Dealing with Race-Day Anxiety and Preventing Burnout
During my first race of senior year of college, I had a run-in with how much putting too much pressure on myself could ruin my love for skiing and hold back my racing.
I woke up that morning well before my alarm went off feeling a tightness in my chest that wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t get any food down, and I was moving so slowly in an attempt to contain the emotions pent up inside me that I left too late to get in the warm-up I originally intended.
I was exhausted from lack of sleep and from feeling something so intense all morning, and, needless to say, the qualifier didn’t go well. And, while I qualified for rounds, I made a really difficult decision, as my anxiety began to build again, that I wouldn’t continue to race that day. For those of you who know me, you know I’m really stubborn, and quitting a race had almost always been out of the question in all of my sports up to that point.
That weekend, I lost sight of why I loved cross-country skiing. I put a lot of pressure on myself to place well and felt as though my teammates expected that of me as well. And I forgot to focus on the things I love about our sport.
I spent a lot of time reflecting after that race about how this sport I loved so much had turned into something that stressed me out to the point of wanting to quit. I had no idea how to fix it on my own, and we were a club team that my friend and I founded and ran together. So, we didn’t have a coach. I didn’t know where to turn until my roommate, friend, and co-founder of our team suggested I reach out to the coach of another team that had helped us start our team and supported us through our first year.
I can’t express how lucky I am that, even though I wasn’t one of her athletes, she welcomed me in with open arms and invited me to come ski with their team the following weekend and chat with her.
And what I learned from her and over the rest of the season is what I want to share with you all. Because almost all of us at any level of skiing have felt anxious before a race or questioned why we do what we do. I wanted to share what helps me, and I hope some of it resonates!
So, first things first:
A. Have a routine
Every night before a race, I put out what I will wear to warm up and put in a bag anything that I might need or want to change into (extra gloves, socks, base layer, etc.), boots, snacks, and glitter (of course). I order it with things I will most likely need on top and things I only might need on the bottom. I map out exactly what I want to do for a warm-up and how long it will take and figure out what time I need to be ready to go in the morning and set an alarm (or five). I write down my goals for the race day. I meditate. And I go to bed as early as I can (but I try not to stress about it if my brain isn’t ready to go to sleep at that time or if something out of my control happens).
Race mornings, I get up and eat breakfast. Depending on how I’m feeling, I will sometimes meditate before that, too. I get dressed, and I get out the door. I do my warmup, spend some extra time listening to music that makes me happy, and dancing around a little (while remaining respectful of my teammates and their own individual processes). I also mostly maintain my own bubble and don’t talk to other people much unless necessary because emotions run high on race mornings, and I want to only be responsible for my own emotions and not anyone else’s.
Having everything ready the night before and having an exact plan for the morning really helps me to have something to think about that’s tangible so I’m not sitting in thought paralysis in the morning worrying about my race while also trying to figure out what I need for the day but also worrying that I will forget something. That way, I know that I already have everything that I need.
B. I laugh at myself regularly
This applies to training, racing, and life. I am a complete idiot on a regular basis. On skis and off of them, I run into things, fall over for no apparent reason, lose my keys, or have no idea what I’m doing at strength training and do something super weird. And, most every time, I choose to laugh at myself because, of the two choices: feeling like a stupid idiot and shoving what happened away, or noticing that I did something silly and releasing it with laughter, I choose the latter. And I choose the latter because it makes me learn better. It makes me feel confident that I may make mistakes, but that’s to be expected and cannot shake my confidence that I’m good at and love what I do, and I’m in the right place. During training, racing, and everyday life, those things happen regularly. And if I’m mid-race and I stumble, I’d much rather laugh it off and keep skiing than let it weigh on me the rest of the time.
C. I allow myself to feel what I need
When a race doesn’t go well or when I get dropped on a training day, I give it its due time to be upset. Cry. Scream in my car. But I also try not to let it consume me. Or if I’m really happy about how a race went, I dance around and be bubbly and talkative. Whatever it is, I try to allow myself a set amount of time to feel that. After a race, I give myself maybe ten minutes to feel whatever I need to feel. And then I move on and go back to being a good teammate and friend.
D. Have a support network and release outside of skiing that I can rely on
When my race-related anxiety got really bad, something that has really helped me is the fact that I have other things in my life that I love and that support me when I’m not doing okay in any aspect of my life. My friends and family are one of those things. Another is partner dancing (west coast and country swing). This has created a network or people who love something I love and come from all different backgrounds and don’t care how I do in a ski race (half of them don’t even really know what my sport is) and is a wonderful energy release and honestly helps with my skiing because it allows me to adapt to my surroundings and inputs as they come without thinking about them first and control my movements to make me stronger. I also raced bikes (mountain, cyclocross, and, occasionally, road) in college and continue to ride with people and do so now in the off season. The cycling community is a wonderful support and has been for years. I can always count on them to help me keep summer training fun and to do a nighttime shakeout ride with me just when I needed a laugh the most.
To help myself and others create a support network, I will also never judge someone based on how they do in a race. Only based on how they treat me and the people around them. And I remember that I am made up of so much more than my skiing abilities and have a beautiful community within skiing, but also beyond it.
E. I sit and write down my goals for each race
I use a pen/pencil and paper if I can so I can really focus without distractions, but, if I have no other options, I use the notes app on my phone or computer. Then, I make sure I have at least one goal from each of the following categories, and I support each goal with things I’ve done throughout the season that make me capable of achieving them.
1. Ways I can support my community or team
No one reaches the podium alone. Endurance sports often focus on the abilities of an individual, but whether I am at a race on my own, or with friends and family, or I have a team supporting me, I did not get there by myself. One of the most beautiful things about Nordic skiing is its community. I am a part of something that is so much greater than myself. To keep my spirits and to support my longevity in the sport, it can be really helpful for me to have something to focus on to contribute to that community on a race day. So, some things I create goals around might include helping my coach put away something at the end of the day, or cheering for my teammates as loudly as I possibly can, or making sure I ask every one of them how their race went and really listen, or just thanking an official. Not one of us gets to a race without the beautiful community that Nordic skiing creates. And if part of my day includes giving back to that community, then I had a successful day, regardless of my race result.
2. Things that I can’t control
On a given race day, I CANNOT control everything that happens. I may have put in all of the best training possible, rested and recovered well, had good nutrition, and practiced technique. But, sometimes things go wrong. I could break a pole or a ski. Someone else could have a breakout race, maybe the best of their life. I could fall. Someone else could fall in front of me. There are infinite things that can happen during a race that, try as I might, I just cannot control, as much as I try. These goals can still be important and motivating to many people, and they range from placement at a given race to high-fiving every one of your teammates/friends/race officials before starting. This is an admirable goal for team spirit, but sometimes people can be hard to find before races or not in the mood. And, sometimes, to get where you want to go with your racing, you might have to place a certain way, but unexpected things happen all of the time. And I always add them only alongside other goals because, no matter how I do on a given day, if my ability to be proud of how I do during a race is only based on things I can’t control, it can be easy to lose sight of what makes me love the sport.
3. Things I can control
While I spent a lot of time talking about the things I can’t control on race day, there are a whole lot of factors that we can. And these can have a lot of variation depending on what my overarching goals are for the race. When my anxiety surrounding racing was at its highest and I was trying to relearn how to love skiing and not to spend so much time focusing on results, my goals usually involved something specific to keeping my happiness. I’d wear ridiculous glasses and glitter and put my hair into some silly style that would make me laugh, and, every time I would start to feel anxious during my warm-up or during the race itself, my goal was to think of that thing and to smile and remember that I was doing this because I loved it and not to take myself so seriously. Or, my goal might be to smile over the top of every hill or every time I was in pain and wanted to give up or to notice something beautiful on every lap, or to make a silly face whenever I saw someone I knew cheering me on from off the course.
As I started to feel myself loving skiing again and able to re-focus on what I wanted to improve in my skiing, my goals shifted more serious. One of my favorite parts of skiing is being able to see small improvements every single day and to work on technique until I’m the most efficient I can be. And this reflects itself in my goals, as these became something like double poling all of a certain section of a course or maintaining a new form improvement I’d noticed needed improving. But I always keep something in my goals that is purely for my own happiness and my love for skiing because I never want to lose sight of the real reason I ski ever again. And, because I race my best when I’m happy.
F. I reflect on those goals when the race is over
The reason it’s so important to have a mix of each of these goals is that, at the end of every race day or weekend, I want to have things I’m proud of. Even if I had the worst race of my life or didn’t get the place I wanted or someone was rude to me, I want to have something that I loved about the race day or race weekend.
It’s very important to reflect on my goals because, just like my skiing, my goals can improve for every race weekend. For example, if my goal was a place that I now realize was unreasonable in either direction (far too easy or too far out of my reach), I can adjust to something more challenging or more attainable. Or, if my goal was to high-five all of my teammates, but I realized that some of them want nothing to do with anyone on race mornings and would get really close to punching me in the face if I asked them for a high five, I might amend that to high-fiving three teammates or to something else entirely. Or if my technique zone I wanted to work on was really easy, I might adjust to something a little harder for the next time. Or, I might realize that my overarching season goals have changed and that I need to adjust my individual race goals accordingly. The season my race-day anxiety came on, my original season goals were to place well throughout my senior season. But, after I realized that what I really needed to work on the most was rediscovering my love for the sport and its community, the smaller race-day goals adjusted accordingly.
And what I’ve learned so far through this process (though I’m sure I have a LOT more to learn) is that I race my best when my goals have absolutely nothing to do with how I place in a race and everything to do with the things that I can control and with the things that remind me just how incredibly happy and lucky I feel to be there. Some of my absolute best races (from a placement and happiness standpoint) were those where I looked super silly in my heart-shaped glasses and was smiling regularly throughout the entire thing. And that may be true for you, too, or it may be that you do better when your goals align with technique or placement. Every person is different. But none of it is wrong, and the most important thing you can do is love and grow in this sport for your entire life.
