From Race Overwhelm to Calm

You want to do everything you can to finish the race.

You have to do it all right but there’s so much of ‘it.’

Pace, climbs, aid stations, eating, hydration, crew, pacers, drop bags. The training alone is a bottomless rabbit hole.

And what if there’s something important you missed and don't even know to worry about?

The race seems so intimidating and there are so many moving parts, you can’t imagine what it would really be like to run it. What’s it really going feel like at mile 73?

So many things can stop you - the elevation can outpower you, you can take a wrong turn and lose time, and what if you can’t go fast enough?

It’s overwhelming.

You talk to people, scour the internet, and scroll social media looking for answers but there’s so much information. Everything you hear, watch, listen to, and read adds more questions that it answers.

Should you re-think your fuel? Electrolytes? Shoes? Blister strategy? Lights?

Do you need more miles/hills/single track/drills/strength training/yoga/lifting to your plan like this person’s over here, or that person’s over there?

How many drop bags and what should you put in which one?

Crew or no crew? Pacer or not? If so…who?

What if it rains the whole race??? How will you do it and what needs to change?

As if this fire hose of information isn’t bad enough, much of it conflicts. “This is right, that’s wrong.” “No, this is right!”

Now you have to spend time figuring out what’s right before you can even start making decisions.

You end up confused, worried, overwhelmed…and no further along.

In frustration, you throw your hands up and walk away from it.

Meanwhile, race day gets closer and you make no progress on your answers.

So your overwhelm grows.

The real problem here isn’t the overwhelm or all the decisions - it’s thinking you have to get everything right to have a chance at finishing.

That thinking drives you to find the right way to do everything, so you search for the ‘right way’ through all the information you can find, creating overwhelm.

The solution is to make the decisions that are right for you…in this race. Not the ‘right’ ones out there everyone thinks you should make.

When you do that, you get only the information that’s necessary.

You use it decide how to run the race.

And that shows you exactly what remaining problems you need to solve between now and race day.

This leaves you calm - no more overwhelm.

You see how to finish the race and hit your goal.

You can tune out distracting opinions and information.

You can get things done - train, decide on gear, pack, and get to the race.

You run the race and solve problems better because you didn’t waste all that energy stressing in overwhelm.

And now that you’ve done this for one race, you have a skill.

You’ll always know what to do when you start feeling overwhelmed before another race.