How Do I Fight Pre-Race/Running Anxiety??? (Read 106 times)

Just go out and do your best to run the best race that you have in you each day. As long as you do that, you will be fine!!!

Also, it's just running -- don't put too much pressure on it.

It's important how you frame a question and how you frame your challenge/goal. It can make all the difference.

If you frame the question as too broad, you set yourself up for failure or at least one hell of an awful battle.

If, on the other hand, you frame the question/goal as something you can grasp, you won't be so freaked out by it, and you may find that you are able to be your best when you come to it head-on.

With that in mind, asking yourself how do i not come in last may not be your best mindset come race day. (I'll come back to this later).

Let me let you in on a little secret that it took me 17 years of competitive sports to learn. When it comes right down to it, most of us set our battles with a small group of competitors that are just about our own ability. In practices, i try to keep up with so-and-so, and in a race, i really do not want _______(fill in the blank) to beat me. And it's not much different when we do what's called 'racing against ourselves' (when you want to beter your time by a few seconds, etc,).

With this in mind, i think you will do better and have a better time if you approach race day with avoiding negative thoughts like I just will die if i come in last, or what if everyone beats me. I think it may be much more managable if you say, i'm just going to keep up with _____, or I'm just going to do better than i did in my training run time of 30 minutes, for example.

And let's face it. if you go out to stay up with your training partner, and end up coming in a minute behind them, well, that is not that much. You were in contention and part of the mix even if you weren't the one to come in ahead.

So, really, just set your goal up so that you run your best race and best effort. And to do that, don't set an impossible obstacle up as what you are measuring your challenge by. Make it doable. Give yourself a chance.

You are doing a really good thing by joining your school team and it can help them, you (your health, attitude, character, etc,). Do yourself a favor and don't sabotage it with negative thoughts.

One technique is to assume the worst and accept it.  Then whatever happens is better than what you expected.  You ask “what if you come in last?”.   The answer is you’ll be a young healthy runner who just ran xx miles.  Your teammates will all be there cheering you in.  If you don’t believe go spectate at a race for another school.  You’ll see nothing bad happens to the last place finisher.

Perspective is really the key and I like the ways that paul2432, Seattle Prattle and NorNev have suggested for managing anxiety.

I particularly relate to what Surly Bill said though because I've had similar experiences.  When I started running, I used to get very nervous about most races, which is mostly because there was a bit of fear of the unknown, and also nervousness about not hitting the goals I'd set for myself.  At the time I was new to running and improving quite fast and naturally wanted to PB every race, whether or not that was actually realistic.

I've had dud races along the way where I blew up, or was just way off the pace, or in one case was way off the pace and then took a wrong turn to make it worse!  They were disappointing at the time but in hindsight, they were still valuable races, good learning experiences where I learned things about myself, conditions, pacing, race strategy, etc - there was no failure.  Not every race will go how you hope but as long as you've got something to take from it, whether it's learning something or just a particular thing about it you liked or enjoyed, that's the key.

Just yesterday I ran a 10km race, and was 1 second behind my PB! 1 second! I'm not gonna lie, that was kind of annoying given I'm a far better runner now than I was when I set that PB, but what I did learn was that I probably had the ability to pick up the pace a lot earlier than I did - so I'll remember that for the next race in 2 weeks time. Also the course measured long so that played a part too.

My 3 fastest half marathons have all come where I was running relaxed and wasn't focused on hitting hard time goals.  I had a rough idea of what I wanted to achieve, but wasn't too rigid about it, and the goals actually weren't particularly tough.  It's an acquired skill, but you can take the pressure off yourself just by focusing on going out there and having fun and running relaxed.

Don't worry about placing.  Doesn't matter who you are, there's always someone faster than you.  As long as you're focused on running your best, that's all you can do.  Like Paul said above, you're still a young, healthy runner who ran some miles and (hopefully) enjoyed it.  And you know what? If cross country turns out not to be your thing, there's a lot of different types of running - road, trails, track.  Heaps of different ways to enjoy running.

What I liked about high school cross country is how everyone cheers for everybody.  The parents yelled for the opposing team's kids quite loudly.

 

True story - in one race, my oldest son came in first and my middle son came in last.  Really!  And my younger son got as many cheers as the older one.

Same thing here. My freshman or sophmore year of HS, i was running the 3200 meter on track. I looked really young and was smaller than the other runners by a lot, consistent with my undesirable status as perennial "last pick" on every gym class team up to then.

I came in dead last by far, and i got more cheers than the winner. A parent told me later that they didn't even think i'd finish.

Funny thing was how pissed the other runners were at me. I don't think they appreciated it at all.