Why am I faster in my time trials than in my races???

When your coach tells you to stay with the top girl, that's when you realize you're slow and you don't need to care about running. Also your coach giving you a time trial a week before instead of quality workouts just shows that he doesn't take you seriously. Or maybe he's just a bad coach. Or maybe you're too scared to feel pain, suck it up it's not suppose to feel good. Man up and have a beast mentality and don't just run for fun, run because you were born to win and you want to take what's yours.

0.5/10

The .5 is only because someone was actually dumb enough to reply.

Well the first line is kind of harsh, but I appreciate your honesty. I guess people on here don't sugarcoat it and that's what I was looking for. Thank you for reading and taking the time to reply, I'll remember it next time I toe the line.

It's the nerves of racing. Don't put so much pressure on yourself. It sounds cliche but it's cliche because it's true. Just go out there and run, don't think about the end result, and know you're going to kill it. You got this. :)

Find a way to enjoy your training.

Seek out and explore new routes and trails.

Do strides when your legs feel good.

Cross country is the looooongst season;

it starts in June (build up) and ends in November....

Take it relaxed.

Nobody to impress but the crows.

You are being too hard on yourself. You recently pr'd.

Possibly weather, and poor pacing in the race are the main reasons.

Look at it like this: you are looking for long term improvement. How you do in any one race along the way does not matter much. The good news is that you are not injured and that you care. Relax and stay healthy and you will keep improving.

Find a way to enjoy your training.

Seek out and explore new routes and trails.

Do strides when your legs feel good.

Cross country is the looooongst season;

it starts in June (build up) and ends in November....

Take it relaxed.

Nobody to impress but the crows.

You probably are experiencing sports performance anxiety (stage fright). When you compete you now have an audience and you as well as the audience now have high expectations about your success that you do not have during time trials when the only audience is you and your coach. In a nutshell, your body is producing too much epinephrine (adrenaline) for the impending event (the so called "fight or flight" effect) that was supposed to diminish a bit during warm up provided when you get to the start line you feel relaxed, if not, the overproduction of "adrenaline" will affect your breathing by accelerating it further (more than needed) as well as your heart rates, the halting of digestive processes, constriction of blood vessels, releasing fat and glucose to fuel muscles, and tunnel vision, in other words, you "choke up". May you think you are not feeling this response, but more likely than not your body is. Feel free to contact me to discuss some relaxation exercises before and after an event. Good luck and keep running!

That's kind of what I said. I guess I like to keep it simple. Funny thing is I am an actual psychologist (as you appear to be also).

Props to you for the details. Between my brevity and your psychoeducational approach, let's hope she has a good response!

this sort of thing used to happen to me in HS XC. My fix was I made sure I wasn't going out too hard or too slow. Try to hit even splits and don't worry about what others are doing, treat races like time trials until you work up the confidence to start racing your competitors. when you know all you have to do is hit a certain time each lap, it's easy.

also, i do think everyone is right about nerves. for what its worth, all my bad races were big races/races where i was challenged. i possibly never ran a bad solo race because i knew going into it i had the win, like at dual/quad meets. my chokes were always at nationals, states, big invitationals, etc. the more you gain fitness, the more your confidence increases too. i used to get nauseous before every race as a 7th grader from nerves, by 11th grade when I was one of the top girls in the state, i was excited to line up and crush my competitors.

also, dont let others control your race. just because someone else goes out fast or slow doesnt mean you have to. run your pace and let them run your race.

Well, the fact that you can run the times in a time trial points to this being a mental thing. Handling race nerves comes a bit with experience. One thing to consider is to change your pre-race routine up. Mimic whatever you do before your time trials. Don't do anything different before a race.

A mental trick I've used is that before each race realize that you have run some good races in the past and some real clunkers - and odds are this one will be in between somewhere. In that sense, it is good that you've run some awful races. Also, pace the first part carefully, but then just compete. Don't be so focused on time but focus more on beating your competitors.

Lots of people go through phases where races aren't going well. Stick with it - it takes one good performance to turn that around and it will come.