Mental Preparation:
Getting to the Guts of the Athlete’s Mind
Can you think of a time when your mental race
preparation has gone great and impacted your race performance?
You were confident in your training, you were relaxed, you believed in
your fuel, your nutrition.
Can you think of a time when your mental race
preparation has derailed your performance OR simply ruined your life in the
days leading up to a big race?
We all have these stories.
I am going to tell you three quick stories:
1987—I was 13, almost 14 and in the Eighth Grade. I was running the last
and final race of my season in the Track Shack Grand Prix Series which meant I
had toed the line in 5Ks and 10Ks in the Fall, Winter, and Spring probably 7 or
8 times by this race. I was a shoe-in to win my age category which had been my
overwhelming goal at the beginning of the season, but now I was dreaming of
much bigger things. Here I was, in bed, the night before the Winter Park 10K. I
had run the Red Lobster 10K maybe three weeks before in a total breakthrough
race for me—38 minutes. I had never dreamed of going that fast and the race was
fairly easy like all great PR’s usually are.
From nowhere else but in between my own two ears, I had the weight of
the world on my shoulders that I needed to set another PR in this last and
final race. I had heard the course was faster than Red Lobster so it should
have been easy.
The night before the race, I did not sleep a single minute. I ran 42
minutes, four minutes slower than a few weeks before, and I ended my season
disappointed and exhausted.
I sabotaged my performance by forgetting my
goals and being unrealistic and overly ambitious. Lack of sleep is not what
really caused poor performance in this case.
2010—East Jesus, Maryland or West Virginia, seriously, I don’t know
where we were. I was walking to the Walmart across from our RV on the
blistering hot asphalt, on what had been about 10 hours of sleep over the five
previous days. I thought I was going to die, throwup, passout, or worse from
physical and mental exhaustion.
Yet, I rejected all those feelings, I got on my bike for probably the 40th
or 50th time in the previous five days and executed the best riding
of my life. Our Race Across America team had some major transportation
glitches, meaning we only had one working van for the beginning of the session
I am describing, which I could explain in great detail, but just take from the
situation that I had to pull off some major team-leading decision making when I
was probably on the verge of hallucination.
I relaxed, jumped curbs, dodged traffic, climbed various hills, and
coordinated other bike riders to efficiently transition and ride to the best of
their abilities. At the end of this two hour cycling pull, I passed out in the
back of a moving van for what I was told was 45 minutes. There is a picture of
me and I truly look passed-out or worse.
In the middle of an event, I just decided the
best way to get to the end was to go faster and more efficiently.
2012—Wellness Center Super Sprint Triathlon. After a lackluster first
attempt in 2011, I looked at the results and decided to enter the Pro Category
based on my time predictions. I seeded myself last in the pool which was
humbling, but appropriate. Rode a steady 10 miles on a borrowed tri-bike that I
only had three rides on and that was about all the riding I did going into the
race. Then, for me, the race started, and I ran a 17:36 split on a hilly
Meadowmont 5K course. My only goal going into the race was to break 18 minutes
for the 5K.
I set a small goal that I knew I could achieve
with careful preparation and execution.
When I was 13, I was an unpredictable basket case going into races. Now,
while I cannot always count on my fitness and injury-freeness at age 38, I can
predict within a small window of uncertainty what my result will be before the
gun goes off.
How?
I have matured mentally.
If I don’t sleep the night before, I don’t sweat it. I know sleep is
cumulative.
When travel has been rough, I know that my competition and teammates
have endured the same thing.
I set goals within races that I can likely control and I always focus on
the second half of any event which is where everything happens both physically
and mentally. That’s true for 5K’s and Half Ironman events.
Basically, I am confident, and internally, borderline cocky. I got this.
I own this race or at least this part of the race. This also takes great humility. Because there are time in every
race when I will look like I am under performing. Usually, in the beginning. I
can see on spectator’s faces, “You are going too slow.” I ignore it. Because I
know more than they do.
When bad feelings come up as adrenaline rises, I control the demons with
three to five deep breaths. John Parker describes controlling the ORB in Once a
Runner. There is a roar out there that you need to get up “Up” for the race,
but you have to be able to control it, call on it, and dismiss it when it comes
around too soon.
I don’t have a magic trick for how to get mentally race ready. For me it
was putting on a bib a few hundred times as well as a good deal of
self-assessment and reflection. Are you writing down or filing away mentally
what worked and did not work in your race preparation?
Repeat only the things that work.
As your bad self-loathing feelings come up share them with no one, this
is just for race readiness, not for the rest of life. Remember, racing is just
play. It’s just a game. Even if you were or are becoming a pro athlete, you
need to approach these events appropriately based on the spirit of the sport.
This means approach them with the intention of having FUN. Fun and playful is
loose and fast.
You can be serious if that is your personality and it is mine, but have
fun, and you will exceed your expectations.
