Race Reports – Tell us ALL about it!

Your race is NOT over when you cross the finish line.

Yes, you put in all the hard work during training and took that victory lap on race day. Yes, you got your medal, race swag and post race celebration. If you’re lucky you even got a finisher picture worthy of posting to social media.

Now go the extra mile to write your race report and you will have valuable information to kick start your next phase of training and set yourself up for a new Personal Best.

Here are 4 simple tips to get you started:

1. Write your report as soon after the race/event as possible to avoid forgetting important information.
2. Include as many details as you can remember. You never know what will be useful down the road.
3. Reflect on how you feel physically & mentally; both will help guide your training.
4. Share it with your coach and athlete friends so they can celebrate and share their opinions and observations.

Reading other athletes’ race reports can be quite insightful as well. I was hoping to share a race report from my first in-person race, but that got canceled due to a hurricane. So here is my most recent race report from the B*REAL Virtual Triathlon.

My race reports tend to be VERY lengthy (As a coach and athlete I take the details very seriously) so I’ll get you started with the part focusing on what happened before the actual swimming, biking and running began.

B*REAL Virtual Triathlon ~ June 2021

First race back after COVID and it was a very special one for me. Earlier this year I got the idea to create my own tri team and organize my own race. After months of organization and planning it actually happened! I can’t limit my reflections to my athletic performance, but that’s where I’ll start with this race report. I’m going to try to keep my entrepreneurial and coaching reflections separate, but they may sneak in a bit.

There is a core of Team B*REAL athletes right here in the greater Boston area, so we tried to pick a date to race together. We ended up with a group of 4; the rest of the team picked different dates or locations.

As race day approached all eyes were on the weather forecast with predictions of rain in the morning. Our plan was to meet at 7 to start by 7:30 with hopes that rain would stop for the bike. That’s the cool thing about a virtual race – you get to be flexible. Knowing New England I was hoping it would change and be a non-issue. On top of that I developed some sort of winter cold the days leading up to the race. Super rare for me to get sick…and in June?? Only thing I could think of was the extreme changes in temperature and the fact that my daughter had the same thing the week before. What started as hints of a scratchy throat Wednesday night turned into congestion by Friday. I canceled my planned workouts and focused on drinking all the water (plus ice cream to soothe my throat) and even took a decongestant which is very rare for me as I normally don’t take any meds.

Race Day:
I was up at 5 am and immediately heard the rain outside. We adjusted our plan to meet at 9 for a 9:30 start. I was able to fall back asleep (definitely not normal for me, especially on a race day) and woke up to my alarm at 7:30am for an 8:30 departure. Still drizzling outside, but seemed to be slowing down. I began my normal prep process – breakfast, get dressed, prep nutrition, pack the car and go!

On the drive I drank my favorite pre-race cocktail of Energize + Hydrate. I tend to drink less when it’s cool so getting those electrolytes in before is key. I was cranking the REAL Triathlete playlist that I created on spotify to help pump me up.  There were some sprinkles from the road, but the rain had stopped. yahoo!

When I pulled into the parking lot, Evelyn, Allison & Meghan had already arrived and Joe (our awesome photographer) was pumping music to make it feel like a “real” race.

I knew I would have extra responsibilities to get the day organized. I chatted with everyone first so I would be able to concentrate on getting my own stuff together. I wanted to make sure Meghan and Evelyn were set for their 1st tri ever. I coordinated the Olympic route plan with Allison. I chatted with Joe about logistics and photo ops. I was surprised that this wasn’t too distracting for me. It was just enough to get me out of my own head.

I headed down to check the water. The plan was anything above 70 I would skip the wetsuit. Klukkie reported around 73. Perfect. No wetsuit. Picture taken for documentation. Filled up my water basin. Time to prep transition. I backed in so I had just enough grassy area behind my car and laid out all the options for the changing weather in my trunk.

Then it was picture time! Even with Joe there to grab all the shots, I had to take an official starting line selfie – one with the team and another solo. I sang a very abridged version of the National Anthem and then it was go time.