughout we from starting from week one all the way to your taper week. That should be one of your primary goals of your training is to test this strategy and come up with your race day plan and strategy.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:33

So yeah, it kind of wrap wraps up the whole the whole discussion. Um I think along with this too, just one more thing uh regarding running is like sometimes the strategy or plan will change a little bit based off of how your training's going. So you might go into a training plan with a specific target of I want to execute like this marathon and this pace. But if something happens during the training, that makes it so you won't be able to maybe run that pace, you know, during the training and leading up to the race, you might have to kind of change the goal of the race and the and the pacing strategy a little bit because of what's happening in your training too. So, I mean, that's also kind of part of this, is that just because you go into the training, you know, block with a certain goal in mind, sometimes that has to be adjusted during. And that's kind of just part of the process of like the play. That's why the plan is kind of changing. And sometimes it doesn't really kind of like finalize maybe until the week before, but you should be like thinking about it and strategizing for it like throughout the whole training process. Um, but you know, that's the thing too, is is sometimes things happen during training that make it you, you know, the plan shouldn't be like set in stone really. It need just like a training plan. It needs your your race day plan maybe uh need to be adjusted as well. So that's my like final my final input on that. I think I think we covered it well.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:05

Yeah, so I think that if we had to wrap this thing up, I would say that the final statement that would summarize this thing is that race execution or your race day is not necessarily all about how fit you are. It's more uh driven by how d well you executed that particular day. Because I've experienced races where the execution was poor, but the fitness was there, and so my performance didn't represent my fitness, it represented my poor execution. And so I really want to drive this home, but that if your only concern is accumulating fitness and how fit you are for race day, I think you're missing a major piece of of your strategy and and your training plan. So if you can if you can nail the execution, then I think that you will see better performance and uh better durability within the sport and consistency than if you just simply focus on fitness.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:05

So let's wrap this thing up. So we're gonna let's uh let's do the the housekeeping at the end. So if you've enjoyed this episode and we have let's see, how many other episodes? This was 87. So we've got 86 prior episodes uh within the library. Uh if you find the content particularly helpful to you and you've learned some new things, and you know that there are friends of yours who may also benefit from from what we talk about, uh, I would really, really appreciate a like and a comment uh on on the web on the uh the podcast. Share an episode with friends. Uh that's one way to really kind of uh spread the reach of the podcast because we do not monetize this this podcast at all. We do not have ads and sponsors, so we rely on on you guys to spread the word. We do our part as well, but the comments and and the reviews are really, really helpful uh to help others find us as well, and those are greatly appreciated. We also have the closed Facebook group uh called the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast Group. Uh, this is a place where we do uh disseminate some extra content. Uh we want to try and grow this community and eventually get to the point where we're taking Q ⁇ A's. You can connect directly with both Katie and I within the the group as well, but really kind of capitalize on others' experiences as well. We do have discussion stuff that goes on in there and people are sharing their experiences. And so I I believe it's a valuable resource for those. And so we hope that you will consider you just search on on Facebook, it's just the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast group, answer one simple question, we'll let you right on in, and we appreciate that. We're also active coaches. So if if you are interested in coaching, we are bringing on athletes onto our rosters. So if you are interested in talking to Coach Katie, you can go to fuel the number two run.com. If you want to reach out to me, Coach Justin, it's at taboularassa racing.com. Uh Katie does run plans as well as dietetic plans for all sports. I tend I focus on just training plans, so it's multi-sport and single sport as well. But check out our websites. We've got bunches of we have got a lot of content on both of our websites with blogs and extra videos and things like that. So we hope that you will uh check us out. Just include us on your list of potential coaches that you're talking to before you make a final decision and reach out to us, and we can see how we can help you uh along your journey as well. So we greatly appreciate that. So thank you guys for joining us on episode 87 of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. I've been your host, Coach Justin, along with Coach Katie, and we'll see you all again next time.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:49

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:59

That wraps up today's episode of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. Endurance sports have a way of teaching us patience, humility, and resilience. Lessons that carry far beyond the workout. Progress in endurance sports doesn't come from shortcuts, it comes from consistency, discipline, and doing the work when it's not glamorous. Wherever you are on your endurance journey, keep trusting the process and honoring the work you put in each day. If today's episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone to help on their endurance journey. Don't forget to join the conversation on our social sites to help build and foster a community where we all learn and support one another. We'll be back with more stories and insights from Coach Justin and Katie. Until then, visit the podcast website at the endurance athlete journey.buzzsprout.com for more episodes from the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. Have questions or comments about the podcast? Feel free to send us an email at the endurance athlete journey at gmail.com. For all things coaching, visit Coach Katie at fuel the number two run.com and Coach Justin at taboularassa racing.com. Again, thank you for listening to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast and remember to find joy in the journey.