Calming Pre-Event Nerves

Everyone gets nervous before an event, even top professional athletes that have been competing for years. The key is to not let the nerves get to a point where they affect your performance or enjoyment in an event. By following some simple strategies you can minimise your nerves or anxiety and concentrate on having fun!

Why you get nerves
From the night before the event right up until the start most people get progressively more nervous. You might think, ‘Everyone else looks so fit and confident, how can I possibly compete with them?’ Then you start to wonder what you have gotten yourself into and why you do this to yourself? Sometimes you can even feel physically sick or get diarrhoea on event morning, neither of which is very pleasant. This is when self doubt creeps in and you start then to worrying about whether you have done enough training and other things that you have no control over. If you were to worry constantly about things you have no control over, you would be a walking wreck! Imagine thinking, ‘I wonder if there will be a tidal wave when I walk along the beach today?’ You would be totally on edge and people would think you had gone slightly mad and needed to ‘chill out’. This is what happens on event morning, you go ‘slightly mad’ worrying about things you can’t control and often act irrationally. This does not set up a base for good performance. So how do you stop these pre-event nerves? Simple…

Your event starts 24 hours before the gun goes off!
For most of us the majority of endurance events we complete will last between one and three hours and require some pre-event preparation. In the 24 hours before your event you are able to directly affect your result by the food you eat and by maintaining hydration. In other words as far as the outcome of your event is concerned your event has already started! However, you are only actually measured on your performance in between the start and finish line. So it is the start of the event where people get most nervous, especially in the last hour before the gun goes off. Think about the start gun not as the start of the event but simply the point at which it is ok to cross the start line. Not panic and take off like a headless chicken! You don’t even have to cross it straight away. Position yourself appropriately depending how you would like to tackle the first part of your event. Take three deep breaths and then cross the line when you are ready. If you are starting in an event that has timing equipment then the timing does not start until you cross the line anyway. You are in control, not the start gun!

Break it down
You can’t possible do every kilometre in the event at the same time, so don’t think about it like that! You have to take one arm stroke, pedal stroke or running stride at a time, so this is how you need to think of the event. In very small chunks and only the parts you can control. The other trick is once you have thought about each part of the event separately think about just the very first part of the event and how you are going to do that. Think of where you will start and how you will handle the first fifty metres and nothing else. The more confident you are about the start of the event the better your nerves will be. You can take on the rest of the event as you get to it being confident about what you are about to do at the start will go a long way to calming the nerves.

A busy mind is normally a far more relaxed mind, if you are not thinking about anything you will start automatically thinking of things that make you nervous and more often than not you will think negatively. The way to deal with this is to keep your mind active and at the same time useful. Think about the specific things you will need to do at the start and even practise them a few times if you are able to.

Swim starts
If you are doing a triathlon or swim event the nerves can sometimes be even higher because you are entering a foreign environment. The number one thing people do to get themselves worked up at the start of a swim is forget to breathe all the way out and/or relax. At the start of a swim concentrate on these two things breathing out and relaxing, even if someone hits you over the head, it is never intentional, think of it as a friendly tap. The safest place to start if you are nervous is on the outside of the start line. This way you will be on the outside when you come to the first mark rounding and not in the mosh pit in the middle. Also start toward the back, the longer you wait to cross the line the less people there are to swim over the top of you and the easier your swim will be.

Run Starts
Most people in a run start will start too near the front. If you do this when you start running it is natural to run with the people around you. This pace will always be too fast. I know athletes who have missed their start because they where in the toilet when the gun went off and got to the line late. They then thought they would just run anyway even though their heart was not in it any more. They then felt good and picked up the effort from around half way and did their best time, all because they avoided all the start line hype.

Bike starts
Bike races are technically the hardest to start in because it is much more efficient to work together in a bunch than it is swimming or running, so sometimes at the start you are pushed beyond your limits. The thing to remember here is where you want to be in the bunch over the first few kilometres, are there any sharp corners or hills early on where the bunch is likely to break up? Anticipate what is going to happen early on and just think of the first few things you will need to do.

So know what makes you nervous and know what will help improve your performance. Keeping your mind busy will not leave you time for pre-event nerves and your events will be all the more enjoyable without them!