Why a Post-Race Reflection

We spend weeks, months, and sometimes years chasing our goals. From early mornings day after day to all the sacrifices made to pursue a goal that lights you up and that is important to you. Whether it is to test yourself to go faster or longer, once we arrive to the day to test ourselves, it can go in a flash. A race is a celebration of our training. Sometimes, it can be perfectly executed or leave us questioning -- what happened. Post-race, it's important to take a moment to reflect on the wins of race day and the areas where improvement can be found. This allows you to identify multiple key elements to your race execution and training plan where you can celebrate the achievements and recognize what you've learned to be able to begin to visualize how to take what you've learned to your next goals. 

Below are some questions I share with my athletes to help guide their post-race reflection. I recommend taking the time to reflect and write down all the wonderful things that can come from training for a race and the race experience itself. I do this almost for every race of my own and it always gives me great insight on what I have achieved, where my weaknesses are, and what I would like to do next. Happy training and reflecting! Every experience is a learning experience. 

Post-Race Reflection

1. Race name, date, distance, weather
2. Describe the course. (Gain, point to point, race support, etc)
3. Estimate finish time vs actual finish time?
4. What do your mile splits show you about your pacing strategy? 
5. Were there any factors out of your control that impacted your results? 
6. Where you able to handle uncontrollable obstacles?
7. Were you able to stabilize your emotions? 
8. What was your fueling / hydrating strategy? Did it go as expected? How could you improve it? 
9. What makes you most proud of this race? 
10. What was your mindset before the race? Do you feel you can improve this? 
11. What was your mindset during the race? 
12. How was your sleep during race week and race weekend? Do you feel you can improve this? 
13. How was your nutrition race week and race weekend? Do you feel it helped or hurt your performance? 
14. What are the three major successes in your goal race? 
15. Where are three major areas you feel you can improve on? 

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