A theme has been recurring in my own training of late: Focus. I thought it might be helpful to others to share my observations on the importance of focus in training and racing.

First of all, why is focus important? Your workout has a particular objective and it pays to focus on that as much as possible during the workout. If you are paying a coach to design your workouts, it behooves you to look at the purpose of each workout and have that firmly in mind while doing that workout.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t sometimes just go out and train, but for the most part, focused training is more effective training.

How do you focus? I like to eliminate distractions that don’t help me achieve my goal. As an example, I love to appreciate the scenery as I ride and run. I find it helps me enjoy my workout without distracting me from the task at hand. However, knowing my average speed or even current speed is distracting to me. I train on heart rate, power, cadence and/or perceived exertion. How fast I am going will take care of itself, so I choose to not know.

I also believe in regular solo sessions. Group workouts are great to motivate you to get out there, but sometimes, you really need to get out and train alone. You will be racing alone, so this is just good practice.

Last, a good way to eke out a little more performance from yourself is to get out there with a specific goal in mind and stick to it for the entire workout. You can learn to be a little bit tougher, a little bit more FOCUSED.