So you’ve finished your racing season and (hopefully) you’ve had a bit
of an end-of-season break. Hopefully, you’ve also taken the time to
have a look at what you did well during the season as well as those
things that you could do better in the future.

Most of us are very good at being hyper-self-critical, and I’d urge
you to start by looking for the successes you’ve had in the last year.
I define success as anything positive that has come out of my training
and racing. So ask yourself, what was good? Did you set any new PB’s,
did you move up the field relative to your competition, did you
complete a new distance? You could also ask yourself whether you did a
part of a race which had always been a problem, better than on
previous occasions. Did you learn something new or change the way you
did something? And above all, did you have fun doing it?

Write all of these down on an A4 sheet of paper, read them through a
few times and then give yourself a pat on the back… well done!

Now look at the areas where you’d like to improve next season. But be
specific: “I’d like to improve my swim” isn’t good enough. What
EXACTLY would you like to improve? What aspect of each part of your
sport do you need to work on? What bits lose you time in every race?

Once you’ve written all these down on an A4 sheet, work out what
you’re going to do about them. Perhaps you need some coaching advice,
a specific coached session or to read up on those issues a bit. Maybe
you already know what it is you need to do, but you need to commit to
do it this time.

Someone once said that “if you always do what you’ve always done,
you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” And it’s just as true when
it comes to your training – if not more so – as it is in any other
walk of life.