Two Lists to Make for a Stress-Free Race Morning
Like many out there, I usually feel a lot of nerves and anxiety the morning of a race. Some of this is normal and can even be a good thing. But stressing about the wrong things can be counterproductive or even detrimental to your performance and take away from what should overall be an enjoyable experience.
My goal before a race is to make that morning as easy and as stress-free as possible. I want to minimize mental clutter and reduce the number of decisions I have to make so I can focus on preparing myself mentally for the effort that is about to happen.
Stressing at 4:30am about what you’re going to eat for breakfast or what kit you are going to wear, or getting to the event late because you forgot something are all unnecessary causes of mental and emotional fatigue that will absolutely have an impact on your performance. You’ve already invested a lot of time, money, and effort getting ready for this thing, so let’s not screw it up by being careless the morning of the race!
At least a couple of days before a race or big event (particularly one that involves an early morning or a long drive) I like to make two lists. The first is a race day schedule. Basically, I work backwards from the race start and assign times to when I need to have certain things done by, from the time I need to wake up all the way up to my last porta potty visit. You can be more general here or down to the minute like me.
The second is simply a list of everything I need to bring with me to the race. Literally, anything and everything I need to think I will need goes on there. The night before the race I gather it all together and put it in a collapsible storage tote so I can just grab it in the morning and not have to worry about whether I have everything.
Below are the exact chicken scratch lists I made for my most recent race, the Mt. Kearsarge Hill Climb, which was a little two hours away from me with an 8:15am start time. I know some of you out there will never do this and prefer to just wing it, but maybe this process will be helpful to those who feel overwhelmed race morning!
