Asked this on the podcast but you never know if it’ll get read out, they’re busy lads and lasses.
Its 3 weeks since my one and only race this year, Outlaw X 70.3.
The weather was awful, swim got cut to 750m because of the air temperature being so low (although the only pleasant bit was the last 200m). The wind was like nothing I had road in on my TT bike, you’d go past a gap in a hedge and be having all on to stayy on the correct side of the road. About 15 miles into the bike my ankle started to feel sore, by mile 30 I had convinced myself that it was hurting too much and I didn’t want to get properly injured and pulled off the course waiting for the sweeper bus.
Since then I have had a hard time dealing with the race, I am left with doubts about whether I should have kept going, whether I just found a decent sounding excuse and went with it.
If you have had a poor A race can you share your pearls of wisdom in how you got over it? Thanks
I had my 1st DNF at IM Vichy last year, the heat and hills got the better of me.
It took quite a while to get over it.
I went through all the emotions from I am never racing again through to I am going to do everything I can to smash this race next time.
I managed to get my head sorted and settle at the latter.
Now I have looked at my training and totally rebuilt my approach.
I once again have my enthusiasm back. And I’m determined to smash it next yesr
I had 2 poor IMs last year, first one a mechanical on the bike put a stop to my day, second one I was ill all day, and just fell apart - I had to walk pretty much the entire marathon (there was no way I was DNF in 2 IMs within months)
Lost all motivation for training and took a good number of months away from it. 12 months later and due to Covid no races later, I’m still lacking any focus and can’t get back into a consistent schedule.
Having put so much into my training for the year and I had set myself goals to improve on previous times it left me massively flat to have 2 poor races.
The weekend of that race we had a TT cancelled so maybe it shouldn’t have happened…anyhow you did nothing wrong, the weather was awful, you picked up an injury which can happen to any of us especially in poor weather. Yes, it’s gutting when with all the Covid situation your main race doesn’t work but it wasn’t within your control - certainly not worth getting injured for…just add it to the list of crap things that have happened this year ( I took the wrong exit on a RB in a 25m TT did a U turn and finished 2 secs outside my pb on a course I KNOW! …that was gutting and it was my own fault!)…it will always happen when you are a competitive athlete - but remember we do this for fun - don’t beat yourself up about it and make a vow to smash it next year! Good luck!
These things can happen to anyone!!! No reason to be too down on yourself. Like the Scott/sram mtb team said recently, “there’s no losing, there’s winning, and then there’s learning!” So just use it as motivation to train harder, get faster, and move on to the next goal or event! Keep your head up!
…that was gutting and it was my own fault!)…it will always happen when you are a competitive athlete - but remember we do this for fun - don’t beat yourself up about it and make a vow to smash it next year! Good luck!