Leo's lessons on racing

The outcome of a race is often decided before the gun even goes off, as the physical and mental preparation required to successfully perform in a race has a huge effect on a runner’s ability to “put-out” and do well. However, when it is a new season, your knowledge on preparation for racing can be a bit rusty - maybe because you haven’t done it for several months, or maybe you’re brand new to competitive racing. This can be especially true for the mental side of race-preparation. Everyone (hopefully) understands that stretching out, hydrating (even if you’re in school the day of a race), sleeping well, and other physical tasks are necessary to do well in a race. However, the mental preparation for a race is much more difficult to fully wrap your head around. How much should I be thinking about the race? How emotional should I be about it on the bus ride over? How about a week before? Should I be trying to hype myself up or stay mellow? Learning the answers to these questions is a painful process, and if you ever feel like you’ve fully “figured out” racing, you are probably a few races away from one that punches you in the gut and makes you question your philosophy on preparation and racing. So, how would I best advise you to prepare for a race? 

There are two core items that you must understand going into a race: what you need to do, and what is about to happen to you. Knowing what you need to do is simple: what’s the race strategy? Do you need to come through the first mile between in 6:20? Do you need to stick with a specific person and beat him at all costs? Do you need to run a challenging first half mile then dial it back? What task do you need to accomplish? A lot of this is up to Winters, but making sure that you understand exactly what he wants you to do is important. A related piece of advice: set concrete goals. Saying “I want to run fast,” is not the same as, “I want to come through the first mile in 6:20.” Saying, “I want to try as hard as I can,” is not the same as, “I want to run a reserved first two miles, and then go ballistic the last 1.1.” Make sure that your goals are material and real rather than unclear so you actually know whether you are doing them correctly. 

Now that you understand what you need to do during the race, you need to understand what is going to happen to you during the race. It is going to hurt a lot. In case you missed it: it is going to hurt a lot. If you are not prepared to be crossing the line totally exhausted barely able to feel your legs or control your breathing, you are not as ready as you need to be, as that brutal experience is what it may come down to for you to achieve your task. I use the word “brutal” intentionally, as racing is a brutal experience. I have come to view competitive racing as a combat sport, maybe not of the punch and kick kind of combat, but of mental combat. You need to be willing to go step-for-step, mile-for-mile with someone until they can’t take the pain that your effort and running is making them feel. Imagine you were in a foxhole with an enemy soldier in hand-to-hand combat, where only one of you walks away alive. In that situation, you need to be willing to be vicious. You need to be willing to be savage. You need to be willing to do whatever it takes to beat your enemy and live on another day. I’m not saying that you should view racing as a military encounter, but what I am saying is that in the same way you need to be willing to not stop fighting when the enemy punches you in the face, or stabs you, or bites you, you need to not stop racing at a high effort level when you start to feel sore, or when another racer makes a move to try to pass you. I’m also not saying that every race will be a hellish, primal experience. What I am saying is that you are not fully ready to race unless you are prepared to face anything that gets thrown at you. No matter what, you need to keep executing your task. 
 
How could you possibly prepare for a race mentally knowing just how brutal it has the potential to be? How do I think about a race in a productive way? Quite frankly, I’m still working on finding the answer to that question, because I’m not sure myself. I think that figuring out how to think about racing is a career-long process. However, I do have a few pieces of advice:

1. Don’t obsess over a race. Until late October, most of the races that we do, in the grand scheme of things, aren’t that important. Should you try to do well? Yes, always. But if you mess up at an invitational in September or a conference meet basically whenever, the world isn’t going to end. Your family won’t be executed. The team won’t be disbanded. While races are important, don’t get caught up in thoughts like, “what if I don’t do well?” or, “what if we lose?” In the grand scheme of things, not much. As long as you tried hard - let me repeat, as long as you tried hard - there really aren’t negative consequences for us doing poorly in races that you should worry about. That understanding brings me to my point about not obsessing. If you are spending a week completely overwhelmed by anxiety over a race, you need to take a chill pill. If it’s over a week out, you really don’t even need to have the race on your mind a whole lot at all. If it’s a few days before, you should be thinking about it and understanding it’s going to happen, but you don’t need to be having nightly hype sessions getting amped up for it. All this brings me to my next point of advice:
2. Keep things in perspective. When you boil it down to its roots, a 5k is only 3.1 miles of pain. This is also high school, not a professional setting. Racing shouldn’t be some grand thing that takes up the entire mental energy of a week or a weekend (of the day of the race? Yes). It also isn’t a situation where you’re going to be set on fire or dipped in acid for an hour straight. It’s just a 3.1 mile race. Well you should be braced for pain, don’t lose sight that it isn’t some biblically awful experience.
3. If you are anxious, ask yourself questions. What am I worried about? Why am I nervous? Is it the pain? Am I worried I won’t do well? That I won’t run fast enough? That I’m not ready? Once you begin to understand why you are getting very nervous about a race, you can actually see if what’s worrying you is worth dwelling on. Are you even worried about anything specifically? Or is it just broadly “the race” that has you concerned? If you can’t even pin anything down, is it even worth worrying about? And say you can figure out why you are nervous. Is that even that big a deal? Is dreading running a certain course just because of one bad hill really worth the mental energy when the rest of the route is flat? Is obsessing over whether or not you can beat someone from a different school important when we are a better team than them, and we will win just as long as we do our job? 
4. Don’t get caught up on running a specific time/place. Chasing numbers is a dangerous game, because much of it is out of your control. If I throw you into a 95 degree conference meet where the course is a 10 degree incline the entire way, you can have the highest effort race of your life, but you just won’t run a personal record. Similarly, getting caught up on whether or not you beat some person or one the race is often dangerous because sometimes you just aren’t going to beat someone. Last track season, our 4x4 team ran a three-four second PR in the same race where we got beaten out by 40 meters because the anchor of the other team was the state champion/6th in the nation high school 800 meter runner. We still considered that day a success because we put out a huge effort to pr by how much we did, but if we focused on how we got blown out in the actual race, we wouldn’t be appreciating our great accomplishment. 
5. Keep in mind that you are in control. Racing may feel like a big scary monster, but in reality, most of how it goes you have direct control over. Your physical preparation is entirely under your control. During the race, your opponents won’t pull out a gun and tell you to stop following them. Winters isn’t going to tell you to beat people who are far beyond your fitness level, and he won’t advise you try to run a time if you aren’t ready to run it yet. The pain of a race won’t force you to get off task - you will ultimately make a decision to slow down or let someone get away from you. Racing is your brain making choices, and because you control your choices, you control what you do in the race. For this reason, if you are willing to just do what you have to do, you will be successful. 
6. Be prepared to just do it. Just do what you have to do. Don’t make it a choice as to whether or not you will quit - just don’t quit. You control your actions, so just be prepared to do what you have to do, and be willing to put aside whatever pain or discomfort arises from it. 

​Leo Sereni