Five Ways To Improve Your Race Performance

Five Ways To Improve Your Race Performance

Did you have the ride performances you wanted? Did you achieve the race results you targeted?

 We put together a list of five common problems of why athletes fall short in racing and how to resolve them. 

1. You make the selections, but get dropped when the pace picks up in the end.  Most of the time this is due to training too hard and too easy.  The zones that are used in the race are usually in-between where most people train.   

 

2. You get dropped from the group before most of the others do.  This is likely because you are uncomfortable in the group, so you put yourself in the wrong place at the decisive moments. Avoid pulling at the front when the pace feels easy.  On the flip side, when you feel under pressure, do not let yourself slip towards the back. 

 

3. You are always “there” in the race, but you do not get “results.”  This is likely because you have no strategic plan. You might enter the race/ride with the only objective of going “hard.” Make a strategy and follow it.  This will help you avoid using your hard-earned fitness "bleeding" power all over the place closing gaps, pulling too hard, riding too far behind the riders ahead of you, moving up the group in times that you should be staying put. 

 

4. You always miss the winning move.  This is likely because you are too focused on “forcing” yourself into the selection. This might be going off the front solo at times where there is no place to go (flatter terrain, group not riding hard) and burning energy before the key moments.  To improve this be calculated on what riders you follow and in what key sections/moments of the race.

 

5. You get gapped off the group out of the corners.  This could be because you are too focused on your corner entry speed (or lack of) and incorrectly push too hard into the corner or too close to the rider in front of you going into the turn. This results in you braking in the turn and dropping needed speed for the exit, when it is needed the most.  To correct this simply back off the rider in front of you a little more going into the turn, set up your perfect entrance to the corner going wide, and then cut to the inside starting your acceleration mid corner to arrive back onto the wheel of the rider in front by the exit. 

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