What trigger gets you into the frame of mind to be ready to attack race day and not wimp out? How do you flip the switch to go from your easy run days and intervals during the week to race day mode when you try to be in total control having to just ignore all the potential negatives to maximize your race day effort?
Race day is hopefully a fun setting but the events and time leading up to the race take on more meaning because it is race day. Did you get enough sleep the night before? What if you only get say 4 - 5 hours of sleep..is that enough? What if you wake up race day with a messed up stomach? What if your warm-up is the worst one you have ever had and your legs are just garbage? What if you tripped and fell on your warm-up? Those are all questions that your race day trigger will hopefully cancel out.
The attacking race day attitude (even with all of the questions I mentioned above) just does not happen and that is the part most runners feel like they do not need work on. The attitude, confidence, and race plan you bring to the line on race day has to be practiced and everyone should have a trigger to get this action ready to be carried out hours before the race. That trigger might be a song, a memorable quote, or maybe just your significant other saying "Don't embarrass me out there." Sometimes you might have a second trigger as late as five minutes before race time like another runner talking some trash about what amazing shape they are in all along forgetting that you are even in the race.
Do not walk into race day without having the eye of the tiger and that trigger in your bag of tricks. Have a trigger and mindset to get you to that unstoppable mentally tough point in time one hour, 30 minutes, and finally five minutes to race time. This takes practice.
Would love to hear some of your race day triggers that get you into that Rocky IV toughness mode like when Rocky was training in the old Soviet Union before boxing Ivan Drago.
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I have two things I do to get myself into race mode:
ReplyDelete1. MUSIC. I am a total music junkie. I have thousands of songs on my computer and my IPOD. I'll pick a fave band to warm up with (Skillet and Red are in heavy rotation right now), and I have race-specific tunes to run with.
2. Hanging with my friends before the race. Having someone to hang out with and warm-up with pre-race really helps to get rid of the jitters.
Then there's always one thing I remember... No matter how slow or fast my training runs are, I know how fast I can go in a a race. I know that if I ran an 8:40 mile two days before the race, that doesn't matter because it's only a training run and I can chop two minutes off that when I race. It's what I worked with leading up to the race which reminds me I can run a good one.
It is nuts how slow or poor your race week runs go sometimes but on race day there is no relation. Even on the race warm-up the worse my legs feel the better I race. Once the Ipod is on none of that other stuff really matters except running fast.
ReplyDeleteYou taught me that :)
ReplyDeletePeople forget, especially when you run 5 days a week, that not every run has to be a hard, fast, set a new PR run. I always remind myself that even if I do a twenty-four minute 5K training, that's not how I'm going to race.
Once that starter goes off, nothing else matters! This running gnome just needs to get from point a to point b as quickly as possible!
I like listening to 99 Red Balloons!! Haha! And I picture the scene in Wedding Crashers where they sing it and everybody is going nuts. Gets me ready to run. I also like to repeat positive statements in my head.
ReplyDeleteHey Matt this is Zup. For me I have always gone into a race knowing that I would do my best. It starts with the assumption that it will go well. Your "feelings" have nothing to do with it.
ReplyDeleteThink about this series of questions: Have you felt good in a warmup and raced well? Yes. Have you felt good in a warmup and then did not race as well as hoped? Yes. Have you felt bad in a warmup and raced well? Yes. Have you felt bad in a warmup and raced poorly? Yes. So what do feelings have to do with the result???
Zup
ReplyDeleteYou are totally right. The "feelings" that runners have before the race are misleading a lot of times. Like you said a poor warmup = a poor race...not most times.
With your 30+ years of coaching on the collegiate level at UW Oshkosh coaching multiple national champs and All-Americans, I know you have seen guys with the potential to be great but never get there because of those feelings that runners are hoping to have on race day....to give the comfort that they will race well.
Great coaches have the X's and O's down and get the runners to the line both mentally and physically ready to do their best....but cannot run the race for them.