COACHING RUNNERS 
We’ve officially entered the season of fall, which for many runners means the start of their racing season! After weeks or months of training, It’s the time where all of that summer training reveals itself and you are one step closer to those dates you’ve circled on your calendar and the goals you’ve created for yourself. Racing season can feel exciting, but there’s also something about racing season that makes running feel a little different. If you start to have whispers of doubt or pressure or expectations, remind yourself that you’ve put in the miles and done those long runs for many weeks. You’ve had good workouts (hopefully even some great ones) but there’s also probably been some runs where you’ve questioned yourself. What if the race doesn’t go as planned or hoped? What do you do if you find the pace slipping? What if the weather is unpredictable? Racing requires physical preparation, but it also requires learning how to manage the mental side of competition.
We wanted to share a few mindset shifts that can help you as you gear up for this racing season in the hopes of helping you feel prepared, confident and ready to embrace the process and whatever comes your way!
Focus on What You Can Control
There are so many external things out of our control come race day like weather, course crowds or starting line congestion, unexpected delays or even other people and their racing speeds. Regardless, a big thing you can control is your preparedness. You can control your warmup, your preparation and carb-load in the days leading up, what time you get to bed, and how you respond when things don’t go as planned. If nerves start to come up, ask yourself, “What is within my control right at this moment?” Then focus on that. If you continue to bring yourself back to the present moment, you will allow yourself to check-in and prevent yourself from your racing thoughts or worries.
You Don’t Need to Prove Anything to Anyone
It’s easy to start thinking of your race as a test of whether all your training “worked”, but one race (or even a few!) doesn’t define your fitness, your ability, or your potential. Your training has already given you something valuable, which is months of consistency, hard work, and experience. Race day is simply an opportunity to put that preparation into practice. If your training block didn’t go the way you planned, you also don’t need to feel like you have to justify to anybody else as to why that is. Some people might end their training block wishing they could have done some things better or done more. One of the biggest misconceptions about racing is that you’re supposed to feel completely confident heading into race day, but it’s okay to have nerves and it’s okay to wonder if you’re ready. It’s also okay to look at your goal pace and think, “Am I really supposed to hold that for an entire race?” Nerves show that this race matters to you and those thoughts don’t mean you’re unprepared. Try to make room for them. You can be nervous and excited or nervous and prepared. You can be nervous and have a great race. We want you to replace the thought of needing to prove something with the excitement of curiosity of what you can do out there! This switch can take some of the pressure off while keeping you focused and competitive.
Trust YOUR Training and Don’t Compare It to Someone Else’s
As race day gets closer, it’s really easy to start questioning your training. We’ve all been there, but at some point, the training is done and race day has arrived. You can’t go back and add another month of miles or squeeze in one last massive workout that magically could make you more race-day ready. The miles are in the bank and you have to trust them, and the workouts that didn’t go perfectly still count as miles in the bucket. Your fitness is built through all those mundane days when you got out the door or onto the treadmill, even when you didn’t feel particularly motivated. You don’t need a perfect training cycle to have a good race. Training isn’t about executing every workout flawlessly. It’s about accumulating enough consistent work to prepare your body and mind for the demands of racing. Your training is uniquely yours, and it will benefit you in the end to not compare it to someone else’s.
Have a Plan… AND Be Willing to Adapt and Adjust
It’s extremely beneficial to have a race plan, to know your goal pacing and to have a fueling strategy figured out depending on your racing distance. Your coach will chat course strategies with you as well leading up to race day, but just as much as it is helpful to have a plan, we also stress how important (and smart) it is to be prepared to adjust and adapt to whatever happens on race day because successful racing requires awareness. Higher temperatures and humidity may linger into the fall months, or maybe race day brings strong winds (it’s Nor’easter season on the northeast coast right now!). Maybe you start out a bit too hot because you are feeling fantastic but then that feeling fades. Maybe you show up on race day and your legs just feel heavy. Your plan allows you to show up with a starting point, but it’s important to listen to your body as that will be what gives you information.
At some point during a race, you’re going to have a moment where your brain says: This is really hard. And that’s racing right there. Don’t mistake this feeling every time for the thought that something has gone wrong. It’s what sets racing apart from just training. Be prepared for this reminder to kick in that it is supposed to feel hard at times. Don’t panic and immediately decide that you can’t hold your pace. Take a breath instead, and focus on the next mile marker, turn, or the person ahead of you. Recognize it for what it is: the natural discomfort of running near your limits. The goal isn’t to avoid discomfort. The goal is to stay composed when it arrives. You don’t have to feel great to keep going. You just have to keep making the next decision and stay curious. It’s to learn how to respond to those thoughts without letting them control your race (have those mantras ready!). Focus on what you can control. Stay present. Expect the hard moments.
Give Yourself Permission to Race (Don’t Forget to Enjoy It)
Sometimes we spend so much time worrying about whether we’re ready that we forget to actually race. You don’t have to have a perfect race day for it to be meaningful. You’ve trained and spent weeks getting up early, squeezing runs into busy days, running when the weather wasn’t perfect, and doing workouts that stretched your confidence. Now it’s time to give yourself permission to find out what you’re capable of and be willing to take a chance in chasing that goal, and let this be a reminder that your goal does not always need to be about a time on the clock. You’ll get to stand on a starting line surrounded by people who decided that running was worth showing up!
Have a Mantra and Keep the Self-Talk Positive
Your internal dialogue matters, especially on race day. During a tough race or moment in a race, your brain will create thoughts like: “This is really hard” or “I can’t hold this pace”. Having a mantra or a phrase that has helped you will best prepare you for when the race gets tough. Practice these phrases during workouts so they feel familiar when you need it on race day. We recommend keeping these cues simple as they then can be easy to repeat as often as you need! Because eventually, every race has a moment when you’re going to need a little encouragement from yourself!
Some simple mantras that we’ve used are:
- Forward is a pace.
- Run the mile you’re in.
- I can do hard things.
- Keep moving forward.
- I got this!
You can’t control every part of race day, but what you can control is how you respond to what is happening. You can prepare as well as you can in training, and on race day it’s about showing up, giving yourself a chance, and seeing what the day has in store.
You’ve done the training, now it’s time to go see what you can do!!
