Your Endurance Lifestyle. Redesigned.

Approaching race day after a serious training block can be one of the most stressful components of any endurance athlete’s season. Riding 112 hard? Heck no. Waiting to race hard? Heck YES. Over the course of the season, we get really good at doing stuff — not so good about thinking what we are doing. It’s so hard to fit all the training into our lives that we are used to rolling out of bed, getting a cup of coffee, and working out. Bang, you are off. But waiting for that gun @ the starting line, with 2,000 of our other Ironfriends bobbing all around us…well, that, my friends, is the DEFINITION of stress (and adrenaline, etc).

As I am entering the final week of my preparation for IMCDA, I am doing my best to make my life as easy as possible. Even though I have prepped for 11 other IM races, every build up is different. This go around there are a lot of new factors for me, inclulding:

* Shipping bike to race via TriBikeTransport
* Flying to race with two layovers
* Riding a new bike (hot P3C)
* Lowest possible training volume ever (new baby, crazy life stuff)
* Big work weekend @ race with Endurance Nation peeps

Tip #1: Make Lists
Using checklists is an easy way to have something else “do the worrying for you” as my colleague likes to say. Do yourself a favor and set aside 15′ mins to write down everything that occurs to you re: your race. Then put that list in a conspicuous place and return to it often, filling it in over the course of a week. Guaranteed by the end of the week you’ll probably have listed everything you need!

Tip #2: Plan To Travel
The recent additional restrictions to travel (bags, increased prices, etc) only serve to make an already stressful experience even more so. Figure out ahead of time what your options are re: connections, lodging, shipping and take care of them early on. I try to do all of this the same time that I register for the race…sure it’s a hellish 4 hours, but better spent then than when I have better stuff to do.

Tip #3: Start Early, Check Often
No more waiting until the last minute for me; I have so much going on this time that I knew I had to get the ball rolling earlier this go around. I have been plugging away at race week tasks for a good 3 weeks now…just to make sure I remember everything, or in my case, reduce the likelihood I leave something out.

Tip #4: Have a Race Week Plan in Place
Running the Endurance Nation show makes it pretty easy to have a set schedule for the week; of course not having the family there also reduces external commitments. It’s a really good idea to know what your top 3 to 5 items are to accomplish each day. It’s very easy to get

Don’t forget to have your plan for race day running in your head as well. All that “dead time” you have waiting in lines, in traffic, on the plane…those are all great times to put your mind thru the good (and bad) versions of race day. This is also a great activity to do at night as you lie in bed. I personally never get past mile 56 on the bike without falling asleep!!!

Tip #5: Make Sure You have Stuff to Relax With
For me, it’s some chill tunes and a few books. Laptop optional (usually stresses me out more than anything else). There will be plenty of external factors trying to get inside your head; best thing to do is put yourself in such a relaxed, open state of mind that even real issues are just something to be dealt with — not something that will destroy you.

Do you have any tips for race preparations? Please share them in the comments below!

Coach P

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