My Pre-Race Chat...to Myself

How I get ready to race

After many months of training, when you're at the starting line all that is left is you. You're standing there ready to blast off through your race.

When I get to the starting line, I tell myself three things to help me prepare mentally and physically for my race.

In sports pyschology, talking to yourself to improve performance is called self-talk. I utilize goal-directed self-talk to get me ready.

Here are my three favorite things I tell myself before a race and why.

Trust my training.

I tell myself to "trust my training" to remind myself that I am ready for this race.

Every time I train for a race, I make sure to train for every key element I anticipate that race will have.

For example, for the Publix Half-Marathon, I knew that the course would have many hills throughout the race. So for training I made sure to include plenty of hill workouts in all sorts of conditions: hills going fast, hills when I'm tired, hills when I'm fresh, long hills, shorts hills, steep hills, gradual hills.

When I trust my training I know that I have done everything possible to be perform this race. 97-99% of this race will not be new to me.

Run my race.

This is an important reminder especially right before the start of a race.

A common error at the start is to go out too fast, making the rest of the race painful to finish.

Telling myself to "run my race" helps me to stick to my goal pace at the start, no matter what the race pack of runners do around me.

I believe this goes both ways in pace too. The race pack of runners could be too fast or too slow, so no matter what everyone else is doing, I stick to my plan.

Have fun.

I've learned (the hard way) not to take myself so seriously during the race. Instead, I take the race as a celebration of all the months of hard work.

I give myself a big smile, as I am grateful for my health to allow me to run and race.

I say thank you to the volunteers and security. I fist pump to the music.

I enjoy and savor the run.

With those three things, I'm ready to race.

What do you tell yourself to get ready to race?

Thank you for reading! See you all next week.