Be Prepared for Race Day
Are you experiencing race day anxiety dreams about?
Are you dreaming you’re on the start line of your race dressed only in your pyjamas?
These pre-race day nerves are normal if your race is looming over the horizon, and you might be asking yourself why on earth are you putting yourself through all this trauma.
Confidence wobbles are normal, possibly convincing yourself that you shouldn’t do the race after all, you’ve got a niggle, you’re too busy, you’re training hasn’t gone well or even worse, a tiny mind worm persuading you that “you’re not a real runner anyway”.
Acknowledge that all of these thoughts are normal and part of the overall journey to race day. You will learn to recognise these feelings and even laugh about how many times you burst into tears in the week leading up to race day!.
No training cycle is perfect!
And it shouldn’t be, every race has its own journey.
30% of your runs should be “Good Runs.”
If all your runs were good then where would the progress be? if your runs were too easy, you aren’t challenging yourself.
30% of your runs should be “Bad Runs.”
If all your runs were bad then something is wrong with your training, you might have pushed yourself too hard, overtrained or not realised that your life stressors were having an impact on your training.
30% of your runs should be “OK Runs.”
If all your runs were ok, where is the fun in that? Who wants to post “yeah another ok run” on Strava!.
Trust the Process
It might seem counter-intuitive not to have run the distance you’re training for at your goal race pace so going into an event where you’re not sure if you’ll be able to achieve your goal pace can increase your anxiety in the days leading up to your event.
Trust the process by remembering that your training has been about you being at your peak performance on the day.
By trusting the process and following your plan, it follows that your best performance should be on the day.
And this is the purpose of good training; it should prepare you to perform your best when it matters the most , on the day.
The night before the race
Lay your running kit out – I wouldn’t advise running in anything new on race day.
Pin your number to your running top, on the front (I always scrunch my number up, so it doesn’t catch my hand when I’m running).
If you must pick up your number on race day, remember to take your own safety pins.
Have your usual pre-training run meal, I wouldn’t advise a burger and fries/Chinese/Indian if you haven’t had that the night before in any of your training runs.
Set the alarm (twice!).
Check out the route so you know how to get to the start and double check how you are going to get there i.e., public transport/car – enough petrol?.
Go to bed early; you probably won’t be able to sleep but your body will still be resting lying down.
It’s nearly here!