A Boy Scout’s motto is to "be prepared" and as endurance athletes we should heed Baden Powell’s words of wisdom (founder of Boy Scouts). Most athletes spend countless hours training for their key events only to come unstuck on race day by not planning for all eventualities or stressing over small controllable situations.

I strongly recommend all athletes I work with to have a comprehensive 24 - 48 hour plan for their key races of the season. This should be practised in lead up events and applies to all endurance racing whether it be the coast to coast a sprint tri or Ironman. The race plan will help reduce race day stress and allow you to focus all your energy on getting to the finish line.

A race plan must be written down. By doing this you are committing to your plan. If you have a race plan in your head it’s simply too easy to make changes and forget imports items.

Things to include in your race plan

• Gear check list

• Nutritional plan
• What you are going to eat the day before the race.
• Race morning breakfast
• Race fuelling. Especially important for long distance races. Include exactly what you are going to eat on an hourly basis. Ensure you have practiced this several times in training.
• Post race fuelling. The quicker you can refuel the quicker you will recover.

• One to two days before
• Final gear check
• Register
• Check out course details

• Hour by hour plan to race start
• What time are you going to:
• get up
• arrive at race site
• pump up tires
• register
• warm up
• etc 

• Pacing / Tactics
• For the majority of recreational athletes, endurance races are personal time trials and correct pacing plays a large part in your finish time. The longer the race the more important pacing becomes. In general if you save some energy for the last section of the race you will finish in a better overall time than if you go out hard and blow up.
• Think about your pacing before the race and stick to your plan no mater what others are doing. It is human nature to go out fast.

• Strategies to deal with "what ifs".

Some people view this as being negative but I think it is vitally important to deal with possible problems before they arise. Then if something does go wrong you have a mental or physical process in place to deal with it and it will be far less stressful. For example if you get a puncture at Ironman it is not the end of the day. Most athletes panic and get back on their bikes trying to make up "lost time". You are far better off writing off the time spent on the side of the road; call it a rest or whatever you want but stick to your original plan.

• Write down any aspects of the race that you are concerned about. Then write down how you are going to deal with them mentally and practically.
• Other than mechanical failure or major medical issues most problems can be dealt with or "managed" through correct planning.

• Remember to enjoy yourself.

NEVER try anything new on race day which you have not practiced in training.

If you cover all these aspects your day will be far less stressful and you can concentrate on the task at hand which is usually getting to the finish line in the quickest possible time.

Happy training

John Newsom

John Newsom is a professional triathlon coach based in Christchurch , New Zealand . He is the manager of the New Zealand Multisport & Triathlon Centre ( www.nzmtc.com ) and also runs an online coaching business coachjohnnewsom.com