5 Questions to Ask before Registering for a Race

TriDot Podcast Episode 284

5 Questions to Ask before Registering for a Race

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Announcer: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire and entertain. We'll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let's improve together.

Andrew Harley: Hey everybody. Welcome to the TriDot podcast. Really fun episode. Today we're talking about races, specifically going over the five questions you should ask yourself as an athlete before you register for a race. Is that race I'm thinking about a good idea? Is it a bad idea? Is it an okay idea? Is it a great idea? We're going to find out how to determine that first from our coaches. And the two coaches we have talking with us about today are Raya Usher and Ken Presutti. Raya is an IRONMAN Youth certified coach who is the head of development at Precision Coaching based in the UK. And Ken has been an IRONMAN Youth certified coach since 2018. He's the founder of PittsburghRunner.com and he coaches triathletes with Victory Multi Sport out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Raya, Ken, thanks for joining for this topic. How's it going, Raya?

Raya Usher: So good to see you, Andrew, as always. Yeah, really excited for this one today and so great to be sharing the podcast with Ken.

Andrew Harley: It's Ken's first episode. Ken, I believe you've been on the Cool down with Vanessa giving coach cooldown tips, but it's your first full length episode. How are you feeling for this?

Ken Presutti: I'm super excited. Maybe even more excited than I am for my upcoming races.

Andrew Harley: There you go. That's the spirit. Spoken like a true coach. Get more excited for the athletes' races than your own. Well, I'm Andrew, the average triathlete, voice of the people and captain of the middle of the pack. As always, we'll start off with our warmup question, settle in for our main set race focused conversation, and then we'll wind things down with coach Ken giving us our coach cooldown tip of the week. Let's get to it.

Announcer: Time to warm up. Let's get moving.

Andrew Harley: For today's warm up question, we're gonna dig kind of into your previous race history and I want to know what was the worst race experience you've ever had and why? Now, to be very clear here, I am not wanting us to throw race directors, race producers, race production companies under the bus. Races can be a bad experience for a variety of reasons, usually not tied to the race production itself. But I think everybody does have a story if you've been in the sport long enough of just a weekend that didn't go your way. And I'm curious to hear what those stories are for the TriDot audience. So coach Ken, what is this answer for you?

Ken Presutti: This is a tough one because I have a pretty sunny disposition and make the best out of most circumstances, even when they don't go my way. The one that comes to mind is just last year I was doing an early spring triathlon. It's a local race and it is fantastic. The race director is amazing. And we showed up race morning and the weather seemed fine, but this fog rolled in right before we were getting ready to start the swim and we obviously couldn't go out. The guards couldn't see us and so they kept delaying the start, delaying the start. And I was so excited to see a number of athletes that I had racing that day. And so that was all great. But it came to a point where I had to make a decision. Do I stay here in my wetsuit in the water and wait for this fog to roll out and skip my son's soccer game, which I'm also supposed to coach in an hour, or do I leave? And I said, you know what, I've got plenty more opportunities to race and I got to get back for these kids. So I was disappointed that I didn't actually get to go into the actual race itself. But I think I made the decision for the right reasons.

Andrew Harley: 100%. Absolutely. The decision I would have made myself and, and Raya, I'm sure as a parent would echo that sentiment. But yeah, I gotta add to your bio, Ken, when we introduced you on the podcast, that you're also a local youth soccer coach. We gotta add that to your coaching bio so people know you're a well rounded coach and the things that you're able to speak to. Raya, to you. What was your worst race experience and why?

Raya Usher: Well, Ken has a much bigger optimism than me, even though my glass is often very, very half full. But I've had quite a few experiences, so it was really hard to sift through the one that was the worst out of a lot of them. But I think if I'm going to top the chart, it would be Gulf Coast Florida 70.3 in 2019. We landed 48 hours from the UK to do the race. Both my husband and I were trying to qualify for Worlds. So it was a big A race for us. And the day we went to do a swim recce the day before the race, beautiful Mill Pond. So again, like you said, Andrew, I'm in no way giving any of the race directors a hard time for what it was about to happen, because when we all went to bed, the water looked good, beautiful and ready to race. And on race morning, everything changed. Everything changed. It's not a huge race, but we all got lined up. And something that happens at IRONMANs in the US which doesn't happen outside of the US is that you have the option to wear wetsuits if you want, but you won't be able—if the water is over wetsuit regulation temperature, but you won't be able to qualify for Worlds. So a lot of people were looking at the state of the water going, I'm going to wear my wetsuit. And it was probably wise. It was probably the scare.

Andrew Harley: And to be clear, you did not wear your wetsuit because you were trying to qualify for Worlds.

Raya Usher: So we were at the very, very front of the pack, ready to go in at the main whistle. And the pros went off right in front of us. And my husband and I are standing almost at the front of the line to go off right after the pros. And it takes the pros about eight minutes to get to the first buoy, like 150 meters away. And my husband and I look at each other and go, oh, this is going to be juicy. And my husband and I are both pretty good swimmers. My husband more so. But we went in the water and off we went. And it is my personal worst to date, the longest 70.3 swim I have ever done. But what was the worst was the waves were so big that every time I went to crest a wave to take a breath and to check where I was, the screaming around me was really, really scary. And there wasn't necessarily enough lifeboats to come and get everyone, and the lifeboats were capsizing. The water was so rough. I'd never seen a swim like it. Needless to say, my husband and I did both qualify for Worlds in that race because thank God, we were good swimmers. But it was very, very, very scary. And I think in hindsight, maybe the race directors and the swimmers maybe would have either shortened it or canceled the swim. Pretty scary.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, that will do it. And that's—I mean, even if the rest of the race goes fine, that swim will certainly be in your memory as traumatizing. Yeah, traumatizing legitimately, that's the right word for it. This answer for me, I kind of like Ken, I had a local sprint where the weather the morning of the race was a little moody, but fine. You know, not much wind, not any storms, but all night on the night before the race, it storms in Dallas Fort Worth. And so this was on the outskirts of the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex. It was kind of a chip seal country road. And so any glass or any debris that was on that road just from day to day traffic, the way those chip seal roads are just kind of rises to the surface whenever there's a big storm. And so there were people on the bike course just flatting left and right and I was one of them. I wasn't super well versed in changing a flat tire. So you know, I got my first flat tire, I changed it, I kept going. I think my second flat was just a pinch flat from just not properly inflating the tube that I had on the day. And so I ended up with a second flat tire. Well, I don't have another tube. You're not going to carry multiple tubes for a sprint triathlon. And so there I am like three or four miles away from walking down the road with my bike, just destroying my cycling shoes and my cleats on this horrendous road. And thankfully a cyclist that was out that day just cycling, he wasn't part of the race. I think he was stopping and helping people and he gave me a spare tube and helped me get re-inflated. That got me back to T1. But by the time I got back to T1, the race was largely over. Most of the people had largely finished. And I like getting on the run course and just burning it to the ground and passing people and seeing how strong I can come into the finish line as a good runner. And it's no fun to do that when you're the only one on the run course because you were just so far behind from your bike ride going askew. So that, you know, just, I'm kind of like Ken, I'm a glass half full. I just kind of see the positive in things. But when that happens to you on the bike and it just takes you that far out of the race, it's just not any fun anymore to continue the race. But I finished, I got my medal. I got through it and again to no fault of the race producer itself, just bad weather. It was an unlucky day for Andrew. Well, we're going to throw this question out to the TriDot audience. Make sure you're in the community. Go find the post asking you what was the worst race experience you've ever had. We'll also throw this question out on the Facebook group and Instagram. So go find it and tell us your story. Can't wait to see what you guys have to say.

Announcer: On to the main set going in 3, 2, 1.

Andrew Harley: On to our main set where hopefully we get away from bad race stories and into good race stories and more specifically walk you through the five questions you should ask yourself before you register for a race. And coaches, let's start here today. When it comes to even booking that race, what can go wrong here? What are the mistakes that you see athletes make when it comes to adding a race to their calendar?

Raya Usher: Well, there are quite a few and often you hear these stories from athletes before you start coaching them and so they've come to you realizing the mistake that they've made and then they're like, oh my goodness, help me. So my biggest thing that I see, actually there's probably five or six things that I see that are regular and I'm sure Ken will have similar stories. But overbooking a race season. So every triathlete finds a tribe and every triathlete tribe has got those A type personalities, the bravado, everyone pushing each other often in a really positive and healthy way. But of course one person signs up to an A race and then everyone's like, oh that sounds great, let's all sign up to that one. And then someone else is like, well, I've also signed up to this one. And so again there's FOMO. So everyone signs up to that one and suddenly they have completely overbooked their season, have got way too many races in the calendar. There isn't enough time for proper periodization or not enough time to recover between races and it just kind of everything goes sideways. So that would probably be one of my number one what can go wrong that I've seen over my years.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, that happened to me one time when I started in the sport. My policy was I would do three races per year and so I would pick one race for the spring, one race for the summer, one race for the fall. And like that was my training focus. And now this is when I was doing short course exclusively. I hadn't gone middle or long yet into the IRONMAN ranks. But all of a sudden, I get to my third triathlon season. I'm feeling a little more confident. I'm feeling like I'm getting a handle on this sport. And so I sign up for my three races. I think I even felt a little spunky and added a fourth. But then all of a sudden, I have friends that are starting in the sport, and, hey, I'm gonna go do this sprint. Will you do this sprint with me? It's my very first one. Okay, cool. I'll do that. My brother decides he wants to try a triathlon. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and so he books one in Nashville, and I add it so I can fly out and do my brother's first. And so all of a sudden, I'm looking at my calendar, and I've ballooned from the three I'm used to like seven or eight races, and I'm like, oh, my gosh. And, yeah, by the end, I was like, can I just not race for a while? That, yeah, so I 100% have done that. Coach Ken, anything to add here? Mistakes you see your athletes make when it comes to booking their races?

Ken Presutti: Yeah, I have a couple to add, and mainly because I've made them all myself as well. So I think the first one, not discussing it with your significant other before you actually book it. And I've definitely said, I will put this on the calendar, and I'll either try to sneak it on my Google calendar and say, oh, it's been there all along. We talked about this. Or just go ahead and book it and say, I'll have this conversation later. It never works out well, nor should it work out well. And the people that are special in our lives, they want to support us. We just need to make it easy for them to support us. And sometimes when we go off and book our calendars before having those conversations, it doesn't make it easy for them. So I think that is an important one that I would throw out there. And then also somewhat along the same lines is just about, what are all of your responsibilities for the year and what are the financial costs of this? Am I going to have to sacrifice a family vacation because now all of a sudden, I've got airfare to pay for with my bike. I've got extra fees because I got to buy a bike box and include that in my luggage fees. I've got to have a hotel which is going to be three times the price that it normally is in this city. And so taking that all into account to make sure that this is something that is going to add to your life and not add more stress to your life, I think very important.

Andrew Harley: Yep, all really good points. And Ken starting to already coach us a little bit through his own experience. Starting to dip into things we should think about when we book a race. Now, I am curious about this. When you work with your athletes, do you prefer to see them kind of build out their whole season in one go? Like, hey, this is the week we're going to think about this. Start looking at it. Let's get your whole year lined up. Or are you okay with your athletes kind of taking it month by month? Season, you know, spring, summer, fall, whatever makes sense to them. And is it okay for them to kind of add things throughout the year? Is it just different approaches, pros and cons? What do you want to see here from your athletes coach Ken?

Ken Presutti: Yeah, I think it depends on the athlete and I think it depends on the athlete's motivations. If we know somebody wants to do an IRONMAN, then I think that we have to be a little bit more disciplined about when that IRONMAN is going to take place and what the journey looks like to reaching that. If somebody comes to me and they really are just looking to get into a healthy hobby or start living a healthier lifestyle, bring more movement into their life, then I think it's a different conversation. But I do like having a North Star mapped out so we know where we want to be. And then we can be a little bit more loose or fluid between the guardrails on the road to that North Star.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. Raya, anything to add there?

Raya Usher: Yeah, I mean, Ken has used my favorite answer in the world for almost every podcast. I've lost count how many times I've said this, but it depends is probably the two words I've said most on this podcast since I've come.

Andrew Harley: Way to build an electrolyte drinking game out of it. It depends. Every time you hear it depends on the TriDot podcast, take a shot of your precision fuel and hydration or preferred electrolyte of choice.

Raya Usher: Yeah, exactly. And you know, Ken's 100% right. In an ideal world, if we can focus on the A race and have that planned out or mapped out really far in advance, that allows us to have our training blocks structured, understanding when the builds are happening, when taper needs to happen, when ideal recovery has to take place, which allows us for a lot more flexibility. When the other little peer pressure races come in, like the half marathon here or the 5k race there, and maybe the son's football tournament, Dad's egg and spoon race, all of these things need to be catered for. But as long as we have that A race planned nice in advance, everything else can be far more flexible.

Andrew Harley: Final question before we get into the five things we're going to cover today on the questions our athletes should ask themselves. I don't want to have this conversation and not bring up RaceX, which is the tool within TriDot that helps athletes add their races, keep track of the races, see how their races are going to interact with one another when it comes to their training. And obviously RaceX isn't just a calendar, that's just a function of it. RaceX also gives you your pacing plan and strategy based on your functional thresholds. Really, really cool component of TriDot that I think more people should play around with more often is going to RaceX and playing with the what if scenarios and all that jazz. But for the sake of today's conversation, a big component of RaceX is the calendar and actually storing what your races are, visualizing them on the screen all together. Ken, how does this work? Just kind of hit the highlights of what RaceX does for the athlete and what we should know, what the best practices are in using it as an athlete.

Ken Presutti: Yeah, absolutely. So I think as you just said, you can tag your races as an A race, a B race or a C race and that A race is the one that you're really going after. And what I see a lot of athletes looking to do using RaceX is plug in everything as an A race. And RaceX will throw up the red flags and it will tell you, hey, you have too many A races, which is great. But with my athletes, I even encourage them to use C races more ruthlessly. Prioritize what are your goals, because the really nice thing is when you've got that one A race or those two A races in there, RaceX will go ahead and it will build out your program and your training based on a race phase and a development phase. And so often I see athletes wanting to get all of these A races in and they don't have time for that proper development phase. And so if we've got the A race in and then we have C races in there, as a coach I can talk with the athlete about the purpose behind those C races and how they're ultimately going to support the A race. And we'll oftentimes take those C races and include them in that development phase.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, very, very good. And Raya, you know, Ken is talking a little bit about A races versus C races. And you know, A races, TriDot's gonna do a full on taper so that you're ready for that race. It's gonna have recovery after the race. C races, you just train straight through it. It pretends like the race isn't even there. A B race is a little bit different. You actually physically cannot add a B race to the calendar without there being an A race there. And that's for good reason. I think that's the one thing I see the most questions on in TriDot when athletes are just talking is just questions around the B races. What is the purpose of a B race in conjunction to an A race and a C race?

Raya Usher: Yeah, I think that's a really great point, especially if you are using TriDot without a coach, which a lot of people are, because there's so much functionality that you can get out of the platform without us, even though we're obviously awesome. So when you are adding your races, if you are planning your season on your own, it's really important to start with your A races and add your A races. You might have one or you might have two, or I don't know why, but you might have three. But always add your A races in first because that allows the system to see what's most important to you. A B race is a race that is going to be added into the system in order to prepare you for your A race. So it might work in terms of timing or you might do a 70.3 that really emulates the topography or the elevation profile slash the same type of race that you're going to do to prepare you for that race. Which means the planning and algorithm of TriDot isn't going to prioritize those workouts. It's still going to prioritize your A race, but it is still going to give you that training cycle in order to build you in a similar way to your A race and prepare you and also give you enough recovery to make sure that your priority, which is the A race, still is what the system is focusing you on. Something very important to note, which if you are adding C races to your schedule, you do just train through. But it's not just training through. The system will not change any of your workouts. There is no periodization and there's no algorithm to train you to that C race. So those C races make sure they're not like really long races. Like we don't want a marathon C race. We don't want a half marathon C race because those still require thought and process for your body to take to consider that as a race. But do use those if the peer pressure comes in. So like doing a 5k fun run or the half marathon stuff that you don't want to impact your training and you might just need to rejig your week around. One thing that we haven't covered, which I think is really important, is any of our athletes on the platform who aren't necessarily chasing A races. They're just getting into the triathlon space and they might not have a race in mind. You don't have to put a big important race into RaceX. You don't have to sign up to a 70.3 if you're too nervous. You don't have to have that sprint triathlon in mind. You can really utilize RaceX to start training for almost anything. So if you're just getting started out and you don't know what to train for, add a park run. I don't know if you guys have that in the US but here in the UK we have these amazing park runs. They happen every Saturday at 9am. They're 5k fun runs. But you can actually put those races into RaceX and it gives the system something to work towards without having to put the pressure of a major race in. So utilize RaceX in any way that works for you at the point at which you are in your triathlon journey on TriDot.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, no, no park runs here, unfortunately. But I think the equivalent here would just be add a local sprint triathlon or add just a local 5K. Most, I think most suburbs, most cities, most towns have a couple 5Ks spread throughout the year. Coach Ken, even outside of that, right.

Ken Presutti: This might be—this very much falls along the same lines. I may work with an athlete who is apprehensible about adding a race and we might say, you know what, our goal is actually just to do our own personal 5k in 8 weeks from now. And we will add, or that athlete will add just a personal 5K into RaceX. And you know, there's not necessarily an associated event with that, but for that athlete, that is their event that they're training for and that's their first step toward larger goals.

Andrew Harley: Yep, Absolutely. Love it. Okay. As promised, Coach Raya and Coach Ken are going to walk us through the five questions we should ask ourselves when adding a race to our calendar. The two of them got their heads together, came up with their ideal top five coaches list of questions to ask and I'm excited to hear what they have for us. So, coach Raya, what is the first question we should ask ourselves when adding a race to our calendar?

Raya Usher: I think going back to what I said, it doesn't matter whether you are training for your first couch to 5K or you are training for Kona. The most important thing when you are adding races, creating a season is to have a think about whether you have enough time to train for that race properly. The amount of athletes that I speak to, where they're super motivated and they're really, really excited and they come to me with four months, like, I really want to do an IRONMAN in four months time. And I sit there and I just wonder, you know, we talk about, okay, well, how many hours do you have to train and what have you been doing in the lead up to that? How fit are you now? Because I often view creating an IRONMAN as a one year passion project. You've got to be committed for that whole time and it's really important to sit down. I do it with a color coding. I get, you know, we get color code pens out, we do it online and we look at, right, how much time do you have? What hours are you working, like at your day job that pays for our addiction, which is triathlon. And then how many hours do you have to commit to your family? Because that's super important. And then what about your social life? What about, you know, all the other activities that you have in your life now? You've created the template of what can't be changed. Then tell yourself how many hours you have to train because then you're not giving up everything and you're making your triathlon life capable and sustainable. Whereas a lot of us get so excited that we just drop everything and decide that we can do six hour rides right from the get go. And that I think stifles a lot of our development when we first start signing up for races. So do I have enough time to train properly?

Andrew Harley: Yep. Ken, anything to add here on question number one that we're asking ourselves?

Ken Presutti: No, I think Raya nailed it. That's exactly the conversations that I have with my athletes and the conversation I continually have to have with myself.

Raya Usher: And me. And me.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. And part of this is going to depend on what your race is that you're looking at, right? If you're looking at, is this a sprint or Olympic? Okay. Like, if you're already in a triathlete lifestyle and you're just swimming, biking and running throughout your week, you're doing your TriDot training throughout your week, you can pretty much pop off a sprint or Olympic anytime you want to, right? If you're talking about a middle distance triathlon, you know, if you're coming from ground zero, okay, that takes some time. If you're doing your TriDot training every day of the week, you're really almost there. You might just need a little bit of time to build the stamina. And like Raya said, if you're talking about IRONMAN, there's just so much more that comes with a full distance triathlon. It does take a little extra time to make sure you're ready for that, even on top of the training. But yeah, really good point that when you're looking at the race, when is it? How much time is between now and then? And can I do this? Honestly, the only times I've said no to signing up for a race, if a friend pings me or a training partner pings me, and hey, I'm thinking about this race, do you want to jump in? The couple times I've said no, it's usually because I'm looking at it, I'm saying, hey, I know between now and then, could I finish? Probably. Would it be any fun whatsoever? Absolutely not. And so you say no just out of knowing, like, I will not be ready for that event to make it worthwhile. So really good initial question to ask ourselves. Coach Ken, what is question number two that we should ask ourselves before we register for a race?

Ken Presutti: Absolutely, I would say, does this race align with my overall season goals? And I think the step to that question is actually to say, what are my overall season goals? For some of us, it's probably clear. If we're a top age grouper, we're chasing podiums, we're probably chasing Kona. Or chasing world championships. And so that might be relatively clear, but for others, it might not be. So I alluded to this a little bit earlier. Are you just looking to get into a healthy hobby? Is your goal to race and experience part of this community with a group of friends? Why are you getting into this? And so I think figuring out what your why is very important. And for me, a lot of times I'll have athletes that really are looking for some type of big challenge, something that's going to push them. They might not necessarily have Kona on their mind, but they're looking for something to take them out of their comfort zone and feel like they can accomplish more. And so with that, we can start to have conversations around what time of year makes sense for you if you don't have to necessarily go for Kona or another race. What are your strengths? And we'll probably talk about that a little bit more in the podcast here as we come up. But based on that, is it just ticking off on a box that I want to be an IRONMAN? So all of those—I think we have to dive deeper in and figure out what the why is before we actually say, does this align with my overall season goal?

Andrew Harley: Yeah, I think the common whys, right. Like when we look at what are these season goals a triathlete could probably have. And there's no limit to what those goals could be. But the typical ones are a certain race, you know, usually an IRONMAN, or just I want to perform as well as I can at this race. It can be qualifying for something like Raya, you mentioned the story of you and Will setting out. Okay. Our big goal is to qualify for 70.3 worlds at 70.3 Gulf Coast in Florida. So a lot of times for athletes, it's a very specific qualifying goal. And once you've qualified, then the race you qualified for becomes the next goal. Sometimes it can just be, I want to make the podium at a certain event, whether it's local or big time. Sometimes it's just, hey, I want to get faster at this distance, and I just want to keep clocking in the training and keep clocking in races at this distance until I really feel like, you know, I'm really zipping along at this distance. Raya, these kind of common goals that athletes can have, how do those goals affect whether or not I should add a race to my calendar or not?

Raya Usher: Well, I don't necessarily know if that's the question I would ask my athlete, and here's why. What I would ask my athlete is, what is your why? And where did that why derive from? Because sometimes I find that a lot of us as athletes are really influenced by other people's whys, and so they're often not necessarily chasing their true goals and their overall season whys. And so again, it's that peer pressure of, well, I'll sign up to this one because my why is to do X, Y and Z. But it's not fundamentally what their true goals I think internally. So one of the things that I'm always doing is just making sure that we are looking at that athlete's true why. Don't be influenced by social media. Don't be influenced by the triathlon team. Don't be influenced by what the hot topic of today is. Make sure that your goals are your own. And that's what I would then make sure would influence the next race that we add to the calendar.

Andrew Harley: Yep. No, very, very good point. I think we have to remind ourselves sometimes like that race will be there next year. If it's not a good fit for me and my overall goals for the season, that race will be there next year. An example of that, Wildflower. This year we have a lot of TriDot staff going out to the revival of the Wildflower Triathlon Festival here in the United States. And I'm like, man, I've always wanted to do Wildflower, but it hasn't been a thing in so long. It's coming back. Okay, well, I'm not ready for Wildflower right now. So it's the wrong year for me to take on that trip and take on that race. But it will be there next year. Or sometimes that opportunity to race with their buddies. Well, that opportunity to race with their buddies will come around again. And so yeah, really, really good point there, Raya. On examining that for why we might be tempted to do a race that does or doesn't align with our overall goals. Let's move on to question number three. Raya, what is the third question we should ask ourselves when deciding if we should register for a race?

Raya Usher: Very important. I have seen this again a lot of times when athletes come to you and they've realized something very severe. So does this course suit my strengths? You know, before you sign up, make sure you really look into is this an open water swim or a lake swim or a river swim, or is this body of water something that one I'm comfortable in, one I have done before or I have access to train to. The last thing you want to do is if you live by, you know, we live by a little murky water, a tiny little lake here in Surrey. We're not too far from the ocean, but we're not doing regular sea swims. And if you're new to triathlon, maybe have a look at what you have access to before you start signing up to something. Another thing is, if you live in the flatlands, maybe a mountainous race isn't ideal for you because you don't have that to train on. Or maybe it's your body composition. You know, I've got some athletes who are so powerful on the hills because they're tiny, tiny, tiny and create such immense power. But if you're more of a Clydesdale body type and you just generate massive power but also have more body mass, you might actually really suit a flat course. And if you're not looking at the overall picture, you might find that you don't enjoy the challenge quite as much because you've just picked something that doesn't quite suit your strengths and opportunities and geographical location and logistic capabilities. And all of those things, I think, make for a much more successful and enjoyable experience when you think those things through before picking a race.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. Another thing I'll throw in, Raya, is weather. What kind of weather conditions do you do well in? Some people really struggle in the cold and are fine with the heat and vice versa. I fade really bad in the heat, which is really unfortunate for me because I was a kid who was born in Florida and grew up playing youth sports in Florida and I moved to Texas and so I've always been in the heat and I just, I fade really, really bad. I did my first IRONMAN in Waco, Texas and it was really, really hot. And I probably would have had a better bike performance and run performance had it been somewhere 10 degrees, 20 degrees cooler. So yeah, knowing how your body responds to environmental conditions might be a factor there as well. Coach Ken, anything to add on examining the course, examining the events, and thinking through is this a good fit for who I am and how I respond to courses?

Ken Presutti: I think it's so important. And everything that Raya mentioned, absolutely, I 100% agree with the other aspect that, or the other dimension that I might put on top of that. Raya alluded to different challenges in courses. So maybe if you're more than just the novice athlete, but you've got some experience under your belt and you say, you know what, I crush it on the hills. But I don't want to say struggle, but the swim is a challenge and I want to take on the challenge of overcoming a tougher swim. Maybe that's something that you look to do. So I'm going to focus my upcoming season on becoming a better swimmer and then get into Norseman, where it's just, you know, I'm jumping off the ferry and it's insane. But for me, that's my next step. That's taking me out of my comfort zone. So I think that it's important when you're getting started, find those races that match your strong suits and then as you progress as an athlete and you progress in the sport, find what's going to push you further and challenge you a little bit more. Again, I am on the flip end of you, Andrew. I hate being cold, but I've been practicing cold water immersion lately and at some point I'm going to find a cold water swim just because I want something to put myself a little bit further into that hurt locker and prove mentally that I'm strong enough to do it.

Andrew Harley: Alcatraz is out there, Ken. Alcatraz is out there.

Ken Presutti: I know.

Andrew Harley: And it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. Something I want to add here is I think both of you would agree and correct me if I'm wrong here, but don't hear this and think, oh, I shouldn't sign up for a course that doesn't suit me. It's kind of like Ken said, like maybe you intentionally go out of your way to take on a more challenging swim, bike or run course than you're used to because you want the challenge or one more thing I'll throw in. Maybe you just want to do a certain race for funsies and an example of this. You know, my wife and I for years wanted to go travel and vacation in Greece. And all of a sudden IRONMAN adds a half IRONMAN event in Greece. Now I look at the course profile, I'm not a good climber on the bike. I've got little skinny runner's legs. I don't produce a lot of power on the bike. And I look at the course, it's 4,000 meters of climbing on a 70.3 bike course. That is a lot for Andrew Harley, who lives in Dallas, Texas. That's monstrous. I suffered out there. But the point of that trip for us wasn't necessarily for Andrew to perform as well as he can at the race. It was to have fun at the race but also have a nice vacation in Greece. And so that trip, that race fit our family's kind of why for the year on racing, right. It wasn't a performance reason. It was a for fun reason. And that can be a perfectly valid reason to sign up for a race all in of itself. Is that okay, coaches? Was that okay there?

Raya Usher: Yeah, I think that's such a great point to make. And in the same vein, it's like does it suit my strengths in terms of like financials and availability and timing? So sometimes a race isn't always going to fit perfectly with your strengths or your limiters. But actually, as Ken said right at the beginning, getting sign off from the management at home is really important. And if the management wants to go to Mexico and do the 70.3 there because they want to lie on a beach afterwards, then we've got to have some compassion and give and take to make sure that it suits everyone in that decision making process. So yeah, absolutely.

Andrew Harley: Question number four that we should ask ourselves before registering for a race. Coach Ken?

Ken Presutti: How will this race impact my overall season? And we alluded to this a little bit earlier when we talked about A races, B races and C races. But number one, what is that big goal or that big race that I'm going after? And then how will this next race either support that or take away from that? I like to, with my athletes, work out what we believe our schedule is going to look like coming into that big race, set expectations and goals there. And then I like to take a look at the other races, the B races and the C races and say, oh, a local 5K is coming up. Well, we actually were planning on doing some threshold testing that week. So this is something that, yeah, is very easily going to support the race that you're doing or if an athlete has an Olympic distance race that they're considering or wanting to do, or maybe even a 70.3. Well, how does that align with what our A race plan was going to be that week? And how might we work together to work on adjusting the week so that you're still getting the same amount of fitness that you would get if you were simply just training for the A race. And how can we use this new race to help boost that fitness again and make sure that we're not taking away from it? Maybe we've got a 70.3 we want to put on the calendar, but if we do that, we know we're going to need a week of recovery afterwards. And I think that that's going to pull down fitness a certain level. Let's have a conversation. Is that race worth it from a standpoint of being there with my friends and my team and so mentally it's going to give me a boost and it's going to impact how I ultimately perform for my A race. I like to factor in all of those different things and some of those softer skills as we look at how a race is going to impact the overall season.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, it's something here, Ken, for me, I remember the first time I signed up for a 70.3 and the first time I signed up for a full distance IRONMAN. Both those occasions. Because that really honestly, the first time I signed up for an Olympic triathlon, like knowing I was taking that step up in distance for the first time, that first Olympic, that first half, that first full, that was my number one focus on the season. And I did a couple other races throughout the year, but I really honestly on those years backed off other events because mentally, mentally I wanted to make sure I was focused on the training and dialing in the nutrition and really preparing myself to make that jump in distance for trying something new. And then all of a sudden you do a couple Olympics and you're used to it, or you do a couple halves and you're used to it, you do a couple fulls and you're used to it. Well, now mentally, the load of taking on that race is a little bit easier. You know what to expect, you know how your body responds. And you can probably throw a couple other things on the calendar and not have it detract from the mental energy it's going to take to get ready for that event. That personal experience, that was a big thing for me. I think there's probably some people that can throw their first IRONMAN on the calendar and do a bunch of other things and be fine. But I found myself on years and seasons where I knew I was trying something new that I was a little intimidated by. I would intentionally back off the other things to make sure I was ready for that. And then once it was a known commodity, I was willing to experiment with the calendar a little bit more the next time I was doing that distance. Raya, anything to add here from you just on how the race we're looking at will impact our overall season.

Raya Usher: I really like how you've framed it, Andrew, because we always get into that state of mind, you know, especially if you're in that new realm. So that new realm could be a new distance. It could be a more amount of races that you're doing and everyone reacts differently. Some people respond really well to high pressure. Other people don't. Some people really love the process of training for races much more than racing. Others really thrive on that racing. So it's not just how will it impact necessarily training cycles and loads, but it will also impact that mental emotional state. But also some people are much more higher propensity to injury than others. So it's all about understanding who you are when you're adding specific races and making sure that it fits the whole system rather than just the physical of that season.

Andrew Harley: Yep, really, really well put. Question number five. This is the final one for the day. And guys, five questions is plenty to ask yourself. If you ask yourself more than five big questions, you're going to overanalyze which races are going on the calendar and never actually sign up for a race. So let's keep it to these five people and then hit the button and pay the money and go have fun at the race. But Coach Raya, what is the fifth question to ask ourselves before we register for a race?

Raya Usher: Why? Simple. Can I afford it both logistically and financially? Some, you know, some of these races are really expensive. For some of you guys who live in really beautiful parts of the States, you don't necessarily have to travel as far. And there are some really amazing races in the UK which I cannot knock. But I am someone who much prefers destination races. I don't want to go to Leeds in the UK to do a race because it's going to tend to be terrible weather and the road conditions are poor and it's not for the faint hearted and I'm a bit of a fair weather racer so I want to go somewhere beautiful. That often means that there's a huge amount of travel considerations. You've got to book your flights, your accommodation, how is your bike going to get there? Are you going to use a bike transport company? Are you going to buy a bike box? Are you going to do this solo or are you going to fly your two children, your dog and your wife or your husband to the race? The financial implications are not just the cost of race registration, it is the whole package of it. Especially if you have a big season planned. So just think about that before, think before you do. Rather than myself who's often most impulsive and will often just sign up and think about it later. Do as I say, not as I do.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. The logistics and financial costs, I mean that's almost self explanatory, right? I think the only thing that needs extra pointing out here is if you've never traveled for a race before, really talk to somebody about what the costs are because there's probably some costs you're not thinking about. The first time you do it, things like the bike travel case or how to get your bike, there's the hotel stays, the amount of days you're going to need to be acclimated to the conditions of where you're going. And so anyway, this is a really, really good point. But Raya, what you said there, that I want to point out, I really like where you talked about knowing that you're a fair weather racer. Because that's just a personal preference. That's not even like a how your body responds. That's not anything tangible to your goals of what you're going to do and what you're going to qualify for. That literally is just I like racing in good weather. Yeah. And I like racing on good road conditions. And that's a good thing to know about yourself.

Raya Usher: Well, like, I like really pretty places. Like some of the most memorable races for me was Cozumel. It's not the most beautiful race, but oh my gosh, that island is amazing and the culture and the people made that race one of the most memorable races I've ever done. Klagenfurt in Austria. You're in the most beautiful, mountainous, pristine lake that feels like you could probably bathe in it, it's so clean and the, again the crowds go wild and. Yeah, so it's not just the weather, it's that all encompassing atmosphere. And again, I don't want anyone emailing in and saying that the UK races aren't amazing because they absolutely are. The atmosphere is amazing. But like you said, the road surface isn't quite as smooth and all these things that I really like to race in and it kind of probably points out that I'm not very tough, but okay.

Andrew Harley: And that's what's important here. Yeah, it's important to know about yourself. I think of somebody like coach Jason Verbracken who comes on the podcast before and has done Norseman and Alaska Man and all these wild races. He likes going out of his way to make himself suffer as much as possible. So it's different strokes for different folks. I mean, I personally like you talked about, you like to travel for races. I like keeping my short course stuff local and I like taking my long course stuff somewhere new that I've never been before. That's the mix for me. But this is going to be different for everybody. So anyway, we're getting a little tangential here. Coach Ken, bring us back. Anything you want to add on just thinking through the logistics and the financial costs. Does this race fit my calendar in those ways?

Ken Presutti: I just think, echoing Raya's comments, I'm the same way. I typically am a sign up and figure out how to pay for it later kind of guy. But that adds extra stress on an already stressful schedule and already stressful set of activities that we're going to have to do to be able to complete this race. So sit down with your significant other or whoever you need to sit down with, map out what an appropriate budget is, how that's going to impact your other plans throughout the year, and just get on the same page and make sure that it is a race that makes sense for you from a financial perspective.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, I think this is exactly why I like traveling for halves and fulls and I like staying close to home for the short course stuff because you can do more of that local short course stuff with less of a cost and then really splurge on those trips for the fun halves and fulls. But that's what works for me personally and it's gonna be a little bit different for everybody else. The last question I want to ask today before we move on to our cooldown and here, Coach Ken's coach cooldown tip of the week is what race on your personal calendar this year? While we're talking races, let's end with a fun one here. What race are you most excited for this year? We're recording this episode in the year at February, the year 2025. So if someone catches this a few years down the road, you know, Coach Raya and Coach Ken may have already raced the races you're about to hear them plug. But for 2025, Coach Raya, what race are you most excited for?

Raya Usher: I have a confession to make. I'm not signed up for 2025.

Andrew Harley: It is.

Raya Usher: I have been focusing purely on coaching athletes and coaching coaches this past year and I have almost basically not even thought about racing myself. But it has been a long decade of some serious intense racing. I think I made a massive mistake of over racing for several years, doing multiple IRONMANs and, you know, three or four 70.3s in the same year, which when I had my fill for a while, I am teetering on the idea of 2025 coming back to racing.

Andrew Harley: Okay.

Raya Usher: But as yet, it is a watch this space. I'm so sorry. It's an awful question.

Andrew Harley: All good. Yeah. That's the honest answer, that's what we want to hear because we can root for the Raya Usher Comeback Tour if and when that materializes and Raya, folks that listen, I'll go next because this is very similar for me. Folks that listen to the podcast will have probably heard me allude to this before, but I haven't been actively training and racing in the last year or so. Between all the awesome opportunities we have here at TriDot and the work I'm doing for TriDot and having a baby in the house that I am just very excited to be dad to, those are priority. And so training is kind of taking a back seat here for a season. I'm starting to ramp up the runs again. I'm starting to ramp up the trainer bike rides again and hoping to do some local stuff this year. So this answer for me is very similar and I haven't registered yet. But tentatively, there is a local sprint and Olympic in Fort Worth in May and there's a really good friend of mine who lives in Tampa, Florida. He's actually flying out to Dallas Fort Worth around that same time frame and so he's like, hey, while I'm coming to Dallas, is there a race happening? Actually, there is. It's in May, it's in Fort Worth. And so I might go do that race with my buddy if he can talk me into it. And if I can feel confident that hey, I've run enough, I've biked enough, I can get in the water and do this thing that might be the Andrew comeback here in 2025. So coach Ken, please tell me you've actually signed up for something and can give us a tangible answer to shut down the main set.

Ken Presutti: Oh my goodness. I have.

Andrew Harley: Yes.

Ken Presutti: So this is IRONMAN Lake Placid. This will be my fourth time. It's a beautiful location. I just love it up there. And it's close enough to Pittsburgh that we have folks from Victory Multi Sport who will be participating, a lot of other local athletes. I've got a lot of New York based athletes that I coach who will be there. So for me, like, yes, I want to show up, I want to do my best, I want a PR but it's really about connecting with my athletes and connecting with the community and that's why I love that race so much every year. And even though I do have others I'll be doing that is the one that I will look forward to the most.

Announcer: Great set everyone. Let's cool down.

Andrew Harley: All right, time for the cool down of today's episode. And Coach Ken, it's your first full episode of the podcast, and so I thought I would just make you work a little bit longer, a little bit harder, and leave our athletes with one final triathlon training, racing, or lifestyle tip. What do you got for our folks today?

Ken Presutti: Fantastic. I'm going to go with the lifestyle route on this one, but it actually bleeds directly into triathlon. So I also do a lot of mindset coaching with business leaders and others in my work. And one of the tools that we use is something that we call the ideal week. So you can do this on your Google calendar as a separate calendar, you could put this in a spreadsheet. I actually write it out on a piece of paper and it really shows the week. It shows your hours each day of the week, and then every quarter, I pencil in what I want that ideal week to look like. So Mondays might be full of meetings, Tuesdays might be focused on coaching my athletes. Every day around 1 o'clock, I have an hour and a half blocked out for my own personal workout. And that helps me block my time so that I can get all of these things in that I have to do. I have to coach soccer, I have to coach athletes, I have to train myself. I've got a fantastic day job. There is a lot that is out there, and if I'm very intentional with my time, I can get most of it done. I call this the ideal week because it's ideal. You're not going to hit it every week if you're 70% of the way there, that's a pretty good week. But just being intentional with time is so, so important. And I think that if we as triathletes apply that and we don't say, oh, yes, tomorrow, I'll get my threshold intervals in at some point. But you don't actually block that off. It's not going to happen. So be very intentional with your time. Work toward those ideals and learn and adapt and change that week as you need to as your seasons of life change.

Announcer: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to TriDot.com and start your free trial today. TriDot, the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

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