Megan Foster Podcast On Focusing On Clean/Clear Rounds
14 Feb 2025
I listened to an interesting Megan Foster podcast this morning on training/competing for clean/clear rounds. It’s short and full of good information! A few things that resonated with me:
- Learn to get gratification from the process rather than the immediate results.
- Calculate the percentage of what went to your plan; don’t focus on the thing that went wrong.
- You need to practice running clean that may mean running some sequences that don’t require all your team’s skills to get that experience/confidence. Or run shorter chunks of a larger sequence and reward/reset for the next sequence.
- Her discussion of moving on when things don’t go well at a trial had a lot of suggestions.
- Have a way to reflect on when you DID run to plan - highlight reel - saved FB posts, videos, etc.
A couple things Megan didn’t mention that I think she might agree with when training on course work (not when training skills) for running clean:
Don’t stop on faults/refusals - keep going. I learned this from Stuart Mah last century. For events that are time plus faults (most big events/qualifiers) you need to be comfortable continuing to work the course with your dog; if they turn the wrong way, take an off course, have a refusal, the run isn’t over. It is good mental practice to deal with the unexpected and get back on track. This is also great practice for Snooker/Gamblers where recovering can be needed more frequently.
Only the first run “counts”. Even in practice, you and your dog only get one first attempt at a course. Take the time to prepare just like you would at a trial and keep working through to the end. Then break down the challenging areas and finally run it again to end on that clean run feeling.
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