Are you the one who practices and tweaks their competition strategy? Are you the one that goes all out? Of course, you are. Are you the one that shatters a challenge? Yes, you sure have. Are you the one that strives to be better and better and better? Absolutely, you are! And whether you recognize it or not, you probably have a simple strategy.

I used to race. Friends who trained with me called me Lance Armstrong. Ha, I laughed. It was mainly because I’d climb hills with a vengeance. I remember the first time I climbed Mt. Diablo. I had no clue where the top was. I kept my head down, kept my cadence consistent, focused on my breath and kept saying, keep going. I just kept hammering my way up until I reached it. This was not an uncommon experience. I remember when I did the Donner Lake Triathlon for the first time. The elevation and climbing during that tri was crazy but I kept going even though my heart was beating out of my chest. When I lived in LA I would ride during the hottest part of the day, riding in my big gear regardless of the hills. Is that what I should do? Was I superhuman?

I wasn’t superhuman. I had a competition strategy and needed to develop my physical strategy for training and racing, as well as a mental strategy to meet my goals, be at my best, and reach that peak.

Physical strategy

You may be thinking, of course, I need a physical strategy, but you’d be surprised at how many elite athletes don’t have one. A physical race or competition strategy should be something you and the coach put together that guides you through the process of a competition. If cycling is your sport, it might sound something like – start off moderate, hang toward the back of the lead pack, second lap pick up your cadence and the last lap is an all-out sprint. You can see this doesn’t include anything about the outcome of the race – times, numbers or places. If you stay present and follow your process, the outcome will be what you want it to be as long as you’ve trained and are being realistic.

A physical strategy is one important piece of competing. Why? It helps to break down the competition, the race, the meets, the match; etc. and gives your brain something to focus on but not too much to think about. Ensure you include 1-2 of your own realistic expectations in your plan.

Break it down into segments

In my tri races, I’d have a race strategy much like the above example. Before a race, I would think about how I wanted to move through the race. For example, I will start my swim toward the middle outside of the pack, to make sure I start at a moderate pace and don’t go out too fast. Once I get a feel for the swells and where people are positioning themselves I will draft off someone who is just slightly faster then the pace I started…etc. I would do this for the swim, bike and run. It broke my race into pieces and gave my brain something to focus on in each segment.

Mental strategy

The other important piece of your competition strategy is to develop a mental strategy. It’s great to lay out physical strategies because it gives your brain a job to do but what happens when you start feeling tired, someone passes you, or your heart rate feels like it’s gone through the roof. Your brain will move away from its original job toward these other thoughts and feelings. This thinking is human nature, but you have to know how to deal with these moments, otherwise, the chance of them overtaking you, is pretty good.

For example, if today I plan for tomorrow’s workout, but I wake with a stiff back, it’s probably going to be difficult to think about anything else other than my stiff back. When you learn to train the brain to think better, to think differently, it will, and it does.

Develop your mental plan

Once you have your physical strategy planned out for your competition with 1-2 of your own expectations, it is time to tie in the mental pieces you want to work on.

• Ensure your MENTAL competition strategy includes 1-2 of your own expectations; things you want to work on during the race. For example, when someone passes me I am going to keep pace (versus feeling defeated). When I see that first hill, I am going to say to myself, I can’t wait to climb it (versus oh, s&^% that’s a big one).
• Think about the areas of the competition where you struggle the most and develop a mental strategy to deal with those moments. For example, 10 minutes into any race my back would feel like it was going to break but I couldn’t focus on that particularly if I was doing an Ironman. I would focus on my breathing and on passing the person in front of me. I played a lot of leapfrog while I was racing.
• Recognize the times during a competition when you need to energize. For example, I’d usually feel pretty good until mile 50 of a century ride but in mile 51, something would change, and I’d need energy. To gain energy, I’d use my mantra ‘this is mine for the taking’ and sometimes I’d do some speed intervals.
• Consider the key moments in your competition when something doesn’t go your way and how you want to respond. You need to decide ahead of time. You need to have a plan, so you can react properly.
• Know your weaknesses. Take them on and get excited about them!

Your best competition strategy starts to appear

Design your competition strategy to include the physical and the mental aspects for the race, the meet, the match – for your particular game day. The combination of the two allows you to perform your best. You should include how you want to move through the performance and as mentioned, your own expectations, physical and mental.

All of this gives you a way to organize and stay in the process of the competition, plus it gives your brain something to focus on rather than focusing on the negative or difficult aspects of competing. Having this kind of a strategy also helps you feel confident, organized, and prepared for what you are doing. If your goal(s) are realistic, you now have the best chance of meeting them. And don’t worry if you don’t quite meet it, you worked on what you set forth to work on during the competition, and you have those things to continue to practice, to feel good about, and to develop into mastery.

Learning how to develop the right physical and mental strategies brings with it much more satisfaction.

Test it out, test it again, and keep practicing to put together your physical skills with your mental skills and feel the magic happen.