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| NEWS FROM PEOPLE ON THE OUTSIDE |
23/06/2010: South Africa
How to prep for a race:
Sufficient preparation will always be the foundation of a good day of racing and fun. The first commandment is: “Don’t arrive at the comrades without training”.
You know what that means. There is a lot of fun events aimed at welcoming people into a sport. Double check that you know what will be required of you.
We will use this race as an Example of our personal Race Prep:
This specific race was a “tri- challenge” which started with swimming, then cycling and finally running.
Whenever we do a race with a bike section, we double check our bikes early in the week! We check the gears shifting, brake pads, wear and tear etc. No rush on the day before the race. Especially with bikes, because the bike shops might be busy that day before the race and that will leave us with a problem that we don’t need.
To arrive at a race just to find out that you forgot something is a bad start! So therefore it’s important that you know the basics of the race at hand:
What… Is the nature of the race? Is it only mountain biking or is there running and swimming involved?
Where… is the race? How long will the drive be to the venue? When… is the race (duhh) but more important when does it start? Find out whether you need to register at race as well. This means you must be there earlier.
The night before the race we take our racing boxes, and load it with all the gear for the 3 disciplines.
We started with swimming gear (suit, cap & goggles etc). Then moving over to cycling and running, putting everything in that one box.
Cycling: Helmet, shoes, gloves & specs.
Running: Trail runners & peak.
We often imagine ourselfs coming into the transition area and changing gear, just to double check that our “box” is 100% loaded with all the gear.
When we close our boxes, we won’t think about gear again.
We knew that this race could take anything from 1 hour 30 min up to 4 hours. You just never know. So with our minds on sustained energy, food/supplementation is very important.
We both took 2 energy bars, 2 bananas, 2 sachets energy gel, 2L of water and 1L of Cyto Max (energy drink). This may sound like a lot but better safe than sorry.
We take one cool bag and put all my food in it. Done!
Now that everything is packed, our focus shift to our body. What we must eat and drink so that optimal performance will be the outcome.
We normally fill ourselves with good carbohydrates and some protein for maximal energy the next day. We love personally pastas and veggies!
Then most important is a good night’s rest.
Waking up fresh and ready we usually start the morning with oats and some toast. From there we make sure that we stay filled up with some energy supplying food e.g. bananas, bars, banana bread etc.
Getting at the venue we make sure we get our race numbers so that all the admin is done, and then psyching up time start with some music (Skillet is normally the band present!)…..…..
Now is the time to put on our gear, and of for warm up. (About 15 min). Getting the muscles ready to do a good job.
10 minutes prior to the race we will quickly check over all our gear make sure everything is 100% and of we go….
The race is on!!!!!!
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