Panic or Preparation

Time to talk about the elephant in the room.

The weather.

D Day is rapidly approaching for athletes racing at the Busselton 70.3 on the weekend and this is the forecast.

Fair to say it is not looking rosy. Not only is it the prospect of the thunderstorm, but it is also the wind. One of the great things about Busselton is that it is protected from nearly all wind directions. Nearly all. The one wind direction is it very vulnerable to is northerlies. North winds are directly onshore at Busselton and so tend to make the water very choppy, luckily they are pretty rare in WA, except it appears on weekends in early May....

Today we had the last group bike session for the Busselton athletes and given the forecast I thought it prudent to bring the topic of the weather up (lets face it the athletes were thinking about it anyway). Why did I raise the topic of the forecast? Was it to panic the athletes and put the fear of God into them. No, of course it was was not.

In fact one of the things I said when I raised the topic of weather to the squad is that I specifically didn't want people to panic and lose their heads over this. After all, it is only Tuesday, there are three days between now and race day and so anything could happen to the forecast in that time, it may end up being completely fine on Saturday, at this stage we just don't know.

The reason I raised the weather as a topic today was so that athletes could take the time to give it some rational thought and put measures in place to ensure they are prepared. Perhaps it will mean packing a lower profile front wheel, or packing some warmer clothes, or changing their plans around race suits or putting toe warmers on their race shoes, the item that needs consideration will depend on the athlete. The important thing is that the athletes give it the necessary thought so that they can put precautions in place and they don't turn up on race day and are caught by surprise.

I am a big believer that when it comes to long course racing people make their own luck and they usually make that luck by being prepared. Those that train the best and prepare for race day thoroughly are usually the ones who have the best days. Coincidence? I don't think so.

My discussion with the squad today about the weather had nothing to do with panic and everything to do with preparation. Hopefully it will help them make their own luck, no matter what the conditions end up like on Saturday.