The Unfair Advantage #005: Race Day is Not About Fitness

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🪝The Hook

You are cooked. It is freaking hot. You have been walking for a while and you almost DON’T WANT to know how many miles you have to go.

The athlete next to you continues to chat you up. Telling you about their bike split PR. And the next set of carbon fiber race wheels that they want to buy because they are 10mm deeper and have wider rim than their current race wheels. And the number of hours per week they trained and their Training Stress Scores (TSS)© from Training Peaks over the last 6x weeks. SCREAM EMOJI.

As you patiently listen, you watch an Endurance Nation athlete run steadily past. They hit the aid station, walk a few steps, get ice in the hat and in a bag, soaking themselves with water, taking a gel, a sip of water – and off they go again.

They make it look easy. Like, it was second nature.

How do they do it? How do EN athletes seem to manage racing better?

In this week’s edition of The Unfair Advantage, we help you unlock ONE of the Four Keys to Racing to YOUR Potential!

Get an Unfair Advantage: Stop trying to solve race day with the brute force of fitness. Learn how to Execute.

🕶️The Bottom Line

Race day is about execution, not fitness.

The triathlon world has conspired to make you think that racing faster is about training more, or harder, or buying that last remaining aero carbon electronic widget that you don’t have.

The majority of athletes on race day are fitness-focused (look at my T-shirt, look at my abs/veins/etc, look at how fast I can go in the first hour of the bike, sprinting out of T2, etc.). It’s like our genes take over and common sense goes out the window.

It’s easy to get caught up in the buzz and energy of the day, but creating and sticking to the right plan for you is the only thing that will lead to the best possible day.

You Likely Don’t have a Fitness or Equipment Problem. You have a Race Execution Problem!

🧠What we mean by Execution, not Fitness

Over months and months of training you’ve built a fitness vehicle. But that vehicle is only as good as your ability to drive it correctly during your race.

Race day execution is a combination of patience and discipline.

• Patience with YOUR pacing.

• Discipline with YOUR fueling, hydration, and decisions.

Let’s break those down one at a time.

👀Patience + Discipline = Race Day Execution

Patience at the beginning of the Swim, Bike, Run.
Discipline against the field.

🏊🏽‍♂️Swim Execution

Patience = First 10’ of the swim is an easy, relaxed stroke. Focus on your breathing and finding your rhythm.

Discipline = Everyone sprints by you, failing away, jacking their heart rate and effort – that will then be biased high for the rest of the day. You ignore the rest of the field. You focus on being smooth and swimming under control. Staying within your known aerobic endurance rhythm. Getting out of the swim – ready for the rest of the day.

🚵🏽‍♂️Bike Execution

Patience = First 30’-45’ on the bike is Just Riding Along (JRA).

It will take at least 30’ for your perceived effort and heart rate to get adjusted to riding the bike. You have just gone from being horizontal for an 1+ hour with all the work being done with your upper body, to being upright and balancing on a bike with all the work being done with your legs! It will take a few minutes to get your body adjusted to the new workload.

Your JRA time is only a small portion of your bike split, but gives your body time to adjust and calm down. JRA is your endurance pace effort, giving your body time to adjust until your endurance pace effort aligns with your heart rate and power that you have seen during your long rides.

Discipline = Everyone blasts by you? That’s a good thing!

They stand and mash the pedals, surging up an unnamed hill in the middle of nowhere. That’s a good thing! They are wasting valuable fitness and energy with poor execution. You ignore them! Your discipline sets you up for a consistent bike effort that builds across the bike leg.

You stay in your rhythm and pacing that lets you EFFECTIVELY eat and drink. You know your power, heart rate, and effort that is sustainable from your race rehearsals.

Your bike fuels and sets up the run.

🏃🏽‍♀️Run Execution

Patience = First, six miles of the run.

You run whatever pace is necessary to maintain your average heart rate from the last 30’ of the bike. That most likely means you are slowing down. Again, you have gone from a 5+ hour non-load bearing bike, to a load bearing run. Your body will need a few minutes to adjust to the running.

Discipline = Fighting that “I’m losing” feeling.

Are you the only person not running sub 3:30 pace in the first four miles of the marathon? That’s a good thing!

⚡Unfair Advantage: How to do it? Here is the magic. 🪄🔮 The secret sauce. 🫙

Put the puzzle together and practice. 🧩 Ready? Race Rehearsals. Yep. Our athletes conduct a sweat test protocol, 2x race pace benchmarking events, and 2x race rehearsals all built into their 12 week Race Specificity Training Block leading into their race.

⚡Unfair Advantage (Bonus Round): The secret double bonus is that because all of our athletes use the same sequence of events to dial-in their execution, they can share their experience and trade tips and hacks that worked for them.

🤯Expand Your Mind

Learn about the Four Keys Course online here. Use the code UNFAIR1 to save 50% for the month of July.

Discover our winning equation: Fitter + Smarter = 🏅Faster. 

With our coaching expertise and friendly community, you’ll not only get fitter, you’ll have more fun doing it! 

Say goodbye to inconsistency and performance plateaus. 

You will get faster. But the onus is on you. If working hard, engaging with the coaches and the team, and learning our proven race strategies is appealing to you.  It will happen. It’s that simple. 

You have direct access to your coach and all of our successful age group athletes in our group chat. If you want to talk in person – join one of our standing meetups on Monday or Wednesday. 

Check-in, give us an update. Got a question about workouts? Training modifications adn recommendations for travel? Injury? Buying new gear? We have you covered. 

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to join our community of athletes who consistently outshine the competition. You’ll never look back!