How to win races.
Written by Jez Cox, 2015
This is an article for cyclists, runners
and du/triathletes who care about being better
(even if they wouldn't admit it to others) and it's particularly aimed at those
who start races (and may have done for years) without ever considering the
concept of winning.
Okay. So maybe not everyone can and will
win a race and it's critical to say that maybe not everyone wants to
win a race but one thing I'm absolutely set on is that everyone should try
to win a race.
Do bear in mind that 'winning a race' could
mean being the first in your age category or race category. Categories are
there to give you a level to aim at so take aim and here's how to move closer
to winning:
1) Find your niche.
"Only dead fish go with the flow"
If I ask any one of the cyclists,
triathletes and duathletes I work with why they compete in the sport at the distance
they do they often struggle to tell me and then, upon digging deeper I tend to
find that they started because friends had or they knew someone that encouraged
them to. This is never more common than with triathlon since it's boom between
2000 and 2010 and then likewise road cycling in its current 'sportive'
explosion. Very often, the reason for
ending up doing what they are doing is along the lines of 'Well, everyone was
getting into it and so I thought I'd see what it's all about'. Now that's a
massive generalisation and of course the fact that so many who have recently 'converted'
have actually transitioned from quite a sedentary lifestyle is something that
should be celebrated. I certainly do just that. It's kept me in a job these
past few years for one thing!
My point is, having got started, bought all
the gear, done your first event and become 'one of us' it's then very easy to
drift and simply either stick doing the same thing or just do the same as
everyone else. As I say, only dead fish go with the flow.
Now, for some, doing just that will be
fine, for others, they may actually have stumbled upon their niche straight away
and started doing really well, winning events maybe but even then, how would
they know?
I'm always quick to rubbish talk of, for
example, Roger Federer being the 'greatest tennis player that ever lived'. He's
awesome, don't get me wrong, but if you'll indulge my thinking still further,
the greatest tennis player that ever lived almost certainly never held a tennis
racquet. You just don't know. And in a way, stumbling into a particular sport and finding
that you love it is as much half chance as having the genes that oddly enough
make you potentially, (physiologically) the greatest tiddly winks player that
ever lived.
Yes. It could be you.
Of course, not everyone wants to
win.
Not everyone even wants to find out how
good they could be and that's fine too. Sport and recreation can offer so much
more beyond just winning but it's quite possible you're different to the masses.
You're reading an article which I have deliberately titled in a very specific
way. Chances are you're curious about your potential and I want to help you
think about how to exploit that.
It starts with being prepared to be selfish
and do things for yourself which may actually grow you away from where you
started. It often involves having to go back to being bad at something again and when
done correctly it should involve plenty of failing because failing is how
winning is done. It's the only way you learn. Eventually, through a process of
elimination and reckless experimentation you should start to find your niche
and then you can start to think about winning.
"Far greater it is to dare mighty
things to win glorious triumphs even though chequered by failure than to rank
with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much for they live in
a grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat"
Theodore Roosevelt
One of the greatest strengths of Great
Britain's recent surge to the top of world cycling has been the insistence from
the coaches on their young academy riders riding as many different disciplines
of cycle sport as possible and indeed mixing them up. Until recently in fact, academy
riders under the age of 18 were not allowed to specialise in one discipline.
Experimentation and 'being bad at something' (relatively) was therefore
something to be celebrated and in fact there were a whole string of academy
riders who found their way into unexpected modes of cycle sport through this
very approach of what I'd like to call 'niche mining'. It's a terrible term, I
know, but go with me.
If you consider yourself a road cyclist,
try mountain biking, if you're a track cyclist, try BMX, if you're a
triathlete, try cycle speedway (yes, cycle speedway).
Play, experiment, fail. (Repeat). Learn.
Stop being such an adult and get back to
being far more childlike. Attack what you are trying as new and fun and embrace
being bad at it at first. Only afterwards when you've tried it should you
analyse your performance.
Watch young children trying new games and
sports for the first time and you'll usually find them living completely in the
moment, focusing on what they are doing rather than on how they
are doing. 'Present restrospectivism', as
I'd like to coin it is a disease of adulthood and should really be fought if
you're to find your niche. The best vaccine I've found thus far is that age old
elixir called 'fun'.
Get back to trying new things and remember, when you do,
Be
Here
Now.
.........
Then analyse.
Learn.
And go back for more fun.
2)
So I've found my niche. How do I
win!?
I was blessed in that I stumbled across the
sport of cycling by accident at the age of 12 when my parent's next door neighbour,
my good friend Tilman Marsh, bought a mountain bike and allowed me to try it. It
was about 1992 and the mountain bike boom was just catching light. It was a rigid
steel Scott with Deore DX and Onza ski bar ends. I loved it.
Once I had ridden
a permanent figure of eight track into his lawn I was immediately hooked and
cycling, through mountain biking, cyclocross and then road racing became my sporting
obsession and then by way of hard work and blessings, my career.
- BUT - It took me a full 6 years to win a
race despite racing lots. In retrospect, I now see that long wait as a big part
of the reason why I'm still involved with the sport and why I carried on racing
and then went on to win so much.
When I think back to my earliest racing
experiences in my first races in the London Cyclo Cross league in the winter of
1992, I was being beaten soundly in every race by a good number of other youth
riders. Of course, as so often happens with these things it was the same people
every time and picking a winner was pretty predictable. 4 years later, only one
of those regulars was still racing. And his name was Roger Hammond.
At the time, I could never have imaged that
of these incredible riders who were seemingly destined for greatness and were
without doubt light years better than me, hardly any of them were still racing
(let alone winning) by the time they were 20.
Why?
I'm a firm believer that you need to learn to
win but you'll learn nothing from winning.
Every time you don't win there's
always something to learn.
I'm lucky in that, once I found my niche
(Duathlon) I won 81 races but that wasn't the lucky bit. The lucky bit is that
I came 2nd 50 times and those 50 times were why I won 81 races.
I learnt so much from those that beat me.
Guys, if you're reading this, (You know who you are!), thank you for the
lessons.
I now have friends who have children that
have started racing, a couple of whom have started winning and winning lots and
it's a great thing but because they've started winning so early it means that
they haven't actually learnt much yet. All they're learning is that they're
good (what ever that means). The ones
that they are beating week in week out who have the perseverance to hang in
there will learn lots and eventually that bank of knowledge will pay out in
those that work for it.
The problem is that if you don't have that
bank of experience in being beaten, when it does happen and the young regular
winner suddenly doesn't win, there's very little to fall back on. That's the
stage when so many drop out.
So; got a talented youngster? Find a way to
keep them coming 2nd, 3rd and 4th (or lower) and you'll be paying into their
longevity bank all the time. It can be tricky though if you have an early
developer but there's usually a way.
Having said all that, and moving on from
childhood now, you need to be ready to win. That's key. As you approach
a point where you feel capable of winning I would strongly advise taking some
time out to visualise it and see it from your 'mind's eye' with all its
visceral quality and feel.
Conceive (in the imagined)
Believe (in your subconscious)
Achieve (between the start and finish lines)
CBA.
It's important groundwork to make sure you're
ready.
Once I'd worked my way through a few years
of my lovely Mum driving me to cyclocross and mountain bike races in order for me to
take a good roasting I was lucky enough to have generous enough parents to
encourage me to try yet another discipline and so I had a wobble around on my
first road bike, a Graham Weigh in Columbus Thron with Campag Mirage. Yes,
those that know me well, my first road bike did indeed have Campagnolo. I'm
sorry.
I was lucky in that I started road racing
in my late teens at the time when West London converted from using a road encircling
Pinewood Studios as the go to 'cycle circuit' to the now massively popular
Hillingdon Cycle Circuit. Sure enough, I
lined up there for my first in a long series of kickings but crucially this
time I started to see that I was finding my niche. All of a sudden, my deficit
in technical skill and recklessness as an off-roader didn't hold me back. Generally,
fitness and hard training started to pay greater dividends and as it did, my
mountain bike began collecting dust.
Of course, on the road, I still learnt lots by being beaten lots but somehow, in my distracted teenage life I had the forethought to do
turbo training sessions in front of endless of recordings of the 30 minute channel
4 Tour de France coverage.
As I did, those 30 minute programmes
provided me with the chance to 'race' each stage, including, as it's climax,
sprinting to the finish line. That meant of course that although my VHS player depicted
that Richard Virenque had won the mountains points, Big Mig has won the TT and
Abdu had cleaned up in the sprint (and in green again), in fact, they hadn't.
I had won all those stages.
Now that I've gone through my sports
psychology training (and studied the works of my guru Dr Dennis Wadeley) I can see
that what I was doing was in fact 'positive mental pre-play'. I had lived the
moment of winning in my mind over and over again and so when it came, I was
ready for it.
C B A
So that same summer I crossed the start line of
yet another Hillindon circuit race, the format of which don't happen anymore
sadly. These were irregular ones where all the riders used to start together
and then after a set number of laps the 4th category (lowest ranked) riders
would sprint to finish, then a few laps later the 3rd cats would too, leaving
elite and 1/2s to finish off after them.
Something happened that day, I timed my 4th cat sprint
perfectly and won by about half a tyre's length. What normally happens then is
that the 4th cats drop out but I wanted more. This is not allowed but hey, I
was on a roll. I hung in and also sprinted again with the 3rd cats, coming
second in that race. I still refused to drop out and at the age of 17 went on
to take 5th in the E12.
These were my three best road race results
to date and they all came on the same day! Knowing what I now know about rules
and so forth, what I did should have probably seen me suspended from racing but
the organiser was my mentor and I'm thankful that he understood that I was
having one of 'those' days.
Do you know what I mean?
I hope so.
I'd say they happen maybe once a year - if
that - and they nearly always fall when they do on a training day or a recovery
day but once or twice in an athletes life they'll fall on a day when you just
happen to be stuck between two white lines with a bunch of other loons trying
to outdo each other and you need to be ready for that. Lots of people aren't
and that 'snapping cranks' / ' go harder and it just feels easier' moment
passes them by because they'd never seen themselves winning.
So guess what, they didn't.
Of course, following my mentor's guidance,
as soon as I'd won I needed to move on and up and keep trying to learn. And
learn I did. I didn't win at Hillingdon again for another 5 years while I was
abroad and expanding my road racing repertoire but all these years later I am
proud of now having won a race there in 5 different disciplines : road race,
time trial, duathlon, cyclo-cross and road running. I coach there now as well and
get to watch my charges trying to do the same. If you're one of them, don't be
hard on me for doing what ever I can to hold you back and stop you winning too
soon. In the words of Rocky Balboa,
"It's how winning is done"
3) I've found my niche; I'm right at the sharp end but still can't win.
This is when you need to build your tactical repertoire.
Try to list 5 different ways someone could win your event (or category) and have a
plan for how you might execute each one in an average race. Then, as you
approach race day, about a week out, choose 3 of them that are most appropriate
for that event. An hour before the start, take in the conditions and the
competition and decide on 2 of those 3. Settle on one as your plan A and one as
your plan B should plan A fail or become impossible.
It sounds formulaic and not much fun
doesn't it?
Well, winning is fun, trust me. Or it is in
the 10 minute aftermath. I'm yet to meet an athlete who, after those 10 minutes
isn't thinking "what's next' and planning ahead.
So, what kind of tactics?
I'll give you an example of 5 based on a
runner trying to win their local off-road 5k race.
5 Ways:
1) Pick the person who you perceive as most
likely to win (based on past performances) and try to run calmly on their shoulder for
the entire race, ready to jump them with 50metres to go.
2) Start much harder than usual and do
everything to then calm down and maintain position.
3) Surge hard with 1500m to go to get clear
and then maintain form and do not look back.
4) Spend the entire race simulating being over
tired and unfit to the other racers by breathing hard when close to them. Then
apply numbers 1 or 3 to catch others off guard.
5) (Practice this often in training for it
to be anywhere near effective) Once settled into a good quality group, try to
aid the group in bunching up and running as a pack. With 3000m gone start
surging hard and then easing and repeat this as many times as you can until the
right selection has been made. This will only work if you have practiced this
in training and others haven't. That's the whole point.
Of course, you've got to have the fitness
and form to apply the above and get the win but that's the point : everyone
trains their body but very few prepare their mind in line with it. Dear old Dr Dennis Wadeley's positive mental
pre-play was something that worked for me as I prepared my mind for the
expectation of winning and whilst doing so I built a handy toolbox of ways to
win.
4) I won! What next...?
Congratulations!
As I said above, unless the victory is a
career defining (or even career ending one) the majority of athletes won't take
long for their thoughts to turn to their next race, next challenge or next
chance to win. Hence, (as I've been saying all along) why we don't learn much
from winning.
Note that I say much and not nothing
though.
The most important lesson that you can
learn from winning is that you can win and actually, for most people
that's quite a revelation.
So the next step is key. Repeating a win in
similar conditions and with similar competition is actually something I'd
advise trying. You'll learn more from dealing with the pressure of being a past
winner and having others watching you more closely and you'll be forced to cook
up even more tactics in order to deal with just that.
If you're able to repeat the win (and it
might take a long time) then once again it's time for some zoomed out thinking
and some honest self talk : Are you ready to kick on and find some even tougher
competition (if there is some) or perhaps it's simply your time to dominate and
look to rack up even more wins.
Of course, if you're both super talented
and a winner you may not have any higher to go.
My advice? Don't be afraid to win and win
lots but try to find a way to keep pushing yourself.
In order to do this I'll prescribe what I
do to so many triathletes and multisporters in particular:
Race more.
You train to race, peak to race, try to put
everything in place to race well and so I still can't understand why so many
triathletes only race 3 times a year. Some less.
The chance of everything going right across
all three disciplines, not to mention the painfully long build up is actually
quite slim.
"Too expensive" you say?
Then, going back to the start of this
article: don't do what everyone else does. Use a definitive 'all races' race
calendar online (tri247.com is the most complete) to find the best races that
suit you at the best price. If you enter the races that all your mates are
doing and that are all over the magazines and web then that's what we call
hype.
Hype costs money which someone will have to
pay for. So dig deeper and you'll find
some real gems and in turn you'll be able to afford to race more.
I came from a background as a road cyclist
where as an elite I did two seasons of an incredible 72 and then 75 races in a
year so that helped ingrain me in that culture. Without doubt I carried that
into my life as a duathlete where I worked my way though short course, long
course, drafting, non drafting and then cross and trail duathlons. My regular
racing saw me racking up a lot of wins across the 10 years in duathlon.
Don't get me wrong, among them were some
races which I won easily but there were bags of others that nearly killed me as
well.
Because I raced in a relative minority sport which
has two defined seasons a year I employed a simple tactic : race everything I
possibly could.
I was lucky that I had the time to and I
was also quite clever about usually trying to squeeze a free entry to a
subsequent event from most organisers of races I'd won so that way entry fees
weren't really a major concern.
Either way, the penultimate take away point
on your journey to the winners enclosure is : Race More.
Reading of my successes I can imagine it would be
easy to think I am a super talented athlete and it was only a matter of time
before I started winning but genuinely, it couldn't be further from the truth.
I don't feel I have any particular physical
attributes that make me any better than average and that played out for me early on at school. I'm just determined and
insightful. Every single person that was beating me I could learn from and trust
me, I was a very very average junior and youth athlete.
And I'm glad I was.
In my roles as a coach and also as a GB
team manager I regularly meet athletes over the age of 70 who wish they'd
started when they were 15 rather then 65 but I see in them that same dogged determination
to become 'world champion'.
World Champion!?
World champion of themselves, in this time,
with these life constraints and with their body. Even if that just means in
their local race.
Some of them have gone on to become actual
ITU World Champions while others have smashed PBs, times and race positions
beyond what they ever thought possible.
My point is, and to conclude with this,
don't be constrained by doing what others do. Be a freak. Dare to be believe in
your ability.
Conceive, Believe. And if you are tickled
to put what I've said into practice then remember this:
One race will be your last ever. You may
not get to chose which one it is.
In fact, it may have already passed.
There's a lot more important things in the
world than racing, not least in our current world climate, but when you do next
find yourself between those two white lines, believe it is everything.
Don't accept limitations that others or
past experience put on you and greet failure and elated success the same
because you are part of the 1% of society for whom mediocrity just won't do.
<><><><><><><>
Jez Cox 2015 <><><><><><><><>
If you have been inspired by this article,
why not book a 121 with me where we can sit down and work out your road map to
finding out how good you could be?
I also specialise in motivational speaking
and team leadership. If you think I can help you with either of these, just
drop me an email to:
Jez@howgoodcouldibe.com
