Stop treating your ’C-races’ like ’A-races’ (and start doing this instead)

If you're a serious and committed endurance athlete like me, you've got your a race, your b-race and even c races planned throughout the year.

But how do you optimise a c race in your training and the same c race theory into your everyday life?

Find that out and more in this episode of DLake Creates.

In this episode my every now and then co-host Phil and I go a bit fringe and niche. We discuss something that I haven't heard discussed enough —- The C Race!

For a real-world example - Let's take my half marathon distance virtual DIY race (or whatever you want to call it).

I wanted to test my fitness, get a decent half marathon time under my belt for the year (to keep my annual half marathon streak going), and also gain fitness to run my best in an upcoming 5k time trial for the year. Very ambitious but also very doable.

The half marathon strategy of racing it like a c race was perfect because I wanted to maximise my aerobic gains, not burn myself out (staying aerobic helps) and then slide into sub-threshold pacing to help get my lactic acid system ready for the demands of the 5k coming up.

A few things you will learn from this episode;

• Phil discusses the article he wrote on this
• how to not treat every race and hard work as a smash war fest
• Phil's mindset on C races and how it will help you race and live better
• The beauty of thinking like a scientist and embracing failure
• Fixed mindset vs growth mindset
• and more!

Episode Links

• Phil Cross - C Race -https://philcross.net/coaching/c-races/
• Carol Dweck - Mindset - https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Updated-Carol-Dweck/dp/147213995X/ref=asc_df_147213995X/
• James Clear - How your beliefs can sabotage your behaviour - https://jamesclear.com/fixed-mindset-vs-growth-mindset
• James Clear - 3 Stages of failure in life - https://jamesclear.com/3-stages-of-failure
• Suggested episode to listen to next: The most powerful way to think for endurance sport gains - https://dlakecreates.com/the-most-powerful-way-to-think-for-endurance-sports-gains/

Notable Quotables

• C Races are a cautionary tale to not get swept up in the competition of things. Just chill out and treat the training, testing and fun races as exactly what they should be.
• Testing and having permission to fail is important. If you treat failure like a scientist then you want to fail. Failure gives you more data points to prove or disprove your hypothesis
• When you don't treat your c race as a low priority you might end up optimising for the wrong thing
• People with a fixed mindset typically don't enjoy losing. They don't see failure as feedback.

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