Why Write a Race Report?

Writing a race report is something that athletes have done in various forms for a long time. From a

very basic list of splits, final time, and placing to a recounting of feelings, pacing, nutrition, atmosphere, incidents, experiences, performance, and emotions, this is the range of detail that a race report can have. The idea is to write something that summarizes your race and provides you with details that you can learn from next time you race. Oh, and it gives you a record to look back on when the memory of the event fades a year from now, or when you're old and gray and full of fleas!

I haven't thought about this for a long time but I've actually been writing my own version of a race report since I was a 16 year old competitive swimmer (and that was a long time ago!) Each race - there might be 10 races at a weekend swim meet - had a little report written about it. In those days it included my splits, final time, how I placed, and possibly how I felt during the race, how I performed compared to my race plan, and where I thought I could improve. Some races were barely recorded while other races, the ones I considered important, tended to have more information.

What should your race report look like? That's up to you. A race report is a personal accounting of your performance. It can be written as bullet points, incomplete sentences, without regard to writing conventions. Or it can be written in a storytelling form that takes the reader on your personal journey, beneath the surface, and through the race experience in such a way that even a non-athlete will find it interesting. Of course it can be some sort of combination of the above.

What I hope will happen when you write a race report is that you will gain insight into your race: your process, your thinking in the tough moments, your effort level. It can reinforce things you did right. It can help you uncover things you fell short on. It can help you see solutions to problems and difficulties you may not have handled as well as you would have liked. And, if you let other people (like your coach!) read it, it can give those people the opportunity to give you insights from their perspective. Finally, if you have people supporting you in your journey/quest/adventure a good race report allows them to go with you, at least vicariously, and read about what the experience was like.

Here's an incomplete check list of some things you might include in your race report. If and how you put these in is up to you and in some ways depends on who your "audience" is.

• Title, including name of race and where it is
• Date, distance of race
• Include a picture or pictures if appropriate
• Include your goals and objectives, including outcome, performance, process, and experiential.
• Tell a story in as much or as little detail as you think your audience will be interested in. Give some juicy details that will interest your readers. Consider writing one with "the story" that's on the short side and a 2nd one with the details that only you, your coach, and a few other people will be interested in.
• Results - keep those short and sweet, just the facts, possibly done as a list. If you've done the race or a similar race before, include that for comparison/perspective.
• Describe the venue and conditions. Would you like to race there again?
• Analyse your performance - the goods, the bads, the challenges. Did it go according to plan? What did you learn? Where could you have performed better? What would you do differently?
• Nutrition - especially important when it comes to a triathlon or longer distance event where you are taking in calories and hydration.
• Miscellaneous details that might find there way into your report: travel and accommodation details, sleep or lack of it, pre-race nutrition/diet, expectations, warm up, stress levels, pacing, etc.
• Not a writer? Follow a template that helps you make sure you cover the basics without getting carried away but also not leaving out important details. I've come up with one if you need something to follow.

I'm guilty of writing race reports that are far too long (see Ironman Chattanooga) for the average person to read, although I've occasionally kept it to a more reasonable length (see LifeTime Tri Oceanside). Most don't care about some of the details I care about and for them all those details may make them decide to quit reading to the end. On the other hand, my audience also usually includes other triathletes who want to know about the nitty-gritty. They might gain some knowledge about a race they plan to do in the future or maybe they want to see how I handled a difficult situation. Or maybe they want to be inspired to go out and do the same thing. Unfortunately some could use it to BEAT me in a future race but I'm okay with that because, in the end I want to see others be well-prepared, be inspired, and find successes in what they set out to do.

Next time you do a race, follow it up with a race report. It may just make a meaningful difference in how you train and how your race in the future.