Pre-race Anxiety advice

Anxiety at the starting line is helpful because it gives you adrenaline and makes the first mile easier.

The key is to focus on the process and not the result. What I mean by that is put all thoughts about success and failure out of your head. You need to be in the moment and not thinking about the finish.

While racing focus on these things: Run as efficiently as possible, maintain an appropriate pace, run the shortest tangents. Attach yourself to a pack running your pace. Monitor how you feel and be ready to move ahead to the next pack.

Good luck this season!

To my knowledge Pre didn't have any race anxiety. He just raced balls to the wall everytime.

Is it possibility of failure or fear of the pain?

You might be able to run a great plan and address fear of the pain. Often, learning to calm yourself on the starting line leads to not being aggressive enough when it counts.

You always have enough adrenaline at the gun, despite trying to calm yourself, because it is a specific moment that comes, like it or not. Your body is good at fight or flight at a specific moment.

Trying to calm to start the race often leads to a wall at about 2 miles because you are telling yourself to put the adrenaline away and end up never using that fight or flight power.

Actually, this fight or flight adrenaline at the beginning of the race is why may HS runners go out too fast.

Positive Contribution wrote:

To my knowledge Pre didn't have any race anxiety. He just raced balls to the wall everytime.

Of course Prefontaine had anxiety. Every runner has anxiety in a race situation.

Pre had a modest kick so his balls to the wall running is what he needed to do to win against good competition.

MiddieXCrunner wrote:

I have a history of letting silent nerves get the best of me when standing on the starting line. Even when I know I have faith in my training and teammates, the possibility of failure usually dominates my thoughts. Any advice on how to calm the nerves, perhaps by making a plan and easing into a race pace?

Practicing (standing) meditation and/or a mantra and using it before the race can help, if you're into that.

Otherwise: Do you poop in your shorts just before the race? No? Then it's fine and normal. It might just be how you get the best out of yourself.

Embrace it. Accept it. EVERYONE is nervous at the start line of they are serious about the race. The nerves go away as soon as the gun goes off.

Try focusing on the first part of the race instead of the whole race. So if you're running a 5k, the only thing you should be thinking about is the first mile. By the end of that first mile you'll be settled in, and you can focus on that 2 mile split. Once there, then focus on picking off as many people as you can. If you think about the entire race all at once it can be pretty overwhelming. Divide and conquer different parts of the race.

Dude

I used to be so nervous before a race, I would think of ways to not run..Faking injury, etc.

I guess I feared the pain, I didn't care about failure.

Anyhow, I always raced well, just nerves like crazy before any race. And I mean a day before a race I would be stressed out. Oh well YOLO

Find someone loose. Have sex.

you are welcome.