Four Proven Ways to Ruin Your Race Day
A few months ago I ran in a small, very low-key 4 mile race that I do almost every year. I know the course well and my fitness was good so I went into the race confident and relaxed. My goals were to keep a steady pace on the many tough hills and to give a hard effort in the last mile. I nailed both of those and even came a few steps away from winning my age group.
I was elated as I got in the car to head home, totally thrilled with the morning.
Then my inner critic got to work. Within minutes of a fun finish I was making a mental list of all the things that I didn’t accomplish and goals I “should” have had. By the time I got home, I was hanging my head and didn’t talk about the race at all.
Why? Why do I habitually ruin my post-race buzz? Perfectionism is too obvious. Competitive desire is also a lazy answer.
One theory is that after 20 years of (very) back of the pack finishes, avoiding getting pulled off the course by the sweep bus and battling every kind of element and distraction there is I’ve become comfortable in the role of struggler.
When your comfort zone is built around trying to achieve a big goal but never getting there, it can cause anxiety and confusion to think that it’s really be happening. It may sound counter-intuitive, but hitting the highs you aim for can be a shock if you’re not used to it.
Here are four sure-fire ways I keep myself in the woulda-coulda safe zone.
Crunching the numbers
Maybe the best (worst) way to erase good feelings after a race or workout is to fixate on the numbers.
GPS watches and data make it too tempting and too easy to pick apart splits, compare each day to another and look for patterns that may eventually be meaningless. Deep down we all know that there can be so many ambiguities as to how your watch came up with the data you’re seeing that you’ll never really get the good (or bad) news you’re looking for.
Ignoring the mission
This one uses simple deductive reasoning: If you didn’t train to reach a certain goal then there’s a high likelihood you won’t achieve it. If a goal isn’t part of your race day strategy there’s also a strong chance you won’t hit it. Following this logic, you can’t be upset about not getting a PR or any other goal you neither trained for nor had on your mind while you were in the race. If it happens, bonus! If it doesn’t happen, it wasn’t supposed to!
But, that rationality never stopped our inner critic from listing out all the things we could have achieved, kicking aside what we did get done.
Setting requirements
I created a survey to find out what motivates people to be in a race instead of simply going out to run. One of the questions was, “Describe what competing means to you.” One respondent wrote, “Competing means training very hard and getting a personal best on race day – with an ultimate end goal of a podium finish (of course depending on the size of the race and the course itself.”)
Get a PR, get an overall award and master the course. That’s a lot to do in one morning.
What if you don’t accomplish one – or any – of these? Does it mean you didn’t give your best effort? Judging your performance on criteria such as course terrain and talent of competitors after the fact is a way of imposing a vision of your most perfect, most ideal race on the reality.
Giving in to body image
Just when you think you had a fun time, ran well and that all is right in the running universe, here come the race pictures. The feeling of power you had out on the course can be replaced in a flash with embarrassment and maybe even shame when you see unflattering images of yourself as a sweaty, snotty, hard-working athlete making it all happen.
I confess that this one kills me every time. I once convinced myself that a marathon I completed on a 92-degree day was actually not something to brag about after I saw cellulite on my thighs in a race picture. Never mind the picture was taken coming across the finish line in the hardest conditions I’ve ever faced. I didn’t think I looked “fit” – whatever that looks like – so the whole effort was almost cancelled out entirely.
Does the result dictate the quality of the effort or vice versa?
Itemizing reasons to negate your accomplishments releases anxiety, keeping you safe in your familiar role of not-quite-the-winner. If you only accept an achievement if it matches an idealized, perfect scenario then you’ll probably never have to leave that zone.
For example, one-third of my survey respondents wouldn’t consider an age group win a “real” win if there were only one other person to compete against. There weren’t any guarantees before you arrived as to how many age group competitors you’d have, so why use that as a success criteria after the fact? Because you then don’t have to accept that you really did win!
In my own experience, it has taken me 15 years to really understand that not every race is intended to be a time PR day. Every workout isn’t intended to be the fastest you’ve ever done. Sometimes the win comes from the process, not the performance. Even if you know that on the surface, it can be surprisingly difficult to internalize.
Here are some sources I found that explain fear of success. These gave me a lot of good insight on my post-race anxiety and how to overcome it. I hope they can help you, too!
A revised version of this article was published on RunHaven.com November 2015.
Survey - “Is the Clock All That Matters?” – November 2015
“5 Ways to Overcome Fear of Success in Sports” – ProtexSports.com, April 2012
“8 Ways You’re Blocking Your Success” – Huffington Post
“Handling Fear of Success” – Livestrong.com