Are you Baku ready?

The countdown is well under way and we are now 50 days (7 weeks) away from the World Championships in Baku but the question is, how prepared are you?

It is a big investment for anyone - in training, time and financially to get there so essentially you want to be prepared. Regardless of what level your competing at and what your goals are, it important that YOUR blue print matches YOUR goals! It’s also essential you understand the event and the track your preparing for! So I’ve prepared four easy, but beneficial things that you need to take in to consideration when planning your last six weeks of preparations:

1. Likely weather conditions: Typical temperatures end of May are around 25’C but expect cloud cover, wind and occasional rain! Although that sounds hard to prepare for simple things like, ensuring you don’t always pick the best days to ride and that sometimes you get your training done in windy and least favourable conditioning (as long as it’s safe).
2. Weekly schedule: Are you aware of the worlds week schedule? Access to facilities nearby for sprint and gym primer sessions? Have you structured back to back track sessions in your training week if your not racing enough in your build up, to ensure your body is able to handle a large volume of high intensity efforts at worlds?
3. Is Baku a long way from your home country? Anything longer than a six hour flight and you should understand travel protocol - and what procedures will work for you on the other side. This will ensure when you arrive in Baku, the jet-lag won't rag on too long and effect your practice, racing and ability to focus. 
4. The Track difficulty and length: Are you training on a pro-gate? Have you considered the length of the track in your training plan when choosing which track to do your efforts and sessions on? It looks long and a lot of pedalling from corners.

When planning your training week, structuring training volume and designing training sessions should still include your long term goals and work ons.

Prioritising working on weaknesses further out from the event and as your event gets closer changing the balance of training volume to include more of your strengths! I see it a lot, where people spend to much time on weakness's too close to the event and not enough on their strengths. Yes of course there should be some balance and general training for the event but it goes without saying if your mindset is focusing on what your not good at rather than what you are good at, your likely not in your most positive/confident mindset to perform to your ability.

It's more than just showing up on the day - it is being mentally, emotionally and physically strong. I can join your corner and help you reach your true potential!

KP,