Our deep freeze continues and I keep making continual and lengthy motion indoors without going anywhere. An interesting conversation arose last week that left me in reflection. The conversation was with my daughter late on Friday. We were discussing her result from a lengthy swim meet earlier that night. Her result from the 500 freestyle was far from desired. I was trying desperately to keep a fatherly position of support while doing some coaching without the proverbial "ripping her a new one" as we "discussed" the performance. Any parent will agree that these conversations are like walking a tight rope 20 stories up. One wrong step and its complete doom. I won't deny she shed a tear or two but I felt there was good that came from it. I felt that I had to let her know I love and support her but at her age and level of competition a greater effort needs to be present in order for her performances to capitalize on her capabilities. Oh and I forgot to add this was all in the presence of her mother.........now let's make that a tight rope walk with a person on your shoulders and a gusty cross wind. Anyway, one area we talked about was pre-event preparation. We talked about having a routine and plan to maximize your performance. I then asked her how do you get "fired up". A blank stare came back at me. I dunno was the response. What am I suppose to do she asked. At first thought, I thought this would be an easy answer. Then as I pondered, I grew a bit more perplexed. I began to feel like I was explaining love, beauty, or serenity. For me and I am fairly certain for most, you begin with explaining what it is for you. The hard part becomes that what it is for you does not necessarily work the same for all.
Pre race for me is a two edged sword between keeping serenity and creating insanity. It is what I have used in past events and I will use for each race this year. It just seems to work for me. I am not saying that every performance has been stellar but I have left most races satisfied with my effort. I approach pre-races with three P's: Preparation, Peace, and Power. I will progress and overlap a bit of each as I lead up to my race but each will have a distinctive stage.
Preparation is both mentally and physical. I typically begin with a list. This is checklist of my gear and ancillary items I will need. It can be mind boggling the amount of "stuff" you may need to just swim, bike and run. This can include everything from the big stuff like your bike (and yes athletes have forgot them before) to the little stuff like rubber bands for stabilizing my shoes on my bike pedals when I doing running/flying mount. I will lay out all of this "stuff" out on a bed (not the bike) and then categorically pack it up in my triathlon specific back pack. It is highly important to pack this way so as to insure no panic attack race morning when you think you forgot something. I have a swim bag, bike bag, and run bag, etc, This content will change by race type and weather conditions. I will also prepare mentally. This includes going through my transition routine, where my bike is in the coral, where I go from event to event(including a walk of each path), reviewing course maps, and other race strategy. Preparation goes in to high gear once you are to the race and getting signed in and setting up your transition(where you will change between each leg of the race). I will not detail that now as you may already be near complete boredom. This is critical portion though that can actually disqualify you if not done properly. For another time......
The peace portion is an important aspect for me. Race morning is an anxious time where doubts can quickly creep in. For myself, a relative newbie to endurance events, anxiety is usually at a premium. Most races and including Louisville will start in the wee hours of the morning. Arrival to the course and pre race activity is most often in the cloak of darkness. The start is always shortly after sunrise. I find those sunrises aid in the peace process. I usually have some simple music playing in the car on the way to the race and on my headphones once I get there. Additionally, I often try to find an out-of-the-way place near the start after I am nearly ready for the race. I take this time to zone out a bit, get myself collected, pray, and to be thankful to be there.
In the 5-10 minutes before the race I begin to raise may power. This may be listening to some motivating music or just running inspirational thoughts and quotes through my head. I will also typically do a little running in place or physical movement to get my blood pumping. The goal is to get that warm, tingly, adrenaline feeling rushing throughout my body so as to peak my performance right at the start.
To each there own and you will see a wide variety of actions on a race morning. Maybe with this written detail I will be able to better explain to my daughter what pre race is all about.
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