Realistic Assessment and Plan is Key

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy."  Colin Powell

This is often true of race plans as well.  With races the enemy may be the weather or other external forces.  Usually the real enemy of executing a race plan is the athlete's failure to follow the plan.  I have been that athlete before.  I have discarded race plans in the first 100 meters of a race and paid dearly for it.

I have also, on the  rare occasion, put together the right plan and followed it to great personal success. (Note the success was personal.  It didn't necessarily translate to the podium.)

The first key is to have the right plan.  This past weekend I ran in the Get Lucky 7k here in Minneapolis.  It's an odd distance that I've never raced before.  My training of late has been improving, but when you are starting from less than zero there's no where to go but up.  The two runs leading up to the race were awful slogfests.  Not encouraging.

I was concerned that I might crash and burn after the third mile.  I needed a plan.  I decided to go out VERY conservatively and try to build my effort throughout the race.  This would be the exact opposite of my Thanksgiving race in which I overestimated my fitness and went out too fast.

The second key is to actually follow the plan.  I placed myself well behind my goal pace in the start.  I figured the crowd would help hold me back.  I knew I would pick my way through the other runners at the beginning, but I'm better off doing that among the 10:30 min/mile crowd than the 8:30 min/milers.   I resisted the temptation to follow some other runners through the crowd.

With each kilometer I felt stronger and was able to pick up the pace.  By the midway point I was steadily passing runners who had gone out too fast.  I ended up averaging 10 seconds/mile better than I had anticipated.  Don't get me wrong, I was still slow, but I knew I was going to be.

Having realistically assessed my current fitness level I was able to set an appropriate goal and develop a plan to get there.  A coach can really help the athlete by providing an objective analysis of fitness, setting realistic goals, and developing the right race day plan.  The coach also holds the athlete accountable if the athlete abandons the plan.  That being said, there are times when you've got to toss that plan right out the window.  We'll talk about a few of those in the next entry.