In this article, we are looking at some tips on coping with a DNF or other bad race results.
So, it’s coming to the end of the season, and you’ve done all your races. Your A races didn’t go as planned; you struggled towards the end, you had a nightmare and DNF’d or even worse, DNS’d. It’s shit! But, you can come back from it, and you can set yourself up well for next season. I was supposed to have a great race at Challenge Roth in 2015, and it all went wrong. I ended up pulling out in the transition area after my worse ever bike.
This was a culmination of about 3 things. Firstly my training for that year had been all over the place due to changing jobs from shift work to a 9-5 (pretty much 7-8 with travel and bloody emails). The second issue was we had planned it as a family holiday, and in the week leading up to the race, we were packing in as much ‘stuff’ as possible, and thirdly I wasn’t prepared for the heat and humidity. Looking back now, it’s clear as day what I should have done to make sure I had a great race, and hopefully, with these tips below, you will be able to do the same. Here are our top tips for detailing with setbacks:
Look for the positives – Take a look at what went well in your race, your training and preparation. Think about the times things went well and develop your plan for next year. Use these positives as a basis for next years plan. This meant looking back over the year and seeing what stuff went really well for me, my swimming was consistent, and I feel it was the best block of training I’ve ever done in the pool. The bike was great for the first few months, I enjoyed all of my training, and there wasn’t a time I didn’t want to be doing what I was doing.
Look at what you have learned – Did you find out how deep you could actually go? Did you find out that you can’t cope in the cold or the heat? Failure is a chance to learn, and if we embrace this, we find that everything (within reason) becomes a positive learning experience. For me, I learned a lot that day. I learned that I’m not the best in the heat; I struggle to remember to drink even with alarms going off (I was too focused on riding). I’m bloody stubborn. In hindsight, I should have stopped at mile 30 on the bike; I actually stopped at the end of the bike in transition because I collapsed and was told by the doctor I could no longer continue. Make no mistake on this. I’m not proud of that fact; in fact, I was irresponsible and stupid and far too focussed on finishing at all costs. The biggest learning experience I had from this race was that my will and determination were not what let me down; my lack of preparation and underestimating the heat certainly was.
Look at what went wrong – Was it a nutritional issue, phycological, failure to prepare well or just damn bad luck! Whichever it was, really take a look at it and think about how you can change things for next time. I found the things that went wrong were mostly out of my control, and I had less time to train and really struggled to fit in the longer training sessions. I got more stressed, which compounded many struggles as I just ended up being tired.
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