Manage Race Week Stress

On my two-week trip to New Zealand for the Tarawera 100, I faced a daunting amount of unknown.

So much that I almost didn’t know how to imagine the trip.

How hard would it be to get around, did I get the right accommodations, would the phone plan actually work, was I packing right, was I planning too much or two little…? And I hadn’t even nailed down plans for the second, post-race week.

The race, in the middle of those two weeks, was the surest thing - I know how to run a 100-mile race - but race week was another thing. With all the unknowns of travel to a foreign country, race week seemed more prone to disaster than ever.

I couldn’t control much ahead of time about that week except this: how I wanted it to feel.

Here are the five ways I wanted it to feel - you can think of this as energy - and how I created each:

No rushing

I dropped the assumption I should bag all the New Zealand “must-do’s” I could in the week and reduced the upheaval of moving by staying in only two places before the race - at a famous beach and the race town.

I operated at relaxed vacation pace with as little scheduled as possible, and indulged in sleep.

Minimum race stress

The beach was a world away from the race, so that was easy.

Once I arrived at the race town, I made moment-by-moment choices to preserve my energy. For example, I avoided hotels and popular places where groups of nervous runners would likely be sizing each other up and talking about their fears, because it wears me out.

Full participation

I might never get to this race again.

So on days with pre-race events - mandatory briefing, check in, gear check, drop bag drop-off, expo - I enjoyed those as the main events to the full extent possible. Everything else happened in the empty time left over.

Smooth race morning

Instead of “making do” with the annoyance (and potential chafing) of an uncomfortably overstuffed pack full of mandatory gear, I decided to fix it.

I figured I could lighten the contents with a thinner-weight wool shirt and rig a bungee cord on the outside of my pack so I could lash the required jacket to it. That meant hunting down a wool shirt I liked, a yard of bungee cord, and some glue to solidify the ends - a fun scavenger hunt and big improvement.

I also mapped the parking spot I wanted for race morning so I could easily find it in the dark.

Changes made with ease

Three days before the race, they announced a major change in the course. Due to catastrophic flooding the week before, part of the course was washed out and we’d now be running a lollipop loop course (2.5 times around the candy part) instead of the point-to-point course through all new scenery.

It wasn’t unexpected so I didn’t make it a problem. It was still 100 miles in New Zealand. I simply replaced the neatly laminated aid station chart I made at home with a handwritten paper chart in a ziplock bag I made the night before. Not as pretty but it would get me through the race.

Since we now had only two drop bags instead of the five I brought, I consolidated what I needed from the five down to two. Easy.

And of course, I studied the new course map to make sure I knew what we’d be doing.

The point of these examples is to think ahead about how you want race week to feel and ways to make that happen.

Race week is worth planning, same as the race, because it’s the prelude to the race.

The week might not go according to plan (it rarely does), but you can still find ways to make it feel so it sets you up for a great race.

This is one strategy among many I help clients plan out before the potential chaos of race week.

I’ve got an opening for a new client - if you’re interested, use this link to sign up for a consult call and let’s see if we’re a good fit.