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Many of our Outlaw team athletes have recently competed at the opening Spartan Race Canada event (Toronto-Brimacombe) this past weekend as well as across the USA in Colorado and NYC at other OCR events. After an event is done we encourage all of our athletes to self reflect on their race(s) in order to work on continually improving. If you have raced recently, read below on our top tips to help ensure you continually improve as you prepare for your future events:
Race reports
Our biggest piece of advice to athletes is to write a race report. This doesn't have to be anything too formal on Word (although it can be), it can simply be something short and concise written on your phone. In this report you will want to take note of: -The race (venue, distance, date) -Positive takeaways (strengths, things you did well) -Negative takeaways (weaknesses, things that need improvement) -What you will do to attack these weaknesses in training The two most important things are the Positive and Negative takeaways. Here are some things you should aim to take note of:
Positive Takeaways
This section of your report should list the areas of positives/strengths from your race performance. Reflect on what you did well, what felt smooth, and where you made up time on your competition. This will also allow you to plan your race strategy in the future based on your obvious strengths. For example, if you passed people on heavy carries consider strategically surging/pushing at your next event on the carries. Perhaps you realized you were pulling away from your competition on the downhill sections of the course? In your next event make a note of how how many downhills there are as well as when/where the downhills are and aim to strategically push during these sections. This list of positives will also indicate certain areas where you may focus a bit less of your time in your upcoming training block. While it's always fun to practice the things we are good at and that come easy to us, if we want to build an overall more well rounded athlete, we need to attack our weaknesses in training!
Negative Takeaways
This section of your race report should highlight areas of weakness in your performance, race strategy, mental self-talk, and fueling/hydration strategy. In this section you will want to make note of areas you lost time to competitors or areas where you felt you "suffered" on course. For example, perhaps you noticed on every downhill that your competitors would pull away from you. Perhaps you felt you consistently struggled to transition back to running after heavy strength obstacles. In short, these are areas that if improved will save you time. Although we title this the "negative" section, it shouldn't be seen in a negative light. In fact, when these weaknesses are exposed we should look at it as a good thing. While it may be frustrating at first to realize we are weaker in one area, by being honest and highlighting these weaknesses we will be able to bring a more well rounded athlete to the next race's start line. *This process of improvement doesn't have to take weeks. For some athletes competing at back to back races (Saturday-Sunday), this process of improvement can happen over night. Sometimes areas of weakness are not entirely physical, but mental/technical errors. For example, perhaps you were less efficient on certain obstacles. This can sometimes be corrected overnight by mentally reviewing and visualizing our technique and considering a more efficient technique for the following day.
Final Takeaways
After certain events it's possible that your list of "negative" takeaways (or weaknesses) may be quite long. This is completely fine and completely normal! Although it can be frustrating, try and be honest with yourself and your performance. Eventually as you progress and use this race-report method after numerous events your list of negatives will get shorter and shorter.
Finally, no matter how upset you are with your performance, always try and find at least one positive takeaway no matter how big or small. Even if it is as little as one obstacle you did well, one obstacle you completed (that normally you otherwise wouldn't), these little victories are what keep us motivated despite the hard times on the race course.
Looking to take your training to the next level? Click the link below to check out our 1 on 1 personalized running and OCR training plans and let us help take you to the next level!
Need help reviewing your race performance and creating a race report? Send us an email: outlawocr@gmail.com.
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