Evaluating Performance

Note:  This essay originally appeared in the Fall ’06 issue of USA Triathlon Life Magazine, the publication of USAT.

What motivates us to race?  If we are seeking some kind of satisfaction through our racing efforts, what criteria do we use to evaluate our race performance, to measure our satisfaction?  As we approach the finish line of a race, the first thing most of us look at is the clock overhead.  “How fast was I today?”  Then, as we swig down our recovery potion, we patiently await a posting of the race results. “How did I place overall or in my age group?”

Our standard criteria for evaluating race performances are based on time and placement – the faster our time or higher our placement, the better our performance.  If our primary element is time, we compare this race performance to past performances of the same distance – perhaps on the same course – in hopes of improving our speed and decreasing our time.  However, climate and course variations can skew these results, diminishing this method as an absolute basis for evaluation.  If we choose instead to compare our race performance to other athletes in our age group, we can factor out variations in climate and course, since we are all racing under the same conditions on the same course.  However, our competition changes from race to race.  A goal race for me might just be a training session for you.  A small venue local race will have a smaller field, with a smaller “talent pool” than a national championship.

Regardless of the variations that these criteria include, they certainly motivate us to train with the intention of increasing our speed.  Worldwide, the bottom line for athletic glory in the field of endurance athletics is one of greater speed over the prescribed distance.  Two questions we may ask ourselves: Are there other criteria for evaluating race performance?  If speed reigns as the standard, what training methods will effectively increase our speed?

Alternatives:  If we identify and make the conscious choice to employ some criteria other than speed on which to base our satisfaction (or disappointment) on, it may profoundly change our individual and collective approach and philosophy towards training and competition.

First, consider how much speed currently dictates race performance evaluation.  Prizes and recognition are given for the fastest race performances, as are lucrative sponsorship and endorsement contracts.  Few companies want their products to be associated with slow athletes.  Professional endurance athletes face a bleak future if they don’t make it to the finish line “on top”.  The Almighty Media focuses on the fast and elite athletes.  It has a very strong bearing on our evaluation criteria –as athletes, spectators and corporate scouts.  If we subscribe wholly to this pervasive media influence, it can adversely affect our self-esteem and may discourage us altogether from enjoying the camaraderie and magic of racing.

In the past few decades, there has been a shift to include the “everyman” in the glory and recognition of racing.  Both media coverage and sponsorship are beginning to honor and recognize top age group competitors as heroes – along with the pros.  (This is a significant theme for Inside Triathlon – the magazine for age group triathletes.)  Long distance events – such as half and full iron distance triathlons, as well as marathons, ultra-marathons and multi-day adventure races – now recognize each and every finisher as a “winner”.  This glorious recognition and honor that embraces all finishers who “go the distance” certainly feeds the growing popularity of such venues.  Medals, as well as t-shirts, now await us at the finish line.  Each and every “Ironman” is a hero.

Perhaps you are a mid- or back-of-the-pack athlete and have no interest in training for and participating in long races that offer each finisher a medal.  Take heart, there are other criteria for evaluating your race performance and your self-esteem.  Consider that many races benefit charitable organizations serving those who suffer from diseases that prevent them from enjoying the same fitness that we do.  Simply participating in a race that raises money for such a worthy cause is a source of great satisfaction, joy and self-esteem.

Team In Training and similar organizations provide free coaching for both athletic training and fund raising.  Athletes receive honor and recognition for completing a race and for raising money.  Along with the millions of dollars Team In Training has raised for Leukemia research and treatment, the organization has provided inspiration for literally tens of thousands of would-be athletes to make the commitment to themselves and to those in need.  Many complete their first marathon or first triathlon through this or a similar organization.  This proactive approach to racing is changing the way we evaluate our race performances to include a more compassionate “human” factor.

Still, with our dominant global standard for speed fueled by the all-pervasive media hype, it is easy for us to lose site of the “big picture”.  Recently, I met a coach in his late 40’s – a leading national authority on innovative, effective training and coaching methods – who still laments that he never ran a mile faster than 4:02 during his athletic prime.  Over twenty years later, the 3-second gap that separates him from the elite 3-minute milers continues to eclipse his athletic satisfaction and happiness.  Is this really cause to throw away one’s sense of accomplishment?

The Real Big Picture:  Far, far less than one percent of our global human population has the health, material wealth, political and cultural freedom, family support and free time to enjoy the pursuit of fitness and athletic lifestyle that we do.  That’s the real “big picture”.  We are so very fortunate and have much to be grateful for – regardless of whether we experience a “PR” every time we race.  Simply put, happiness lies in our ability to recognize it.

When we lie on our death beds and review our lives through our most endearing eyes, we will reflect not on our race times and our placement over other athletes, but on how our athletic experiences enhanced our lives as whole, complete human beings and how we inspired and enhanced the lives of those around us.

In offering this perspective, I am not suggesting that we abandoned or be ashamed of our pursuits for speed, faster times or higher placement.  I am allowing for the possibility that a not-too-obsessive pursuit for athletic excellence can benefit – not diminish – our lives as human beings and our relationships with others.  We can have our cake and eat it too.

The Need for Speed:  How do we train for speed?  Our primary means for increasing speed is to include high intensity intervals in our training.  The variables we manipulate in this quest for speed are the level of intensity, interval duration and interval frequency, as well as recovery duration and depth.  Our intention is to stress our neuro-muscular and metabolic systems and then allow for recovery and adaptation.  The “catch” with this method for increasing speed is that the risk for injury and the need for recovery escalate as the intensity level increases.  It’s as if we set out to walk on a thinner and thinner wire that gets higher and higher off the ground, in hopes that the wire doesn’t break and that our balancing skills continue to improve as we go, to keep us from falling.  There is a gamble, even with the most advanced scientifically based training methods.

The Inevitable: And of course there is the aging factor.  Eventually, each of us will experience our physiological peak or highest plateau, and then begin to decline – gracefully and gradually, we hope.  Our speed will begin to wane and our recovery times will increase.  Does this aging process spell the end of athletic satisfaction and the dawning of the doom of old age?

Athletic Wisdom:  In traditional cultures, elders are honored and respected for their wisdom.  This wisdom is indispensable, providing vital guidance for the collective.  Is there such an indispensable athletic wisdom?  Consider that iron-distance athletes do not reach performance peak until their early-mid (and sometimes late) 30’s – rather than their aerobically “fresher” 20’s.  What these athletes gain in the additional decade of experience outweighs what they lose in aerobic capacity.  I call this gain “kinetic intelligence”.  As we age and acquire more experience through our training and racing, we can develop greater neuro-muscular coordination and proprioceptive ability.  Through kinetic intelligence, we learn to swim, bike and run more efficiently, economically and gracefully.

With kinetic intelligence, we can go faster and farther with less energy and exertion.  Yes, we still need to train fast if we want to race fast.  The difference is that we are not just tweaking the metabolic system to handle higher levels of intensity, we are also educating the neuro-muscular system to perform more efficiently and gracefully at these elevated race-intensity levels.  And yes, training slow will also help us to race faster.  As we train at low intensity, without high demands on the metabolic system, we can devote our energy and concentration to effortless grace, efficiency and economy that bring us closer to perfect form.

The really good news about kinetic intelligence is this:  As we age, there is no peak, no plateau for kinetic intelligence!  Our efficiency, economy and grace can continue to increase.  We can acquire athletic wisdom.  The catch here?  We embody this ever-increasing intelligence within a slowly diminishing body.  In the interest of developing our sport, we can endeavor to share this wisdom with younger athletes.  (Just remember, if we want them to listen, we must offer this wisdom humbly and with humility.)

Connecting the Dots: Our lives as athletes have great bearing on our lives as ordinary human beings.  If we choose to train and race with no regard for kinetic intelligence, but rather with the great effort, exertion and struggle of a “balls to the wall” approach, there is a strong possibility that we will live out other areas of our lives with the same effort, exertion and struggle.  If our sole focus is to train and race to the finish line as fast as possible, regardless of the consequences, chances are we conduct other pursuits in our lives that way.  Is that really a satisfying and healthy way to live?

Performance:  In athletics, the words “race” and “performance” are often used together.  Performance can be defined as the “perfection of form”.  Our race performances are determined more by the perfection of our swim, bike and run forms (efficient, economical, graceful…and fast) than by the amount of effort, exertion and struggle we throw at the race.  This offers valid and healthy criteria for evaluating race performance: “How graceful, efficient and economical was my form and how well did I translate that into speed?  Did I skillfully apply the kinetic intelligence I have developed so far to this race?”

Also vital to our race performance is the inspiration we share with one another – competitors and spectators alike.  Given the same training and taper, we’d be hard pressed to race as well alone – with not one soul watching or running along side of us – as we do in the company of others.  While a race performance criteria based on grace, efficiency and kinetic intelligence may seem like an individual one, we are each carried forward by the larger group energy when we race.  As I answer these questions to evaluate my individual race performance, I am reflecting also on how the collective synergy of everyone involved in the race contributed to my performance – and on how I contributed to that collective.