One of our mantras at Riding Bumps is that you need to race to learn how to race. In our book and training programs , we recommend that if you want to race your best you should be racing once a month during the race season or at least 4 times in the year prior to your A-priority SUP or prone paddle race of the year. This even applies to paddlers who really only want to race one “A-priority” race each year.

Some athletes paddle race because they love to race and we cannot get them to stop racing and focus on their training.  If that describes you, you can skip the rest of this article.  Other athletes pick a classic race like Molokai or Catalina or the Dana Point Battle of the Paddle race as a fitness milestone. Many of these athletes do not care how well they do – they just want to finish anywhere except last. If that is your goal, great, but you still need to race at least one time before Molokai , Battle of the Paddle or other any other race you want to do well in.

Over the years we have seen too many athletes who focus their entire year on a single race, train their brains out, do everything right, and then implode on or just before race day. The reasons athletes give us for their spectacular flame outs are all over the map. Overtraining, undertraining, poor nutrition, the dog ate my homework. Whatever the reason- we know our athletes and, in many cases, their reasons for their implosion do not make sense.

On the other hand, successful athletes always (I mean always) race multiple times a year.  Although we cannot definitively state that one of the reasons they do well is because they race often, the correlation is too great to ignore.

My impression is that the athletes who race only once a year put too much pressure on themselves on race day. All of that pressure weighs on them…that “mind-body” connection thing gets the best of them…and they crack on race day. Racing before your priority race of the year seems to help calm your nerves, allows you to practice your race day preparations, forces you to practice your race day nutrition, helps you get used to what it feels like when you adrenals are pumping and you are wound up on the starting line. For whatever reason, athletes who race multiple times each year just seem to have less negative “self talk” before race day.

A great way to get race experience is to race one or two weeks before your priority race. These races are called “tune up” races and they are an excellent way to finalize your training before you start your taper.

Remember, these “tune up” SUP or prone paddle races are training races. You are racing to get race experience – not to win. In fact, you should be holding back during the race. HINT: it is OK to tell your friends and family your goal is to lose to take even more pressure off. They won’t understand but that is OK.

For example, this year, before the world championships at Molokai we  are going to race The Naish Maiko Downwind Run (1).  Before the Dana Point Battle of the Paddle,we will be at the Water Warrior Beach Festival (2) at Camp Pendleton.   These two races are perfectly timed before the main event and are of a perfect distance to boot.

The bottom line on all of this is that there is no such thing as an “A-priority race.” A-priority races are always raced as a pair with a “tune up” race one or two weeks before.

References:

1. What? You don’t plan on being in Hawaii the week before Molokai? Seriously?  You are going to do all of this training and then fly in Thursday night and hope you are over your jetlag, you are rehydrated, and ready to race before the weekend. Dude – take a vacation, focus on your recovery, and spend a few extra days in Hawaii before the race. No excuses on this one.  Slamming some coffee on race day won’t make up for your jet lag.

2. Full disclosure – Roch Frey’s event production company Multisports.com organizes this race. He called me up and railed on me about mentioning the race in this article after I added it because he said it was cheesy. Cheesy or not, the reason Multisports chose that race, at that time, at that location, is precisely so athletes can use it as a tune up race before the BOP. Besides, when else are you going to get to paddle on the military base and camp out with your family? If that was cheesy, please spank Matt when you see him. Roch is off the hook on this one.