For years I have struggled with pre race anxiety, and I mean anxiety, not nerves. It's a type of agitated, stressful, headache-y, cranky feeling, but not a worry over how I'm going to run, which is what I think nerves is more about. Or perhaps I'm splitting hairs?? Anyway, at times in the past it has been so overwhelming that I've chosen to have blocks of time away from not just racing but even participating in running events. Recently though, three distinct things have helped me to better deal with my pre race anxiety - (1) I spent most of 2012 running quietly on my own and cross training while dealing with my osteoarthritis, and so running in 2013 for me is simply about coming back into the running scene - ie, building run fitness, mixing it with training groups/partners, participating in events and/or racing - nothing more, nothing less; (2) turning 50yrs has been truly liberating. It's like a landmark from which I can run how I like - ie, frequently/infrequently, fast/slow, short/long - and hence I have a different feeling about my running and expectations of self; (3) although I've known it for a long time, I recently decided to practice going in events more often so that they would feel less like an event and hence (hopefully!) less anxiety producing. One result of all three of these things has been that I have raced three times in the last four weeks - ie, two half marathons and one 10km - and while I have felt anxious before each, it has been less intense anxiety than has been the case for many, many years.
As well as being pleased about dealing better with my pre race anxiety, I was doubly pleased to run a half decent half marathon in the Weston Creek Half Marathon this morning. I ran 1.39 which I thought was pretty decent for a "little 50yr old lady". It was indeed good enough to win the >50yr age group, and while I haven't seen the full results yet, I think I was close to being in the top 10 females outright. I'm curious to check that out when the results are published.
Today was a lovely running day for me in the most important respects - ie, self satisfaction and good running mates.
While three events in four weeks has been good for dealing with my pre race anxiety, and for improving my run fitness, it is now time to have a week or two of letting my body absorb and build on that in training. My next event is the Canberra Marathon in April.
7 comments:
14th female outright. Still happy with that, particularly since the first ~6 girls were from Dick Telford's "up and coming" squad.
Yes, I wouldn't count those girls - they're trainee pro runners.
Interesting re your anxiety. I race a 'lot' so don't have a problem with nerves (unless it's an 800m race, which I know is going to be incredibly painful!) - one negative of this though is that I don't properly get psyched up for the race - always know there'll be another chance next week (esp with 5k races).
Congrats on your 1:39 - would love a time like that!
Thanks Ewen. Your comment/insight shows that there's got to be a middle ground - ie, racing often enough to allay nerves but infrequently enough to get revved up and perform above training level. Given our respective frequency/infrequency of racing, perhaps racing ~every 3 weeks would be close to ideal. What do you think??
Yes, every 3 weeks would work well - then you could have an easy few days leading up to the race. I like the social aspect of the weekly races - Summer Series for example, Customs etc and I think a tempo run is a good training session. I'm OK with running these races as tempo runs and am disciplined enough to do this (not get sucked in to running too fast) - means quite a few 'ordinary' race results however, but that's OK.
Racing hard every three weeks is OK if race distances don't exceed 21k! And at that, during the "racing season".
Racing more frequently is OK too if most of your "races" are tempo runs. Like mine are.
My only race this year was Tuesday's, but I have been in many races.
If "races" = "tempo runs" then my mind and body will process them as training runs, albeit under race conditions, and not as real races. While using races as tempo training runs like this may work well for some runners, for me there needs to be a bigger distinction between training runs and races for me to be able to lift to a higher running level (even if it is only a little bit higher :)). This brings me back to my original point and that is that I need to race more frequently than I currently do to allay my race anxiety but not so frequently that races and tempo training runs become one in the same thing. Make sense??
Yes, that makes sense.
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