Breath
Breathing is the first, easiest and quickest technique to take control of your emotions. To quote Fitz Perls, "Fear is excitement without breathing." Before you start your race or training session, take a deep breath and relax to let it out. Repeat two or three more times.
Address the Sensation
Address the uncomfortable sensation directly using the Spinning Feelings Pattern developed by Nick Kemp.
- Think of an experience in your life that wasn't all that pleasant. On a scale of 1 (low) to 10 (amazingly intense), select a three or four.
- Check for any physical sensations of this feeling: tiny tingling in your neck, slight fluttery feeling in the stomach, tightening in the shoulders.
- If you don't know the answer to any of the next questions, make your best guess.
- Point out exactly where this feeling is located.
- How large an area of your body does it cover?
- What shape is it? Is it three-dimensional?
- Does it extend outside your body?
- What kind of density does it have—like a marshmallow, or molasses, or wood?
- Does it have a certain temperature?
- Is it moving or doing anything, like vibrating or pulsing?
- What color is it?
- Does it have a sheen or dull finish?
- Are the edges well defined or fuzzy?
- If it were to be rotating, which way is its rotation—clockwise or counterclockwise?
- Now take that feeling and spin it really fast in the opposite direction. Spin it for 10 or 15 seconds or as long as you need.
- What number is the intensity of the feeling now? If it gets better, spin it in the same direction as last time, again for 10 or 15 seconds. If the feeling gets worse, spin it in the direction opposite of what you just did. Check to see that it gets better, then spin it again.
More: How Triathletes Can Beat Pre-Race Anxiety
Get Ahead
You can get ahead of the feeling by anticipation and practice. Anticipate that you'll rack your bike then start your run when you are in a race. Practice bike-to-run transitions so that the feelings that develop are normal. After several brick workouts and transition practices, that dead-legs feeling may remain to some degree, but your mind's evaluation of that feeling is different. Instead of judging that something is wrong, your mind says, 'Oh, I know that feeling. It happens almost every time I run right off the bike. It's normal. And it goes away in a few minutes.' The emotions are less like panic and doom and more like normal racing.
Run through a race scenario to see what might happen to challenge you, then create a little video in your mind about how you will deal with it. Make the movie go perfectly, just as you wish. Then, if that event actually happens, your mind will already know what to do with it, will evaluate it as something other than certain doom and the resultant emotions will help you along.
There exist a good number of techniques to put you in charge of your emotions. You don't have to be in service of your emotions—you can learn to have them do your bidding.
More: 9 Ways to Calm Your Pre-Race Nerves
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