Racing Debrief

So what is the use of a race debrief? Beyond "talking story" which is FUN for sure!...

Well, consider it kind of like the cognitive (mental) version of post race eating and hydrating. The event is fresh in your head. The legs of the race, moments, conditions, high points, low points, aches and pains, personal surprises, etc...

Remember that every person in the boat is experiencing the same set of objective facts, but each will perceive things differently based on his/her strengths, weaknesses, physiology, fitness, seat position, head-space, etc.

The "cognitive" purpose of the debrief is important to your paddling development. This is the moment to get away from broad, black and white, general observations. Now is the moment for more subtle "error recognition" (that's what we call it when people are re-learning to monitor and adjust their performance in rehab), measuring aspects of performance against a standard (which means you know what standard you are trying to reach). What we turn our ATTENTION to, we can change (no attention, no change).

AND setting specific, measurable, realistic goals for your training and for your next race: EXAMPLE: In this race, we maintained strong changes ~50% of the time (as our focus came/went). Our goal as a crew is to maintain our focused changes (strong changes and first 3 strokes) 80% of the time at the next race, which means using a series of cues and reviewing our progress each practice for the next 2 weeks. IF we don't pay attention to this in practice, we wont achieve it.

We may each choose a personal process goal, as well as a crew process goal. I may be working on pulling down/pushing off effectively on my right side AND working my attention to the changes. How will I know if I did better? Well, first, I'll be aware that I was aware of my right exit for some % of the time. Secondly, I can ask a teammate to cue me when I'm NOT doing it, and I can count how many cues I needed... You get the picture.

The more specific, the better the likelihood of success, both because you will be able to see/recognize the change AND you will be better able to measure it.

Like Brent's post about training LSD causing you to paddle long, slowly, NOT paying attention in practice trains you to NOT pay attention. Maximize the miles (effortful practice) - don't let them be junk miles!

Risa