How to Improve Your Race-Day Focus

Sixty down, 20 long miles to go. Caught up in the rhythm of the peloton, you float to the middle of the pack. Suddenly, you realize that while your mind has momentarily slipped out of "race" mode, an attack launched.

The realization comes too late. You jump but the break can't be reached. The race is over. You finish tired, frustrated and disappointed. You know you had the power and the skill to be at the front. So how did you miss the break?

Quality training and racing is more than the sum of your miles. To achieve peak performance, you must possess the ability to remain engaged and alert for prolonged periods of time, and be able to regain focus when faced with distractions.

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Often, the ability to focus for the duration of a race is what separates those at the top of the standings from riders of similar physical and technical ability. Despite the countless hours of offseason saddle time, few athletes make the effort to develop and strengthen their concentration skills.

Here are a few training tips you can use to sharpen your focus and get the most out of your race-day performance.

Auto Focus?

Aside from paying attention to traffic and the occasional enthusiastic dog, day-to-day training does not require the high level of concentration that racing demands. Training plans often fail to develop focus with the same intentional and systematic precision given to physical development.

This may be an oversight, or it may be due to the common misperception that either you have this skill or you don't. And come race day, the environment itself will not be enough to ensure automatic engagement.

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Focus and concentration is not a switch that can be flipped on at will. If it were, missing the break or a turn on the racecourse would be far less common.

Quality concentration is a valuable mental "muscle" that riders need to learn how to flex and strengthen. Once harnessed, the powers of focus and concentration will enhance your ability to stay engaged across the span of a race, push through fatigue, and regain control when distractions occur.

Flex Your Focus Muscles

The offseason is the best time to work on your focus and concentration. As mileage climbs during training, the natural inclination is to "get in the groove" and "just ride."

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While there's no need to maintain a hyper-vigilant focus throughout a four-hour training ride, if you consistently let mile after mile slip by unnoticed, you aren't training yourself to be ready come race day. Just like anything else, you'll need to practice focusing during segments of your training if you want to improve your concentration.

Let's look at a few specific focus drills you can include into your training that will help to develop your concentration skills this offseason.

Focus Intervals

Intervals should be a staple in every endurance athlete's training regimen. Early in the season, and within long-steady rides, use focus intervals to practice staying engaged and in the moment. The effort need not be particularly hard or challenging, but do have target power, heart rate and cadence windows to maintain.

Practice staying within these prescribed limits. Don't let your mind drift to anything other than staying in this zone. It can be challenging, especially since the effort during focus interval should not be difficult. Focus intervals are about practicing concentration, and it isn't the time to hammer away with all-out efforts—at least not at first.

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Identify what else you should concentrate on during the effort. Focus on how you feel, as well as external conditions, such as the conditions of the road or the direction of the wind. Intentionally shifting your concentration from one thing to another will allow you to adjust your focus on race day when you need to.

Start with focus intervals that are 4 to 6 minutes in length. As your focus improves, increase the interval time until it's difficult to maintain control of your concentration without your mind wandering. It should be a challenge—remember, the goal is to be able to maintain concentration for the duration of a race.

As your training progresses, focus intervals can be combined with tempo, steady state and crisscross efforts. This will be more challenging, but it'll get you closer to what you'll experience on race day.

Systems Check

Developing the ability to stay in touch with the physical sensations you'll experience during a race is crucial to success. Start by learning to connect with your body during hard efforts. How hard can you go and still maintain your effort? How close to exhaustion can you ride before you bonk?

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This focus skill can be honed through a personal "diagnostic systems check." Create a personal focus pattern, or roll call, to assess the following:

• Breathing rate
• How your legs feel
• Heart rate (not just numbers on your computer, but also feel)
• How much energy you have left in the tank

The goal is to rotate your focus through these different areas in order to associate these feelings with the amount of effort you're putting out, how fast you're going, and how hard you're working.

Practice associating these sensations with speed and power output rather than on the physical discomfort you experience. Learning to interpret the physical feelings with hard work, rather than with fatigue, will help you maintain focus instead of becoming distracted with negative thoughts.

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Find Your Way Back

One of the most common distractions that disrupt focus is physical discomfort. Hard efforts are going to hurt—it's the same for everyone. When your legs begin to burn, or when your lungs feel like they're going to explode, the natural tendency is to think about how awful or terrible you feel.

While nobody looks forward to pain, successful athletes learn to use positive-focus practices, such as cue words or phrases, to help refocus on the task at hand and bring them back into the moment.

You might choose a cue word or sound that you associate with power and speed, like "push," "power," or "go." During interval efforts, practice using your cue word to focus on the physical effort and intensity you'll need during race day.

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It isn't realistic to expect perfect focus throughout the duration of a cycling event. Between the rhythmic-nature of pedaling, the long stretches of time and the distractions on the road, it's inevitable that your focus will wander at one time or another.

This is not a cause for concern unless you're unable to refocus when you need to. By incorporating intentional focus drills into your training a few times a week, you'll become more aware of where your focus needs to be as well as when it begins to drift.

This awareness is essential to being able to flip the switch when your concentration is needed on race day. With a little practice, you'll learn to be mentally sharp and get the most from your performance.

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