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You don’t have to enter every race…

nuggetsoflearning • January 14, 2013

Currently reading Bradley Wiggins – “My Time” and wanted to share a key learning.

One of the key components of the change in cycling was the team that they put in place and the way those people viewed the sport.

Tim Kerrison – Head of Performance Support came from the swimming team with no cycling knowledge. With his fresh eyes he started to ask questions of the coaches and the riders.

Why don’t the riders warm down after a ride? (no reason they just did not like looking foolish!)
Why is the team leader trained more than the other riders that will be with him on the race?
Why is it only the team leader who goes on the training camp?
Why does the leader get blocks of training whilst the other support riders race themselves to death?
Why not get as many riders as possible in the Tour de France?
Get those riders to ride all year with each other, same races and same training camps?

Bradley explains that the key insight was the belief as a cyclist that racing is harder than training. Tim made him realise that a lot of the races were not that hard and he needed to train the next day and not take three days of afterwards.

The change was “don’t go to race to train, but train first, go to fewer races, and go their to win”.

Have a think about your business – training is doing the job effectively and then when you pitch for business make sure the effective work does not stop and go for the right pieces of work…!