Anxiety at it's PEAK! (Page 2)

I just participated (and finished!) my first Olympic distance event last Saturday. I also experienced some significant level of anxiety after I registered and at the event - here are some of the strategies I implemented to reduce my stress:

1) I kept my goals for the event about as light as possible. For this first Oly, I set my goal at "... sign up, show up, and start ...". Decided I would consider it a success at the point of my first swim stroke after the starting gun. That meant that I had given myself permission to drop out at any point after that during the event, and still celebrate success. That shift in mental approach really took pressure off of myself. Just recognizing that not finishing the entire event would not equal failure that day made it easier to not feel overwhelmed.

2) Once the event started, I did my best to keep my focus on only the next small increment of progress. Goal at start of swim = make it to first buoy. Once I made it to first buoy, next goal was just to make it to next buoy. etc. Same process on the bike and run segments. Run was hardest to keep that focus at, because I was worried about how much gas was left in the tank. Ended up keeping it slow for the first half of the run -- and then, when I realized I had enough to finish, I let it all hang out over the last few miles. Of course, there were times during the event when I'd start thinking about longer durations (... oh, no, 20 miles left on the bike leg ...), but I just kept telling myself to focus on the next interim checkpoint. As the old saying goes, "... the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time ..."

3) I did my best to intentionally keep my pace on all 3 legs below what I had been training at. The hardest leg to maintain that was on the bike, because my legs felt good at that point, and I wanted to push faster. Kept reminding myself that I only get to open up like that after I'm on the run leg.

Of course, the net result of those strategies is that my time in the event was "glacially slow": swim = 38 min, bike = 87 min, & run = 59 min (3:11:25 overall). But the important aspect was that I did finish, and now I have a baseline to beat on the next one. Plus, now I know I can do it...

With any luck, next year I'll go through the same cycle for my first 70.3 event. Guess I'll have to wait and see...

Trust your training!
Think of it as just a long training day, that is what I always tell myself.

Holy thread resurrection Batman! :D