UKLA Chair Blog #83

We all have different reasons for wanting to race and it is important we respect those.

I was talking with Guy Noble at breakfast on the Sunday of the recent Qualifier at WPSNA and he said he had listened to a sailing podcast in the car on the way to the event. His motivation is to continually improve with a goal of getting better results over time, which fascinated me as we had both competed in the Worlds in Adelaide a few weeks prior and here he was still super motivated. I had a clear goal in Adelaide, but I had not yet taken the time to readjust or adapt to the “flat time” after the event.

I have known Guy since 2017 and back then he was super keen to learn and improve. He raced most Sundays at Queen Mary as well as all the UK Masters events and many of the Masters Worlds and Europeans. I know he reads a lot of sailing books . It has not been a short commitment – not a couple of weekends training and racing with the expectation of immediate improvement - learning takes much longer than this. But over those years, he has improved dramatically, and so have the results (with the ups and downs of competition along the way. What’s also interesting is that Guy is not a teenager – he has just joined the Great Grand Master fleet (aged 65). His motivation has been around wanting to continually improve.

I think back to myself as a teenager and that’s exactly how I thought, but since coming back to Masters sailing in 2017, I have realised I think less like that now. For me now the motivation is around short “projects” targeting results in specific events. Prior to the 2018 Masters Worlds, I did 40 days sailing, where it was all about “relearning” or remembering how to do things. It was also around a fitness program. And after that event it took me some years (partly due to Covid) to target another event in the same way and four years before I really felt motivated to do another Worlds (in Mexico in 2022). Don’t get me wrong I still enjoyed racing but to be really motivated and get the adrenaline going, I need a clear target. That provides the motivation rather than aspiring to learn more. It also has a downside, in that it comes to end with the resulting flat or down time. So that Sunday talking to Guy, I realised it was too soon after Adelaide to be racing.

Another issue with an outcome focus is that you can only assume responsibility for things in your direct control and you should not assess your performance based on things you can’t control. For the avoidance of doubt, once you get near the start, no focus should be on outcomes, but rather tasks or routines (or to use the well-known quote “at critical moments in sport there was absolutely nothing going through my mind”)

 No matter what age we are, we all have different reasons for racing. Some enjoy being out there free and independent, others just love racing and the competitive angle, many just want to acquire new skills and keep improving. A small number are incredibly passionate and given the opportunity want to train and race non-stop. Talking to Guy at breakfast allowed me to reflect on that.

Snippets

There are some spaces let at open club training at Queen Mary on 6th April - https://www.queenmary.org.uk/book/add/p/409