Training and Racing on Emotion:

Everything we do in sport (and to a larger extent life itself) is done with an emotion behind it. If we are feeling flat we will execute flat. If we are fired up we will fire up in our execution. So we can see how important it is to understand what drives us and what leads to this flow of emotions.

This is where self-awareness steps in. Knowing what causes you to feel a certain way is the key to possibly not being open to negative emotions affecting your performance.

Some common emotions we face as athletes and some thoughts on working with them:

Fear of not performing well:
Your performance isn’t who you are. It is just part of what you do. No matter your race time or placing, those that matter to you care about YOU regardless of your result. Put your value on your effort not your result. People respect effort.

What if I don’t get rewarded for all my hard work:
It’s a great question. Sometimes we don’t! and that sucks. BUT mostly we do in endurance sport. It tends to give you back what you put in. This is where consistency counts. Consistent training increases the consistency of results.

Over-stimulation of emotions :
The “let’s crush this” phenomenon leads us to make or break execution. If we fall behind our targets and “crushing it” is now off the cards we will find it hard to pull it back. Be more even with your thoughts.

Overwhelm :
Mostly a training one and sometimes in race week we are overwhelmed with how much we have to do and how high our personal goals are. I find the best way to tackle this is being organised. Use a diary, be organised, journal your thoughts and keep a to do list current. Once you are organised you will feel more in control.

Final tip….. music is one of the greatest mood enhancers of all time. Curate a great playlist for pre-training and pre-racing ….. then use it !