What I’d change after a race

I care about the result. But a disappointing time doesn’t tell me which bit of the programme needs changing. It might not need changing at all.

A race can make something obvious that you’ve only noticed occasionally in training. You rush the start, or drift through the middle without actually deciding to ease off. That’s useful to know. Still annoying.

I wouldn’t judge the whole block on that performance. Conditions and the opposition affect where you finish, and illness or travel might have played a part too, so you need to look at the rowing alongside that rather than treating the result as a verdict on everything you’ve done.

And you don’t have to do the review before you’ve put your kit away. If every answer is going to come back to being disappointed with the finishing position, leave it for a bit.

When you’re ready, write down a moment you can actually describe. I’d be tempted to say find what went wrong, but that’s too narrow. Something might have held up better than it used to.

Take the settle after the start. Did you get into the rowing you’d intended? If the rate climbed later, was that deliberate, or had you started rushing forward and lost control of it? Similar numbers. Different things to practise.

I’d look at the technical cue you’ve been working on as well, because if it helped in training but disappeared when another crew moved, that gives you something specific to work on under pressure. If you managed to use it this time, keep working on it. Someone finishing ahead of you doesn’t make that progress disappear.

Same on the rowing machine. Keep the average, but look at how you got there. An average won’t show you where the effort started to fall away.

Then write down a change you’ll make because of what you found. Perhaps you need to practise settling after the start. Or it’s the warm-up that needs changing and the rest of the programme can stay where it is.

For a bigger change, I’d want to see the problem across several performances. One ugly moment can take over the whole review if you let it.

Sometimes I’d just put more time into the basics. Not especially exciting to write down again, but I wouldn’t invent a different answer because I was bored of that one.