5 Tips to make your Time Trials more Productive

The global pandemic has forced many races and competitions to be re-scheduled or canceled this year. As a result, many athletes and teams are resorting to time-trials to still get that hard race feel and effort. Time-trails are probably one of the best feedback tools we have as athletes to improve. So how do you get the most out of them? The simple answer is to treat them as a race! But what exactly does that mean? Below we outline five ways to turn your time-trials into true race efforts. Unlike a race however, time-trials ALSO give us the chance to experiment a bit more than we might in a competition atmosphere where points, a certain finish place or money is on the line. Read below for the five time-trial gamechangers.

A good warm-up can be the difference between a stellar race and one where you feel completely flat. Time-trials are a great way to dial-in the pre-race routine that works best for you and gets your body and mind ready to rip! We recommend writing down 2-3 different warm-ups and experimenting with each one before a time-trial effort. This is only effective if you take the time before the time-trial to plan the exact warm-up and then also take time AFTER the hard effort to take stock of how it worked. Below are two different sample warm-ups as well as the questions you should ask yourself afterwards to see if it was effective.

20 minutes very easy skiing / L1

6 minutes L2 + 2 minutes very easy skiing

4 minutes L3 + 3 minutes very easy skiing

2 minutes L4 + 3 minutes very easy skiing

5 minutes dynamic stretching/change top/go to the bathroom

3X15 seconds speeds with full recovery

5 minutes to get your race bib and get to the start

20 minutes very easy skiing/L1

6-8 minutes controlled L3 + 4 minutes very easy skiing

6 minutes fartleks (20 seconds HARD, 40 sec easy) + 4 minutes very easy skiing

5 minutes dynamic stretching/change top/go to the bathroom

5X20m running speeds with poles

5 minutes to get your race bib and get to the start

·       Was I sweating at the start? (If your answer is yes, that’s a good thing, especially for a sprint)

·       How did my body feel during the first 1km of the race? 

·       What did I like about the warm-up?

·       What did I NOT like about the warm-up? What do I need to change?

·       How did the race go? Did I feel fast from the gun? Did I need to ski into it? Did I have a hard time getting going?

This may seem silly, but often the hardest part of a time-trial isn’t the physical effort, it’s getting your mind ready to go as hard as you would in a formal race setting. Anything you can do to simulate a true race environment will make it easier for you to treat the time-trial like a race. Wear your spandex, don a bib if you have one from an old race, put on your special gloves, unroll your lucky race socks and dab your favorite variety of glitter on your face. Draw an official start and end line or better yet, have someone else start and time you! (Skiers to the line, get set, go!). The more you can create a “race” environment, the easier it will be to convince your body to give it a true race effort.

Time-trials are a great opportunity for athletes to grow and learn but require some mindful preparation in advance. In the same way you might set goals for a race, we recommend setting goals for a time-trial. These can be performance goals (i.e. I want to finish in the top 3) but we find setting process goals is more effective. This will allow you to set specific goals for every time-trial effort and learn from each hard effort to improve for the next one. Try the three things and a wish exercise below:

Three Things and a Wish:

·       Before your time-trial, write down three goals for the day. The more specific the better! For example:

o   Execute my warm-up plan.

o   Do three big pole plants over the top of every hill and three big pole plants coming out of every downhill.

o   When it starts to hurt the most, smile!

·       After your time-trial, write down three things you did well and one wish. For example:

o   I executed my warm-up plan and didn’t get distracted by the changing weather conditions.

o   I skied the downhills really well and did not snowplow at all.

o   I dug deep the last 1km and really gave it everything I had left.

o   I wish I had fueled better before the race and remembered to drink sports drink. I forgot to drink anything because I was so nervous.

Use the wish to inform how you approach your next time-trial effort!

The beauty of a time trial is that you can try things you might not be willing to try in a more consequential race setting. Do you usually start conservatively and build into a race? Try starting faster than feels comfortable and see if you can hold on! Do you typically snowplow or skid the big scary downhill? Try sending it and see what happens! Do you often over wax your skis and find yourself with draggy classic kick? Try going lean and a little slippery for the sake of speed. If you are reading this post you probably are interested in getting better at skiing but the only way to improve is to try something that is different from what you’ve always done. Maybe you’ll discover a new race tactic that works well for you or at the very least, you will learn what does not! We often learn more from the races (or time-trials) that do NOT go well than the ones that do. So think of those “bad” time-trials as accelerators for improvement.

Time-trials, like racing, should have an element of fun! You will get the most out of a time-trial effort when you are having fun with it. Bring post time-trial snacks (cookies and warm sports drink anyone?), give away wolf tee-shirts for the podium, give friends and family cowbells to cheer you on, and remember to smile! There’s nothing quite like that endorphin rush that follows pushing your body to the max so you have that to look forward to at the finish line too! Time-trials are fun because we get to test ourselves against a previous version of our best and see if we can make it even better. There’s no guarantee, but the chase is always more fun anyways.