Observations After Wildflower 2005, 1st AG, 8th OA

A friend recently sent me an old email I wrote after winning my AG at Wildflower in 2005.

Race Success = Race Specific Fitness + Discipline + Tools + Execution Skills

I had a good day at WF. Actually, I should say I had a good training day which turned into a good race day. That’s how relaxed I was. I think what came together for me was the equation above. I’ll talk more below about the fitness thing, the stuff that most people want to know, but as I see discussions bounced back and forth on the net and in my head, discipline and execution skills come to the forefront.

Discipline is a product of humility + statistics. Humility is a result of you, as the successful, fit, type A person that you are, saying “this race is a lot bigger than me and will kick my ass if I’m stupid. I’m going to put away pride and just execute a smart race.” That smart race is then defined by your time at the finish line, not a swim, bike or run split.

So let’s take a look at the kind of strategy that has statistically produced a good finish time. Believe me when I say that strategy is one that views the swim and bike as platforms to launch a good run. You’re welcome to try out different strategies all you want, or you can believe a guy who has had successful races, has crashed and burned, and has studied what works and what does not. Statistically speaking, if you set up the run you improve your chances of success. Any other strategy is a roll of the dice. And the longer the race the more this odds concept becomes more valid. You can roll the dice in Sprints and Olympics and still win. In fact, fitness increases the odds when you do roll those dice. A very fit person can even roll the dice a bit in a Half and still get away with it. VERY few people, no matter how fit, can roll it at an Ironman and get away with it. You only need to look at two sets of people to see this:

1. Inconsistent pros: these guys are hot and cold. I think it’s because they roll the dice. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose and lose ugly, imploding on the course. Mentally they expect fitness to increase their chances for success, and it does. But these are big guys, they race for dough and sometimes you have to take a shot.
2. Consistent performers: the athletes who get on base every time at the plate. Regardless of their fitness, or how fit they think they are, I believe they go with a plan that shifts the odds to their favor. And the even smarter ones work years to build the fitness to a point where they think they can apply that fitness to a roll of the dice.

Humility and belief in the odds combine to form the discipline required to execute a good race. How do we express that discipline on race day? Usually by not racing J. Simply execute a plan that has a higher probability of success. Let others around you do their own thing and you play the odds that they will come back to you before the finish. In short, put the blinders on, don’t be “tactical,” just race your race, do your thing.

To this discipline we apply the proper tools and the knowledge to use them in the execution of a race. Tools:

• Powermeter: folks, simply the best thing out there to help you race the bike correctly and set up the run. I can only try to help you understand how dialed in I was to the WF bike course and how I was riding it. Having a meter and knowing how to use it can create a fast bike split using the least amount of energy. I can’t think of any mistakes I made on that course, not a single pedal stroke that did not have a purpose.
• Bike fit: from my knowledge of the meter I just have the feeling that I get a lot of speed out of the watts I produce. After talking about watts for so long you just get a feel for what speed is produced by watts x and body comp y. I’m an inflexible guy riding comfortably in an aggressive position, producing slippery bike speed. No reason why you can’t do the same.
• Simplicity: from race day routine to transition setup to bike setup, etc, everything is simple, clean and efficient. I just got off the phone with the owner of Infinit and told him about my plans to try to standardize everything I do and then publish that to the crew. In the manufacturing world we would call this a process sheet of how to produce a good race: set your bike up this way (picture), race with this mixture in a feed bottle (formula), set up your transition area this way (picture), wear this and here is why (picture), take your wetsuit off like this (video), mount your bike like this (video), etc.
• Aerodynamics: a product of this simplicity. A simple plan means less stuff on your bike to catch wind, weigh you down on climbs, etc.