How to Manage Race-Day Anxiety

Many athletes struggle with nerves on race day. However, you can help quell pre-race jitters through visualization, routine, and reframing.

Anxiety and race-day stress are a natural part of athletics. What you do with that anxiety can make the difference between winning and losing, or between feeling intimidated and feeling joy.

So, what is anxiety and why do we feel it? And if it’s such an intrinsic part of competition, are there ways we can leverage it?

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In simple terms, the anxiety you feel before a race or event is a function of adrenaline coursing through the body, triggered by our fight or flight mechanism. In general terms, this stress is a product of excitement that manifests because of a focus on the future.

“One of the best ways to manage anxiety is to reframe it,” says Grant Holicky, an endurance coach and sports psychologist. “If we’re anxious, we’re not focused on the present. Anxiety leads us to ask, ‘What’s the result going to be? How’s this going to turn out? What’s going to happen out there?’ And there’s nothing you can do about that before the race.”

By using visualization techniques, we can learn to elicit the feelings of anxiety—imagine the start line, the nerves, the sweaty palms, the dry mouth—and then react to those feelings appropriately, in order to find ways to control the fear and turn it into more productive emotions like excitement and joy.

It’s important to understand that all of your senses drive that moment, so imagine it all: What do your hands feel like on the hoods? What do you smell? What’s the sunlight feel like? Make it as real as possible because it’s difficult to trick our mind into believing in our visualization, according to Holicky.

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“The more we put ourselves there, and then we react to it the way we want to react to it on the start line, the more that becomes a habit, the more that becomes something that we can control,” Holicky says.

The key to knowing what habit we want to create is understanding our relationship with stress and how we best function in pressured situations.

The optimal zone

In sports psychology, there’s a concept known as the “individual zone of optimal functioning.” Simply put, this is where you need to be to be at your best. For some, that’s a happy place. For others, it’s a dark place. Some people are fueled by joy and others by rage.

To find your IZOF, think back to your best performances. What was your state of mind? Maybe you perform best when you’re doing it for the love, for the joy of sport. If so, then visualize the start of a race and make it as real as possible, and bring in those elements that create joy.

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Maybe it’s the people you race with and the relationships you have with them. Put yourself on the start line, let all that adrenaline come, let the stress build, and then think about something that makes you smile or laugh—think about the people you love to be around at your races.

Like many aspects of sport, this visualization process takes practice. Don’t expect to nail it the first time. But, also, don’t expect to have to practice more than a few minutes at a time, for a few times a week in order to build more skill and confidence in your technique.

“As we get closer to a key competition, we’re doing it a little bit less frequently, but we’re doing more intensive sessions so that we’re heightening the response, preparing ourselves for what that start line is actually going to feel like,” Holicky says.

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Rooted in routine

Finally, one of the best and, in some ways, easiest methods to control anxiety is to create a solid, simple routine. It’s all about controlling the things you can control. Take a cyclist, for example: dial in the routine which includes everything from what you do three days before the race right down to the time the gun goes off. It includes nutrition in the days leading into the race, the race-day warm-up, registration, pinning the number… it can be all-encompassing. And it helps you feel in control.

Of course, try not to become so fixated on a routine that if you get thrown off that habit, the anxiety comes back. That’s where mental flexibility, resiliency, and the art of visualization come into play.

Work through scenarios: What are you going to do if you get a flat tire while warming up before the race? What are you going to do if you get there late and registration is closed? Face these types of anxiety-inducing situations in visualization sessions before you face them in reality and you’ll be more prepared—not to mention your routine will improve over time.

“As I go to the start line with a wife and two kids, my routine is far different now than it was when I went to the start line alone,” Holicky says. “So, I may have to be okay with a 15-minute warm-up or no warm-up.”

Ultimately, performance is paramount. So, create ways to react to anxiety and stress that benefit you on race day.