Common racing mistakes - miscellaneous

You have trained for weeks, months, or years and it’s finally time to put all the effort to good use. It’s race day!

Everything is mapped out, you see yourself finally crossing the finish line, achieving a personal best, or even making it onto the podium.

Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out as you expected.

Let’s have a look at some of these miscellaneous mistakes.

Miscellaneous

The mistakes here are some that fall under the miscellaneous category because they aren’t really related to anything specific around training and racing but are still tied to the event itself. Some of these mistakes are just annoying while other can call for your disqualification. Let’s have a look at some of those.

Rules and regulations

Every time you race you should be reading about the rules and regulations for that race. Some triathlon races have a no drafting policy on the bike section with varying distances required as the minimum distance to the athlete in front of you (ranging from 10 to 20 meters). If you get too close and don’t overtake within a specified timeframe, you will get a penalty.

Some races allow for you to have electronics other than your watch and bike computer while other strictly prohibit it.

During some events you can’t take any outside help. This means that you can’t receive any items like drinks and gels from spectators, help from your coaches on specific time etc. On other races it’s completely fine.

It’s up to you to know the rules for a give race and make sure you adhere to those rules. Race organizers have your best interest in mind and you should try to make it as easy and uneventful as you can for them.

Emergency procedures

Sometimes, things can go from bad to worse. You might faint, fall, have a crash or something else which forces the race staff to remove you from the race. In these cases, they will try contacting someone you know to let them know where you are. You can make their job a lot easier if you write down some basic info like emergency contacts on the back of your race number.

You might be allergic to some stuff so it’s in your best interest to have these information on you if things make a turn for the worse.

Gear check

This is one that can make a nice race really miserable. You forget your socks, helmet, bottle, or something else you think you need and all of a sudden you are scrambling to be ready for the race.

Have a list of stuff you want to have for the race and tick things off as you put them in your race bag, or even better, have someone else with you to be the sanity check person for you.

Fun

This is one that I really feel said when I see it. People are so focused on their race that they forget about the most important part of any race - having fun and enjoying yourself.

Give out high fives to kids, thank every volunteer you can, smile to people cheering you on. It can make you faster :)

Whenever you screw up at a race, don’t think about it too much. Learn from it and make the best of it. It will be a great story some day.

Until next week.