Graduation Year

2018

Graduation Month

December

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science – Health and Human Performance

School or Department

Health and Human Performance

Major

Health and Human Performance – Exercise Science

Faculty Mentor

Brock Tessman

Keywords

triathlon, performance, focus, sport, psychology, questionnaire

Subject Categories

Psychology | Sports Sciences

Abstract

Before beginning a race, athletes formulate a plan for how they want to approach the event. Depending on the given athlete and/or race, this plan may be highly developed or composed of vague ideas. Aspects of a race plan may be formulated due to “exercise duration, race dynamics, or environmental conditions” (Wu, Abbiss, Pieffer, Brisswalter, & Nosaka, 2014).

I was curious what factors influenced an athlete’s ability to adhere to a race plan. I believe that some athletes are able to execute according to their race plan in the moment, while others are not. The null hypothesis was that racing experience has no effect on an athlete’s ability to adhere to the race plan. On the other hand, my alternative hypothesis was that racing experience would lead to less deviation from the race plan. I defined racing experience as years racing triathlon, number of triathlons competed in, years racing the half-iron distance, number of half-iron distance triathlons competed in, and years working with a triathlon coach.

Honors College Research Project

Yes

GLI Capstone Project

no

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© Copyright 2018 Erika Ackerlund