Get into the groove

No, this is not a reference to the Material Girl.

The inspiration for this article came from more than a few conversations that I have had recently with people expecting everything in a race to go smoothly and were surprised that it did not.

We all know the phrase “practice makes perfect” so it stands to reason this also applies to racing.  No matter how many race pace runs or time trials you do, there is nothing quite like race day to change things around and throw curve balls your way.  The more races you do, the better you get at dealing with fast balls, curve balls, knuckle balls and screw balls.

The perfect race is very rare, and this applies especially to long races where the longer you out there, the more things can go wrong, and the consequences of not addressing them are amplified.

What is not so rare is an okay first race where you might feel you underperformed a little, a poor second race where you tried to over-correct your underperformance of the first one, a pretty good third race, and finally, a great fourth one.

Naturally, the learning curve for each of us is different.  Not coincidentally, I make the same mistakes 3-4 times before I learn my lesson (just making sure it’s not a fluke, one way or the other—yeah, yeah, that’s it that’s why I do it).  These learning experiences start with your first races, but they also re-start with your first race of every season.  The more seasons you go through, the shorter the curve so it takes fewer and fewer tries to get things right each new year.

In my opinion, a reasonably good range of race experience would constitute 30 races of varying distances and courses.  This will give you very good range of experience with course profiles, logistics, and quality.  Honestly, less than that and as another saying goes, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”  Certainly, those that have less than 15 races under their belt still have a lot of experiences ahead of them.  Those with less than 10 are still newbies as far as I’m concerned.

The 5k repeats at race pace I have assigned the group will help to limit the costly mistakes but race day nerves almost always add a new element of uncertainty.

My main point of this article is that you should not expect great races all the time.  Do things right and try for them, but don’t expect them and definitely do not be disappointed when you do not have one.  Learn from them and don’t make the same mistake the next time.