Success Leaves Clues

There's a difference between losing and being beaten. It sounds like semantics. It isn't.

Sports psychologist Justin Su'a — whose ideas I came across on a recent episode of The Knowledge Project podcast — draws a clean line between the two. 

Losing is on you: a tactical error, a mental lapse, a gap in your training that you could have closed. Being beaten means the other rider was simply better that day. They’re not the same problem, and they don't deserve the same response.

Making that distinction clearly — and honestly — is where a good post-race review starts.

Most racers do a post-mortem on a bad race and skip the autopsy on a good one. That's a mistake. Su'a's point is that success leaves clues, too — but only if you bother to look for them. What (and when) did you eat the night before? How was your stress level leading into the race? What was your warmup? What did you tell yourself on the start line?

If you can reverse-engineer a win with the same rigor you'd apply to a loss, you start to accumulate something more valuable than fitness: a repeatable process.

After your next race — good or bad — ask the same questions as Justin: “What went well? What did I learn? What am I going to do better tomorrow?”

See you next week,

— Steve