Joe here - It's time to race.
All the hours spent on the road this long winter in the rain and cold, all the trainer work and the planning of 2018 starts lines. It's time.
You're 2 weeks away from the Team Joe Barr 200 and The Joe Barr 500. For many it will be your first race in the season so this start line might bring an elevated heart rate.
If you remember one thing from this blog, remember this;
Performance = Potential - Interference
Ultimately your performance on April 28th-29th will be the end result of this equation.
It will all come down to how much you were able to realise your physical, mental and emotional potential minus the things that interfered with your forward motion.
Protect Your Potential
At 2 weeks out your essential training is complete. Your body can't make any real gains no matter what you do so you need to protect the form you have. You need to taper which means shorter duration for your longer rides and a decrease in both the volume and duration of your high intensity rides.
Any, what I call, 'panic workloads' or 'panic training sessions' will simply erode and stress your form. The race cannot be won in the last 2 weeks but it can be lost.
So trust the form you have. Focus on connecting to it when you do ride.
Eat well. Keep your off-bike nutrition steady and consistent, fuel on the bike and keep hitting all your recovery windows. Stay hydrated.
You must protect your glycogen stores, you're going to need them at some point in the race. But no need for 'panic bowls' to try and stock up on extra glycogen. We all have a limited storage capacity which depends on muscle mass. Remember that the body can easily replenish glycogen so unless you miss your recovery windows you'll be ok.
Jillian, Our team nutritionist has talked about all this in a previous blog.
Minimise Your Interference
There will always be interference, that's the nature of racing but minimise the bit of it you can control. This is critical.
Two weeks out is the perfect time to prepare your equipment. Go through it and go through it again. You don't want to lose time or DNF because of a lack of spares or improper gearing. What spare kit are you packing? Over pack. Over prepare.
Alan, our crew manager, often says "you're better looking at it than for it". He's right.
Go over your strategy. Whether you are a solo or a team what is it you want to achieve in this race? What are your goals? When you have clear goals you can see more clearly what could possibly get in the way of achieving those goals.
Minimise that interference.
Go over your nutrition strategy and who is going to administer it. What's plan B when plan A goes pear shaped....all the commotion in the crew car when something goes awry is interference and it will at some level affect your performance.
Simple things like going over basic administration, rules, registration documents and service car to make sure they meet requirements. You'd be amazed at the stress you can add when you and your crew show up unprepared.
It's all interference and the above is controllable. You need to keep your resources for the uncontrollable interference the race is going to throw at you as soon as you pass that start line.
The Final Equation
However you perform don't lose sight of the fact that it's the first race of the season.
April is a perfect month to put in these kinds of distances for other endurance races later in the calendar. We chose April purposefully.
Every race is an opportunity for growth, for knowledge that will take your and your crew further, faster and in pursuit of bigger goals.
See you on April 27th for sign-on, scrutiny and briefing.
I can't tell you how much the team and I are looking forward to welcoming you to our start lines.
For all information relating to the Team Joe Barr 200 or The Joe Barr 500 please go to racejoebarr.com
To find out more about one-on-one coaching with Joe or nutrition with Jillian please visit us on the Team Joe Barr Website.