5 Worst Racing Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

You want to have that mindset of no matter what I'm challenged with, I believe in myself and I can do whatever I want to do and have a crack at it. And it may not always turn out the best way, but at least if you start with that open mindset with no limitations and not preventing yourself from being restricted by that, then you will more than likely have a better outcome.

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help try athletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivelo Coaching, Jarrett Donnelly. There were two athletes this year who looked unbeatable. Pogaar in cycling and Ingebritzen in athletics. Everyone was looking at them thinking, how will they ever lose? Yet Pogaar lost the Tour de France and the world time trial and road racing champs. Inger Britzen just lost the world champs athletics in the 1500 for the second year in a row. Even the best athletes, athletes in the world make mistakes on race day. So today we're going to talk about five big racing mistakes you can avoid. To give you the best chance of your best performance, this episode is brought to you by our proud sponsor, Giant Australia for all your bike training and racing needs. Ride life. Ride Giant Dad. Welcome to the episode. Let's start with what are you grateful for?

I'm grateful for Giant Jordan, one of our riders today was on the new propel and he was saying to me as I was riding beside him, I said, how's your new bike? He said, the Propel. I'm getting free watts from my old bike. This is great. I can't wait to get get my upgraded propel. It'll be going to be a good day. What am I grateful for? I'm grateful for progress, knowing and understanding what that means. And that's a kind of funny thing to say. But for those who've been following the journey from the the back operation, it's now week 16. The progression I've tried to make from week six when I was allowed to first ride the bike after six weeks of resting, I was only able to ride 20, 30 minutes and walk about the similar and now it's, I think it's 10 weeks later where I am now able to ride 140k and I didn't, didn't. I just didn't go from 20 minutes to 140k. I went from 20 minutes to an hour to an hour and a then tried to ride 60k, then tried to ride 80, then 100k and I did 100k for three, three or four weeks in a row. Then I progressed to 120, then 140. I just want to get people to think about that and understand that if you know that you're on a journey, you can actually think methodically through that. And don't try and get to the destination before your due time. You need to just go slowly and you will get to where you want to go eventually. And even though I was really average riding today and not near numbers or my best form, the distance and the time I spent on the bike is a real breakthrough. And that's what I'm grateful for, is understanding that, that, you know, if I didn't know that was how to go about training, I would be in a really worse position than I am now and so fortunate to go through this experience knowing all the things about how to get back from. From basically ground zero to a point where I'm. I'd say I'm now at 70% of where I'm trying to get to. And that's only taken 16 weeks, of which 10 of those are training and which four of those in those 10 weeks was no intensity. That was only zone two. So, you know, the expectation is going to take six months to a year. But, you know, I'm, I'm frustrated it's taking longer than it should, but I'm, I should be happy because I'm way ahead.

I love that. That's a really good one. And it even shocked me when you, when you said, I said, how far did you ride? And you said 140. I went, oh, that felt like a big jump. But it's just every week it is. Has just been consistent progress. My gratitude is actually a bit of a. It's a gratitude, but also a bit of news from Tribalo. We're really excited and grateful that we have partnered with a local race here in Victoria, Australia, a race that we're really excited and proud to be a part of. And that's the Dirty Warning we speak. We've spoken a lot. Gravel racing and ultra kind of endurance cycling a bit on this podcast we've spoken about. That's the direction that a lot of people are heading because it provides a different experience. Gravel riding is a lot of fun, plus it's a little bit safer on the roads, plus many other awesome elements to it. And we really like this race and we have partnered with the Dirty Warning as the official coaches and training programs. So we are giving free structured training programs to anyone that signs up to that race and is is going to do the either 84, 140 or 246 kilometer races. So yeah, I just wanted to mention that and say it's really exciting for us to be to be providing the official training program for that. If you're in Australia or Victor specifically and you're doing the race, make sure you check out the website where you can download our free program to get to there. It's about 11 weeks away now, so got to get cracking if you haven't got a training program. But that is my gratitude. Awesome. Let's move on to today's topic and we're going to start with, you know, we usually go into what's called our attention and right now the world athletics champs are on. So we want to chat about everything that's been happening there and tie that into the today's topic which is 5 worst racing mistakes because it's championship racing at the athletics. And we spoke about this a couple of podcasts ago where we said it's going to be really interesting to see what kind of tactics unfold because at championship racing the pace does not need to be quick. It's purely based on in heats and semi finals, purely based on qualification, doesn't matter what time they do and then the actual final, you know who's going to take up the front because running from the front is the hardest way to go. So we've seen a lot of different tactics unfold. We want to talk about some mistakes we've seen some of the best athletes make and then get into some five common bad race mistakes that age groupers make as well. So let's just dive right into Jakob Ingrid, the upset of the year. He had the most unbelievable Diamond League run. He was getting closer and closer to that 1500 meter world record. He looked unbeatable. And for the second year in a row a British athlete has beaten him in the final. And we actually put a video up on Instagram of him in the semi final where he's got a little bit caught, actually kind of boxed in a little bit and he ran an absolutely blistering last 400. Went from last to first basically. And with 100 meters to go he still was only sixth place. I think he got to come top six to qualify for the final. And he's lifting his arms up, waving to the crowd, telling him to give some more noise and he streams down the home straight into first place. And I loved it. You know, he did similar stuff last year. And it can be seen as arrogant or showboating or overconfident, but it's just fun, I think. And he's trying to enjoy his racing and soak up the crowd that love him. But it came back to bite him when he didn't. When he didn't win the final. And Josh Kerr ran an unbelievable race and another British athlete has beaten him for the second year in a row in his pet event that looked unlosable. So what do you reckon happened? What was his racing mistake here?

Yeah, you've covered a lot there and you're only showboating if it backfires. I reckon if you go on to win the race, then you're allowed to do whatever showboating you want.

I will say that the video we put up kind of. It got a lot of traction at first. You know, it had a couple hundred thousand views just because everyone had an opinion on it. And then once the final hit, I getting just a flood of notifications of people commenting on the video going, suck it, suck it. Yeah, look at what happened. People are just absolutely laying into him. And I thought it was pretty funny. And then the video took off again.

Tall Poppy syndrome. Once again bites.

Yeah, exactly.

Look, is kind of shocking that he's lost, but it's also a great lesson and that's kind of what we want to get across here. And all the time we're trying to help the everyday age group athlete to be a better performer when it counts. And using the examples the world's best, whether it's cycling or swimming or running, it doesn't really matter. There's still lots of lessons there. And there's no definite in life. There is no definite. It's. Anything can happen on any given day. And if you have that approach, you will be so much more successful than if you think I'm in a race with Jakob Ingebritzen, who's pretty much unbeatable. What I'm running for second. And if you go into that race with that mindset, then that's exactly what's going to happen. You won't have the confidence to overcome someone with that invincibility. And that's almost what it is. The biggest mistake I think Jakob made was treating the race as if the world record was more important than actually the world title. That's one thing that he needed to switch his focus, needed to win the race first and then as a bonus, maybe get the world record. But his whole strategy, this is what I was looking at. This is what I saw was him thinking that the race was too slow. So he went to the front and he tried to set the pace that was going to get him that world record. And when the Diamond League races are on, we've got all these paces that are strategically put in every event so that the best runners can be set apace where they're not on the front copping the wind. The pacemakers are breaking the wind for all the fast runners. So set the pace fast so all the good elite runners, all they have to do is finish off. That's what they're getting used to doing. They're not used to these championship events where winning with your own tactics is actually the key to getting the result that you want. And I think it's almost disrespectful in one that he didn't rate the other runners in the race because he was so focused on the world record. But you have to win the race first and there are other runners in that race. If you make a mistake, just like in any football or basketball game, if you're the best team and you have an off night, you will be beaten by another team who are quite good, but they may not be at your level. But if you have a poor performance, you can be beaten by anybody. And I think that a couple of other things happened. It was almost like the stars were aligning in the wrong way for him. I think that he had such great form for such a long period. Again, we talk about that a lot, and I think that he was trying to hold his form from the Diamond League a little bit too long, and he actually wasn't on the best form on the actual day of that race. I don't think his form was where he thought it was. So. So when he went to the front, he normally would have. I would think he would have these sensations that I'm still comfortable, but the rest of the field was still on his shoulder and packed right behind him. Whereas normally he's stringing them out with his last 400, 300 meters at some ridiculous pace that no one can hold on to. Yet everybody was still with him. And in fact, what Whiteman did a year ago, Kerr almost tried to do on the same bend. But this time, Jakob didn't make the mistake. He stayed on in the front and Kerr had to run wide, which was a bit of a problem for Kerr.

Because he was shorter, though he was a single.

But Jakobs actually didn't have anything left when he came into the front straight and Kerr really just went past him and there wasn't much in it. There was only a meter or so in it, but. But Jakob nearly got run down, down by his own compatriot countrymen in the last metre and nearly ended up coming third. And I, I replayed the race and watched the other Norwegian run from the back of the field to almost get second. And that's, that's someone who ran a great championship race, who really did a lot of things well against the best runner in modern time for 1500 for a long time. And that's the difference between getting actual making mistakes and getting it right and, and making mistakes and getting it totally wrong.

There's a lot of learnings here. I agree and disagree with you. I do really disagree with him going for the world record. I think he would probably know that's unachievable without the help of pacemakers, because he even said after he ran that time early in the Diamond League, where it was a second off, he said, a second is still a long way. That's a lot of time to find. But I. There was a lot of talk about going for the championship record, which was that low 327s surf. That's his mindset. You know, running, they don't get me wrong, it was still aligning fast. It was still a 329, 1500. So I agree with you on the fact that he did seem. He was just focused on himself and running his own race and running for the time and trying to run them off their legs. That's what it looked like and it just didn't work. He didn't have the legs. And one of the other lessons here is talking about form. And he came out after and said he was a little bit sick, which. Decide to keep that to yourself. Or you can decide to say that and people online are saying, oh, what an excuse. Or fair enough, if he's running sick, it's going to be really hard to run a 329. You come off a little bit. Sickness is pretty massive. But to your point, got to adjust your race accordingly. And this is such a key lesson here. If you've come in sick, he can't just run it like he normally does. He's got to go, my body is not up to this. I have to change my tactics. And your point, I think, I think is exactly right there. If that's true, you know, he didn't respect the event, he didn't respect his competitors to say, I'm sick, but I can still, I should still be able to run my foot legs. That's probably an incorrect tactic to go into the race with.

Yeah. And once again, we just keep talking about hindsight and. And I apologize for that. But this is what we're trying to do. We're trying to get lessons across. And so the only way we can do that is to analyze the event. And in hindsight, he should have had.

He.

Maybe he felt like he had. His. Had normal sensations in his legs, and he could. He could do that. But there's got to be a time when, you know, you need maybe to EAS up if you're actually not feeling that good. So don't go to the front for. I think he went to the front at the end of the first lap, so he. He ran 400 in the bunch and then went to the front end of that very first lap. So he still had basically three more laps to run with him being a pacemaker for the whole field. And that shows you how good he is, that he only got beaten by one guy, almost being a pacemaker for that guy. And so I think that was. That was a really big mistake. He needed to run a championship race where he should have been sitting and conserving and then just his normal blast. That's what's worked for him in the past. And trying a different tactic. That's the reason why I came up with, well, you must be trying to run for a time here, because why else would you put yourself on the front like that and superiorly confident that you can just run them off their legs even though you're breaking the wind for three laps, maybe do it two laps out. But I think it was a little bit. Taking the piss a bit with three laps out.

It's a lot of speculation here, but if he was sick, it does also you ask the question, okay, well, what happened in your preparation? You could just be really unlucky, which there's still a lot of COVID going around Europe and the world, and I think there's a new variant kind of coming out. So, you know, you can just be really unlucky, or you might look at your preparation. Go for these pro athletes. They are on the border. Their bodies are on the absolute limit. Their immune systems are on the absolute limit because they're going so hard. So in his preparation, do you do something different? They push him a little bit too far coming into this. And again, just questioning here, but one point I really want to make is that we focused on Jakob, this whole thing, but Josh Clear's performance was unbelievable, and he deserves so much credit, especially because he's been up at that pointy end a lot. And he asked himself, and he's been really candid in interviews about what he's changed. And he, he asked himself this question. And we ask all these athletes these questions when you come against someone like Pogger Chow, Inger Brittson that just look unbeatable. What are you thinking? What are you doing just to yourself to say, how can I get close to them? And we've asked athletes on this podcast, what are you doing to. To see if you can match that? And he asked himself that question and he identified his big weakness. Where he could improve was nutrition. And he spent the last year absolutely honing in his nutrition. He was already a lean athlete, but he lost an extra, I don't know, something like two or three or four kilos, which is a lot of weight for an elite lean runner. And he got a nutritionist and he cut out comfort foods. He liked his life, you know, famously Chipotle burrito, which doesn't seem that unhealthy. He cut that out of his diet. And so you can see he's done all these things to give himself the absolute best chance of beating the unbeatable guy. And he's done it. So full credit to him. That's really an exceptional run.

Yeah. And we're talking about mistakes people make. He did very little wrong. He ran a brilliant race and, and, oh, you know, he was pretty pumped at the end and, you know, why wouldn't you be? You've just been beaten. A guy who seemingly was invincible.

Unreal. So now we want to talk about that couple of the Aussies. So the, the hall battle, which, which happens every single championships. And it's not, it's not a real battle. It's, you know, they're, they're great teammates and Australian friends, but they're both competing at the very pointy end. And unfortunately, Lindenhall didn't make it to the final and Jess Hull did. And they both kind of had slightly different tactics, which, again, we want to talk about, you know, some mistakes that you can make. And I love the way Lyndon runs. And she always, she, she backs herself to be able to hold a strong pace, but I think she probably made a mistake in her semi final. The pace was quite slow. She was kind of caught out the back. And she probably did a combination of things at the. From our perspective, where she really surged. And we'll talk about the problem with surging really surged midway through the race to get herself from the back to the front, which is a big Effort on the legs. She did it. She had to run four lanes wide because it was so bunched up. And then she did it at the worst time, which was, you know, around the bend, and she put herself in the front and tried to run the last 700 on the front. And then by the last 200, 300, she just got absolutely swallowed up and had no legs. And for these athletes, you know, the pace can feel so much slower than what they're used to because it's. It's 4 or 2 or 4 or 3 pace compared to 357. But it's not that far off. And those surges will kill your legs. And that really hurt her and burned her. Whereas I think, you know, you identified Jess Hull at a bit of a different tactic and that worked really well for her and served her well.

Burning matches is something we talk about a lot. And what you described is exactly what she did. And you need to not do that to give yourself the best chance. And if you're going to do that, it has to be with supreme confidence because you are going to suffer a huge consequence if it backfires. And the consequence for her was she was really almost come to a standstill and the field just went straight past her. And I think that in itself is a hu. Huge mistake and one she hopefully doesn't make again. But you need to a get yourself in better position earlier so you don't have to be running from the back to the front if you think that the pace is wrong. So be more aggressive earlier in the race to get the position you want, and that's part of championship racing and not being pushed around by other elite athletes who probably better runners than you, and not respecting them like that. You need to say, I deserve to be here. I'm an elite race runner. I'm taking this spot third back from the front. And you know, just because Inger Britzen's the world champion, the not the world champion, the Olympic champion at this event, he hasn't won the world champion at 1500. But. But, you know, just because he. He wants to go there doesn't mean that he has the right to go there. You have every right to be where you want to be. If you're in that race. There is no tickets for the front seat or the back seat. You can be wherever you want to be. It's up to you to get yourself in the best position, to be able to execute the way you want to. If you find yourself at the back, that's a hard place to. If there's 12 meters between first and last. Are you giving the best runners in the world 12 meters head start and expecting to beat them? That's a supremely confident athlete in my opinion. So don't put yourself in that position. And we've talked about this before as an older athlete riding in a bunch. If we come to a hill and I'm riding against 30 year olds and I'm, you know, 60, I'm not using the age thing but obviously there's a lot more talent than I've got now in a younger guy who's been coached very well. I need to be at the front of the bunch so that by the time I get to the top of the hill, I'm at the back of the bunch instead of starting at the back of the bunch at the top of the hill, I'm 100 meters off the back of the bunch. So that's being using a smart tactic to make sure that you maintain contact with the group. And this is the same in these championship races. You need to think more clearly about your positioning in your event and that goes to bike riding as well and to any event that you're thinking about being successful at. It's not all about who's the fastest or the strongest. It's who's actually the best thinker and has the ability to back that up with their speed. I think these are the mistakes that the people need to pay more attention to. Is giving yourself a better chance to get the result you want by positioning yourself better.

Everything you're saying, it can always be applied to the age group which is why we use these examples and in terms of adapting your race plan. Jess Hull two really clear examples and she made the final. She came seventh, had a great run. In the Diamond League where Faith Gipjon ran the 1500 meter world record. She broke 350. It was one of the most incredible races in that race. Two girls kind of went with her for as long as they could. Laura Muir and Jess Hull. And Jess Hull ended up run record by. It was a Diamond League race and she just went for it and guts it out with a huge chance of blowing up. But she had a really good day and ran an unbelievable time. But she came out and said for the world champs that she can't do that because she's going to risk blowing up her legs. Kip Yagon is so good she has to conserve and not try and go with her. That's someone that's really thinking about how the race is going to unfold and knowing when to go for it. We're going to talk about this in terms of mistakes, when to go for it and when to risk it all and when to be more conservative and make sure that you don't risk blowing yourself up.

But also Jord, as a championship race, guess what? There's heats and semis and finals in a diamond league. There's one race, so the risk is less in a diamond league after running three, this is your third race so you don't have the same freshness to execute the way you know you would expect to do with a one off race for sure.

And last, last shout out for the World Champs is Faith Kip Yagon, who has just basically capped off one of the most historic seasons ever in athletics where she ran 349 for the 1500. She ran four or seven for the mile, breaking the mile world record by four to four and a half or five seconds, which is two of the most insane races you'll ever see. And I love the commentator of the World Athletics said that thinks she's the best 1500 meter or mall athlete of all time, regardless of gender. He said, I know that's a big call, but I totally agree. Just the performances she's throwing out are just absolutely insane. And so she won world champs at 1500 as as comfortably as you'd like. She did what Jakob couldn't. And then the 5,000 is actually on later today, so we can't talk about it yet, but it'll be interesting to see if she does the double. The 5,000 men is on tomorrow so we'll see if Jakob actually can come back and win gold in that. But let's move on to the key mistakes we wanted to point out. There's five kind of key mistakes here. I'm going to keep tongueing into it to professional examples, but the first one we won't spend too on this one because we've absolutely flogged this as much as possible. But it's just classic just going out too hard and it's just I will say that we receive so many messages from listeners now which we absolutely love either via email or via Instagram or anything where listeners say that they love the podcast, they love listening to our tactics and they go out slow. They make sure that the the first K of their run in the triathlon or the first half of their bike is slowest and they just have the best time because they do exactly what we say will happen and they'll fly through the pack in the second half of the race. And I think hopefully due to the podcast, the whole everyone racing will start to do that, then everyone will be quite considered at the start. Everyone will be flying home together. That's, that would be the dream for us. But it's, it can't make the mistake. It's just, it's just the biggest rookie area that will just blow up your race.

Yeah, it's great because I just had a discussion this afternoon with one of our athletes who is a, is a triathlete and he's talking about his race plan for his event that happens to be on tomorrow locally, a duathlon. And he happened to do a CrossFit event which has nothing to do with triathlon. It's just so left field. And he said, you wouldn't believe it. I was against a lot of 20 year olds. He's, you know, 30, 40, won't give his age away but, but he's older than these guys and, and at the start, and I think it was, you know, CrossFit is burpees and some running and some chin ups and some. There's just so many.

Yeah, a lot of high rep stuff.

Hard activities with balls and Anyway he applied around here. Yeah, he applied the same strategy. These guys just took off, these young guys just. And he felt almost like being left behind and he was thinking, oh, what am I in for here? These guys are just unbelie quick. And then halfway through the event they're all slowing down and he's still pacing himself and he's now passing half of them. And it was just another classic example of someone who's gone into an event and had the right strategy and ended up right at the pointy end of the race, at the end of the event. And it doesn't matter where you are in the first 10 minutes of a 15 minute race, it matters where you are at the end of the 15 minute race or if it's an hour race or a two minute race. You know, we've talked about that in athletics with, you know, an 800 with a guy could start 10 meters behind the pack who are all running together and still end up winning the race because he's run an even race and everybody else has blown themselves up that many examples. And the one point I want to ram home is it's more fun to come home stronger. And you know, you still get kudos from people who have blown up saying oh, far out go whatever your name is. That's, that's a great effort. And they're saying to themselves, why didn't I do that. But it is so obvious that that mindset and method methodology of actually executing is going to get a better outco. There are exceptions all the time, but those exceptions are in the minority.

Nothing makes us happier than getting a message where someone says that they employed the race tactics and they had the most enjoyable race of their life. So if you do it, let us know how it goes and send it through. And the same thing, our travel athletes have the same feedback when they, when they do it as well. Mistake number two, we speak about this bit, but we really want to talk specifically what the mistakes are here. And that's not having a race plan. But it's not just about not having a race plan. It's identifying every single part of the race that you need to plan. But it also needs to really suit your current fitness, your form, what you've tested at, what numbers you have. Plus, I think I really want you to explore this. Plus kind of the feeling you have coming into the race, and that's a really important point that I think people might misinterpret from us, is that we're not. The race plan isn't just data driven, it's combined with kind of how you're feeling on the day.

Yeah, look, I was on a podcast recently with Taryn talking around this topic, basing your plan around your feelings. And you might have recently tested and your form might be really good, your test testing's at the top of its range, your current fitness is just where you want it to be. But you wake up on race day and you don't have that, that feeling. So the mistake is not deviating from your plan, not being flexible. So the minute you try to template your plan against what you feel, that'll be the big mistake you make on that day. So how do you work that out? Well, you've got to actually listen and feel what's happening against the data you're seeing. And that is the correct way to go about it. You know, keep referring to what the data's telling you by you understanding how I'm feeling right at this minute. Against this. If you're trying to run 60 second laps on an athletics track because that's what you know you can do to get the result you want. And 60 seconds feels like 40 second laps. Well, obviously that's unsustainable, so change it after the first lap. Don't just say I'm meant to be running, you know, two 60 second laps to do a two minute 800 and you run the second one in 210. You know, you need needed to have adjusted that at the 200 meter mark rather than the 400 meter mark. So they're examples of understanding how your feeling is compared to what you're supposed to be doing in your race plan. And that is the difference to not making that mistake of just totally trusting the race plan, which is accurate according to what you should be doing on current form and fitness and testing. But it doesn't relate to the feeling you have on that day. You could have had a bad night's sleep. You could have had some things go wrong with the day before or the, or the peaking period that you're coming into to the event for. So you've got to actually be all the time adjusting things according to your current feeling.

Ideally, you know, you have the best preparation and taper possible. But the nature of being an age grouper is you're probably working the whole week leading up to the race. On the weekend you might have a family or social event on the night before the race where it's unavoidable. It might be a family member's birthday or something where you have to stay out until 11 o' clock or midnight, you get a poor sleep. Or if you've got young kids, they could keep you up all night but before the race. And you get to race morning and you're in a totally different position to what you anticipated. And so this is where that's really important to a lot of people can misinterpret how strict we are on race plans for racing robotically and that is just absolutely not what we're saying. And I guess one more point we want to make is we used Jakob's example of if he's sick, he should have adjusted. But where we talk a lot about adjusting down, you know, if you're not feeling good, you've got to be more conservative. But we really want to hammer this point home as well. You can adjust up and it might be rare occasion where people can adjust up. But you know, if Your plan is 6 to 200 watts and getting halfway into the race and you're feel really good still, you don't, you don't want to do this in the first 10 minutes because you're always going to feel a little bit fresher, but you're getting halfway to 3/4 through and you can ride 2 or 5, 10 watts and you do feel really good still. And it's okay to adjust up. It's your time to race, it's your time to give your best performance and A better performance than what your data might have said.

In every race situation that we put ourselves in, push ourselves to our limit. And I don't mean in a really haphazard way, I mean in a controlled way. And find out where your level currently is and then you will get enormous confidence. From the example one of girls were coaching a half marathon that she was preparing for a month or so ago and I was suggesting that her 2:06 PB she could do a 2:02, 2 hour 2. I could hear in her tone that was not something that she believed. And I was trying to get across that I wouldn't be telling her that if I didn't think she could do it. According to the form she's in. And she came out and ran just over two hours and she beat her predicted time by two minutes and her previous time by six minutes. And the confidence she got from after that was. It was overwhelming in the conversation had after the event. We've gone forward four weeks and there's another race coming up tomorrow, an Olympic distance race. I've had the same conversation with her and I've said to her, this is a pace I think you can ride and run at. And she had that same tone of I'm not sure about that, I don't think I can do that. And my answer was, you need to back yourself a little bit more and trust in your training and your form. And if tomorrow you don't feel that, then fine, adjust down. But I want you to adjust up and use your experience from the previous race where you actually smashed the predicted time we were setting for you and have the freedom and the relaxed mindset that I'm going to go for it when it counts. It doesn't count in training. It's important to do the training, but it counts more when you've put a race number on. That's actually what we're trying to achieve, is do our personal best when it counts. And that's the day that we line up for our race. And whether it's an A race or B race or a C race, we're still trying to test our boundaries so that the next race where it gets closer to the one that's more important, we have a better understanding and have confidence in our ability that we can actually hit the targets that you've set for yourself or the coaches. And you have.

Yeah, that's an absolutely brilliant example. And I think the term you use is just the freedom to explore. And we go back to just not being robotic athletes. But you really want athletes to have that sense that they can really explore their limits and believe themselves that they can do it. So it's this constant paradox and it's this constant kind of. We're saying two conflicting things. Be conservative, study your numbers, study your plan, but believe in yourself that you've done the training, you've done the work, and you can push yourself a bit and you've probably got a little bit more in you than maybe you're anticipating, but don't blow yourself at the start. So it's all these things combined, but this is what we're talking about and why many athletes, you can see it's easy to make these mistakes.

You use the analogy. And I think about when I was first trying to learn how on a trampoline to do a somersault, and you just got no confidence that you're going to land properly on your feet. You know, you're bouncing. And then you could land on your back, you could land on your neck. And then slowly but surely you get to with assistance, the confidence that there's the two assistants who are holding you. If you've ever tried to do trampoline somersaults, you need some spotters either side so that you get the feeling. And then you do it by yourself. Slowly, they let go less pressure on you, and you do it by yourself. Yourself. And then once you've done it once, there's no stopping you. You can do that forever. That's an example of you gaining confidence in something you think is unachievable early. But because you're actually going through the right mythology to get the outcome you gain confidence from. You've done it once, now I can do that forever. And that's the way you should be thinking about every time you do do something that's an improvement. Well, I've hit that target now. What else can I do? What's next for me?

Mistake number three. And we spoke about this with the athletics example, but making the mistake I've seen spiking, surging, whatever name you want to call it, or basically just going too far above that ideal racing zone you should be in. And we spoke about this on actually our case study episode last week. But, you know, remind the listener, why is that such a big mistake?

It's only going to end in tears. And. And there are examples where there is exceptions. And that's what we want to. We just talked about that. Pushing the boundaries, but burning a match or spiking is. There's so many ways you can describe it going Outside the zones too many times has consequences. And if you don't understand those consequences consequences, then you can do those spikes and burn matches 8, 10 times and then get to the pointy end of the race where it counts and you've got nothing left to give and you don't get the result you want and you're perplexed. And it would be a good athlete or a coach or both together working backwards, finding out, well, what actually happened in the race, why wasn't I able to finish the way I wanted to. And oftentimes you'll find it's because you went above the ranges that you should have at the times when where you shouldn't have. And you know the time trial examples we had a couple of podcasts ago, maybe half a dozen podcasts about how to time trial well and staying in your zones. They're the things that we're talking about. But you know, if you're going to burn a lot of matches, you're going to have a poor outcome. If you, if you risk a few matches, then you can still come back from that. If your fitness level is at such a great point and the age grouper has less of an opportunity than the professional athlete, because the professionals have got such an enormous fitness space, they can make bigger mistakes and get away with it. The age grouper and the point we're trying to get across here, you can't do that because you might not have the level of fitness compared to a pro who can make that mistake and come back from it. And I know the good athletes that I've got in our trivelo coaching business compared to the newer athletes who don't have that fitness base, they can't afford to do these spikes and burn matches as much as the guys who are really honed in their fitness is through the roof. We've got examples of those guys who can make horrendous mistakes and recover and still get an outcome. They will be better off not doing that. And because they're so fit, they get away with it. And you should act like you're not fit and conserve and only do the spikes or the surges or go above your zones when it matters most. And that's what you should be thinking about as an age grouper, to absolutely conserve as if you're a 60 year old veteran against 20 year olds and let them do all the burning and the pace setting and then you pounce like a snake, you know, just waiting in the grass to just when everybody's on their knees and that's the art of really getting rid of these mistakes, of surging, spiking, burning matches.

Using the athletics example Again, you know, 800 and 1500s are such erratic races. They're so tight with packs and there's so many athletes that are surging back and forth because their positioning is so key. And I'm always watching the pack and I'm always watching who's spiky or not. And then I really aim to watch them in the last 150 and see how they're going. And it's so often that they're the ones that are fading and these are the elite runners. You know, they can run these times, they can, can run this pace, but these tiny surges just absolutely burn them. And a really key example was Mo Kitta, the Spanish athlete, absolute gun. Did not make the final of 1500. He's top five 15 runner in the world consistently. He's having most unbelievable few seasons of his life. And he did a crazy big surge halfway through the race because he was not happy with his position. And I think he was so confident in his ability that he could do it. I saw that surge and I thought, gee, that was interesting from him. But I know he's a good runner. Didn't make the final, had nothing left in the last 100. That's just another key example. And we again we'll talk about Jakob, but he's someone that's very, very good at doing the oppos. Whenever there's a gap to be closed or a position to be made, you will never see him surge it to close it down. He will always patiently just keep his pace or slightly increase it to get there. You know, he's never, he's never doing these big spikes. And in most races, apart from the final, in most races that serves him so well, you know, there might be a 3 meter gap to close down and you see a lot of other athletes do that quick 10 or 15 meter sprint to close that gap and that can be a really bad mistake. They might not pay for it, but again we apply it to the age grouper, you know, the less experienced you are and if you're not a world class athlete, it's only going to hurt you more.

If you got away from athletics and looked at bike racing, you know, it is important to bridge gaps quickly so that you're not left in the wind and they're examples of that. That's when you need to burn a match. But you've put yourself in that position unfortunately to start with. So it's your poor positioning that's caused you to actually have to burn a match to catch up to get back into the draft. So there is a lot of examples that the opposite seem important. But if you, if you have to keep doing that eight, 10 times in a race, the eighth or ninth times, the time when you can't bridge the gap and you're absolutely dropped from the pal peloton and that's your race over. So, so yeah, there's examples both good and bad.

And let's look at the triathlon example as well. And not exclusive to triathlon. This also is a case for time trialing cycling, but most so common in triathlons and time trials. There's a U turn, you know, it's a full on U turn to do. And what do we see? We, we look at the power data from so many athletes and the spike out of there is just insane. And when you have to do a u turn six, eight, maybe 12 times in a race, potentially those spikes will absolutely hurt you. And it's this balance. So if you want to get your bike back up to speed especially fast as possible, but you can't do it by going too far out of those zones.

Yeah, and look, I was looking at one of the athletes, we were talking about their race strategy for the race that was coming up and I think we added up there was 18 turns and if you push 500 watts every time you come out of a turn and your average power for that day is 200, you know you're trying to get your bike speed up quickly so you can get back to your race pace which might be 200 watts at 40Ks an hour. And if you're coming out of the corner at 500 watts 18 times, that's a lot of matches you're burning. So eventually it's going to affect the end of your bike rate ride in the triathlon and then your run is going to be totally the one that's going to cop the brunt of that tactic that you've used instead of what's the answer? Don't come out of the corner, out of the seat smashing big power just to get your bike up to speed quickly. We talk about seconds here and there, but in this, in the scheme of a half ironman or an Ironman, where it's over potentially 10 to 15 hours or half Ironman 4 to 7 hours, saving 15 seconds on 15 corners is not the difference between your successful day or not. It's actually going to be detrimental to your, to your successful day. So be more measured and be more even and this will reduce the potential for you blowing up and having a piano on your back towards the end of the event.

So the mistakes we've spoken about are quite advanced kind of race tactics stuff. It's really in depth stuff about power, but we don't want to skip over kind of just some very complex, common basic racing mistakes that we want to make sure people are avoiding. And we're going to umbrella this next kind of bit as just overall not practicing race conditions. So there are so many things to learn in racing that you need to be continuously putting yourself in similar conditions to race day before your big race so that you're not having to learn these mistakes on race day. And they come down to really basic things like how do you warm up properly on race day? What's your warm up routine? Have you practiced transitions in triathlon? So have you practiced getting out of the water, taking your wetsuit off really quickly, chucking your helmet and everything on that you need to in T1, getting on your B, putting your bike shoes on or doing a fly start Again, getting off for T2? Have you practiced unclipping in and out of the bike? Have you practiced drinking water on the bike? Have you practiced your race day equipment? There's just all these basic mistakes that we keep wanting to list through and I'll keep listing them and then dad, I'll get you to just kind of comment on the race conditions part of it. But there's practicing nutrition, which we speak about a lot. But it's such a mistake to get to race day without having to practice eating and drinking in a race before you want to practice race day, the race day distance that you're going to do. So you're used to the actual feeling that you'll get at the end of a distance. And we speak about this a lot with half marathons and marathons and endurance rides. You can't do a six hour bike ride in an Ironman if you've only ever done three hours before. It's your longest race practice the technicality stuff. So cornering on a bike, doing U turns on a bike, are you comfortable doing that? Do you know how to roll turns in a bike race? Have you practiced sitting in? Have you practiced drafting? Have you practiced drinking while on the run? Because a lot of people in their run sessions might not. They might eat a little bit, but they might not, might not practice taking in liquid. And so it can be a lot when you're in a triathlon, running past the table and trying to grab a drink before. So all these little things are the kind of race conditions that you need to practice. And I think we umbrella it as just practicing race conditions because you need to have experienced all before actual race day. Is that right?

Yeah, but there's a whole lot you've covered there. I want to just pick on some of the pros and show the examples of the mistakes they're making. I saw at the PTO one of the male triathletes run out of transition with his wetsuit shorts still on.

Not just any athlete, it was the greatest triathlete of all time.

Yeah. And so the official said, you still got your wetsuit pants on. So that's just a simple mistake. You know, that can happen to anybody. So if it can happen to a pro, it can happen to anybody. And he actually.

Oh, sorry. He just. He came out and said it was. He'd got it, it was a new suit and he'd gotten it on race day. So that was a classic. He hadn't practiced in that suit before, so he was really struggling to get it off in transition. Then he just forgot about it. So it proves the exact point we're talking about.

And then I heard someone say to Christian Blumenfeld, why are you getting cramp in these rides? In these races, the PTO races, you got off the bike and instantly had cramped. And it happened last year at the USPTO Open and it happened this year at the same race. Yeah, yeah, it was the same race. Yeah, exactly. And he said, because I've been riding my road bike a fair bit, I don't think I have been practicing in the right position. And I was shocked to hear that he'd not actually been on his time trial bike. He'd been riding his road bike. I would be so angry at my triathletes if I heard that they were riding their road bike ahead of their time trial bike for training sessions because they are not the same position. You are completely sitting in a different position. So no wonder he got cramped when he stepped off the bike because his body was adapting to the road bike position. And yes, if you're riding both bikes, you should be able to adapt. But it is very specific, isn't it? This is a world class elite athlete getting cramped because he's practiced very little on his time trial.

It brings up a really interesting point. I didn't think we were going to go this direction, but it is a really good example. I don't even know why he's doing pto. Races and half Ironmans because Paris Olympics is his absolute goal. He wants to win gold again. And the reason I think he's on his road bike so much is because he's in full Olympic distance training mode. But that begs the question, why is he bothering? He's flying around the world everywhere. He's doing Olympic distance stuff and then he's doing 70.3s. He's not doing that well at the Olympic distance. He keeps coming out of the top five, coming eighth or ninth or 10th. And once again, we're not going to judge him now. We'll judge him on his form at Paris. We're not going to make that mistake of saying he's off the mark now, but he's, he is not performing well. So I wonder if the training plan, they're just trying to keep that base up because I think that's really important. But he did the Paris test event, which is the test Olympic event, flew to Singapore, did a PTO race and won the Singapore within 24 hours. Which just seems, seems insanity to me. But maybe they have their reasons. But yeah, again, I guess it comes back to race specificity. We would not want our athletes to be jumping around from race to race. You know, we want them practicing the race specificity that the A races in.

Well, Jordan, he just loves competing. That's pretty obvious to me. He absolutely can't get enough of competing and funnily enough doing some, some of this short hard stuff. Intensity is really helping his, his, you know, his PTO races which are 100k, which is close to a half Ironman distance and he's doing really well at that. And don't forget he's come down from Ironman training. So he's stepping down from Ironman training to 70.3 or PTO events and at the same time he's really honing in on his, his Olympic, Olympic distance training. But that TR helping him perform well in those other events which is fantastic because he got such a huge base. So he is one of those freaks who can do pretty much any event from Olympic or he's proven it, you know, all the way through to Ironman. So, so that's not a great example for an everyday age, age group athlete. But it just does help you understand that doing some intensity will help you at some point in your longer races.

It will be really interesting. Just one more example. Taylor Knibb is just dominating 70.3 distances and she's stepping up and down between Olympic and 70 and she's in terrific form. Now you Know, she beat Ash Gentle at the PTO US Open. And Ash Gentle has almost looked unbeatable as well. She just, Tony have just won the Ironman 70.3 world champs overnight. But again, form, how will she go in Paris next year? And will this 70.3 work be unbelievable for her heading into Paris or does she need to step back down and really focus on that? It'll be really interesting to see how it unfolds because she is just looking. She's starting to look unbeatable as well. And we're using that term a lot. But as you said at the very start, no one is purely unbeatable.

So really, I think getting back to what we're talking about, the practicing race conditions and that was a little bit of a spin off, but they're examples of how you can, you can still do well in some events if you're still actually going through all of the requirements of the event, such as getting the nutrition right. And that is so important with, with any event. If you don't actually get the nutrition right, no matter how fit you are or how prepared you are or how many boxes you've ticked, you actually won't get the result you want. So talked about this so many times, but these are really key things to really hone in on the specifics and the, and the attention to detail can accumulate to a lot of information. But if you do well, you will actually get a better result. And you know, I've often said that if you go out and do. I was actually talking about the World Championships race preparation to another guy who's competing at the age group worlds in Finland from. He's just gone from Australia and he's not got an opportunity to go over the bike course, which I think is a huge disadvantage. It's just that just traveling from Australia, didn't have enough time, hasn't got a car, so he can't actually see the course and hasn't been on an app like Full Gas to see it. So he's actually doing the race not knowing what the course looks like, except for what's fed to him from the course profile, which he's really studied. So we know where the hills are, but we haven't experienced them, we haven't seen them. And the point is, I was making to him was I think if you did this bike section tomorrow and then you went out a day later, you would even know you're tired, you would do it better the second time. And that's an example of, of course of being prepared for what the expectation is of the course. And that's attention to detail. Exactly.

Getting that right now, that's perfect. And we want to finish off with the last mistake. And it's a bit of a not so common one, but we really want to talk about this point. And we've listed five not so common mistakes, but kind of big mistakes or unusual mistakes. And that's because if we really went through every mistake you can make in a race, there would be a checklist of 50. And the only way you can really experience that is to go do races yourself, go do your triathlons and find out. Oh, wow. I didn't have the right shoelaces on my shoe for T2, and it took me a minute longer to tie my shoes up than the person next to me that had the triathlon shoelaces. All these little things can only come from race practice. But we really want to focus on some big things here that can really improve your race day. And the last one is talking about your mindset and not letting your mind beat you on race day, but also not letting the mistakes beat you either. And I think you really wanted to really hone in on this point about, I guess, age groupers. We think that we should never make mistakes. And it was the very first point we made at the podcast is that even the pros make mistakes. And yeah, I guess. What are your thoughts here? That you want to get through people's head and not letting the mistakes get you down and not letting the mistakes defeat you mentally?

Yes. It's such a big topic when we're trying to cram it in here, which is fine for the purpose of this particular podcast, but if you go into a race with the mindset that this, this is your limit, limitations are that these people I think are better than me, then those people you think are better than you will beat you because you're concentrating on the wrong thing. You need to be concentrating on your performance and not worried about who's in the event that you know potentially and typically is better than you imagine. If you're a 1500 meter runner and you're against Inger Britzen, you would be okay. People would be saying, that's okay to think like that because he is just too good. But we've seen two years in a row that he actually hasn't won the event. And so all those people in the race must get confidence from the knowing that everybody is beatable. And on any given day, if you've got the right mindset and execute your own performance, the way you want to do it. The outcome could be far different to what the expectation is on the day. We've seen Poga be expected to win the Tour de France. The first two Tours he won, people were saying he could win seven and he hasn't won one since. And the expectation is that he just comes out and does that. But you know, there's other people who are going to take that crown the minute you have a. An off day. And it could be a combination of breaking your wrist or doing too much work in spring instead of preparing for the tour. There could be a whole lot of reasons, but the mindset is that if you go into these events thinking that you have limitations, you will bear fruition. You will put limitations on yourself and not perform with that freedom we talked about and risking things in a really positive way, not in a haphazard way. That mindset will allow you to almost do whatever you want. Thirty years ago I was doing a camp and as an assistant PE teacher down in one of the country towns near where we live in Gippsland. And it was a primary school and it was a one week camp. And on one of the nights we were in the local hall and the hall went on fire with the open fire. It was freezing, it was winter. The open fire in the hall caught the hall on fire and we got all the kids out, got all the important things out and there was a piano there and this other guy and I decided the piano was important. We'll try and get this piano out. It was a huge piano and both of us lifted it up, took it outside and there was no damage really. The fire department came and we could have left the piano in there in hindsight anyway, when we decided to put everything back, the chairs and, and the piano, the two of us tried to lift the piano and we couldn't pick it up. Everybody looked and said you had help to, to bring this piano out. We said no, we did it. So it took, it took four or five of us to put it back. That's, that's the mindset that I'm talking about, of having limitations on yourself in certain circumstances, situations that you find you will have a flight or fight response, you will either stand up to the occasion or you will run away from the occas. You want to have that mindset of no matter what I'm challenged with, I believe in myself and I can do whatever I want to do and have a crack at it. And it may not always turn out the best way, but at least if you Start with that open mindset with no limitations and not preventing yourself from being restricted by that, then you will more than likely have a better outcome. We're not trying to say to you to set expectations that are unrealistic. That's not what we're saying here. We're saying that to stop yourself from being restricted by your own feelings of inadequacy, you've got a lot of things.

To compete against on race day. You don't want your mind to be one of them. You know, you want your mind to be the strong part. To say that this, this is the part of me that's going to be the strongest. No matter what is thrown at me, I'm going to make sure my mindset is the toughest thing here. And you can have a really good race and make mistakes. It happens all the time. Jan Frodeno just made that key mistake in T1 and, and he had to slow down and take his wetsuit off again. And that could have ruined his race. You know, for a lot of people, they would crumble after that and just say things like, it's not my day, I just don't have it today. And you got to get that kind of self talk out of you and let your mind be the strongest thing. And I think a really cool example is Lionel Sanders. I think he embodies this perfectly because his motto is no limits. And he is someone that has made more mistakes than almost any triathlete we see. And he's so open about it, he's so vulnerable about it. He turns up to race after race and something's gone wrong for him and he still embodies this no limits thing. And no matter how many poor performances he has, it's no limits is not about him saying that he's always going to perform the best or he's always going to be the best of his game. No limits for him is saying he's not going to let his mind be the thing that stops him. Other challenges will come up, he has to work through them. But for him, mentally, he's going to be as strong as possible. And that's why no matter how bad a race he has, you almost never see him lose a sprint finish. And so I just love that embodiment.

Yeah. And I can think of many examples, like going back, you know, 50 years when there was a 1500 meter race at Olympic Park, I think, and John Landy, the famous John Landy and Ron Clark. They're their names that not a lot of listeners would remember because they're just too young for that. But you know, we're talking about the best 1500 meter runners in the world at the time. And one of the runners fell over, one of the other runners went back, picked him up and the field had got 20, 30 meters away. And then he chased the back down, passed them all and won the race. And you know, that's an example of a mindset that's totally concentrated on the goal. It was brilliant that he stopped and helped another person who he thought was unfairly dealt to fall over. But, but his mindset was, my race isn't done. I can still, I can still get something out of this. And he did. And these are examples of, of, you know, you just have these roadblocks put in front of you and that's all they are. And for every roadblock, there's another, another way to get, to navigate around it. You just got to find it. And that's where your mind has to be super strong. Things can happen. You get a flat tire, your chain drops off the back wheel hits a rock and gets buckled. The power meter's not working, so you've got no data. Your bike computer doesn't work, the batteries are flat, your gears don't change, you've only got your running shoes come undone. Thousands of things can happen to you. It's how you deal with that is the measure of you as a performer. And if you can think your way through these, these are a mental challenge and you will feel so much better at the end of that race without chucking the towel in and going, ah, it wasn't my day. You know, this is what happened to me. Woe is me, this is what happened to me. And I've an excuse now for why I didn't perform well. I love the people who have all sorts of things happen to them. Get up, keep going, don't complain and still get an outcome. You know, they limit their losses and get an outcome and live to fight another day.

Yeah, there's no, there's just no doubt you'll get challenged. You're going to have some really tough parts. You might get to the second half of the bike and you're just really not feeling it. It's in those moments that like really define your race and define your mindset. And in the back end of the run, you know, you've still got some 6k to go or something and it's, you're hurting as much as possible and your body's screaming at you just to slow down and you know, it's your. That's when you're challenged the most for you to get through it. And you never regret, you know, those races where stuff can go wrong, that's out of your control, but as long as you give your best effort, it's frustrating at the end, but you have no regrets, which is great. And I've definitely had races where I've done the opposite, where my mindset was the thing that let me down. I just gave in. You know, when it was really hurting, I just slowed down fractionally. It's the worst feeling at the end of the race. You're so angry at yourself, you regret it. Yeah. You know, of course it's hard at the time. That's the hardest part. You do all this training that hardest part, hard is when it's hurting the most. And if you can get through that, you come out of it so, so proud of yourself and so strong. And, yeah, that's, that's the ideal way to race because then the. The outcome itself doesn't really matter. You're just so proud of the way you raced. And that's a better way to go about it, I think.

And you want that to be a habit, George. You don't want the habit of chucking your towel in, because that becomes a habit as well. And sometimes you'll be more proud of the fact that you had had adversity and you overcome it. You didn't win the race, but you overcome the adversity to get. To get an outcome out of it. And you're super proud of that, and so you should be, because things were, you know, not going your way, but you, you stayed strong, stayed steady and, and worked it out. And that, to me, is a win for sure.

That's it for this episode. We hope you've enjoyed the five worst racing mistakes and how to avoid them, in our opinion. And we'll see you on the next episode. Sam.