You’ve spent months preparing. Your next big race is coming up. All the preparations from training to diet to setting out your gear the day before are completed. It’s Saturday night and you are so psyched you almost can’t get to sleep.

Finally you nod off and wake when the alarm goes off at 5:00 a.m.

Oh, God, you think. Is it that time already? Why do I feel so sluggish? Can this be race day, really? Why can’t I feel like I did yesterday, all raring to go and ready to race?

Relax, the Sunday morning blues happen to almost everyone. 

Our brains often resist big commitments. Our minds can’t get a grip on the pain and discomfort to come. Our hearts suddenly yearn for calmer mornings when putting our bodies and reputation on the line weren’t so imminent.

The Sunday Morning Race Day Blues. How do you beat them? 

If you want to be prepared and perky come Sunday morning, you really need to rehearse your state of mind so that fear and trepidation don’t catch up with you on the real race morning.

Sure, you’re used to getting up early to train. But getting up early to race feels different. Why is that?

It’s because the circumstance is defining your mentality, not the other way around.

Sports psychologists spend a lot of time working with elite athletes in golf, swimming, tennis, cycling and running to learn discipline of the mind. Our minds fail us only when the information coming into the mind is inconsistent with our experience. When a golfer gets into a tough situation on the golf course, the ability to envision hitting the next shot well is crucial to overcoming the circumstance in which he or she finds themselves immersed.

See, immersion is exactly what is happening to you on Sunday morning when you wake up feeling underprepared and overwhelmed. That’s why it is so crucial to have tools to work through anxiety and other emotions that hinder your ability to relax, focus and do your best.

Those are the qualities you need to succeed. So those are the qualities you need to have ready when Sunday morning comes.

Are there natural born winners? Do you hate them? 

Some people just seem to breeze through race preparation, rising from bed with a sunny disposition and the will to succeed in a race. Lucky them. Is it simply their good luck to have a brain wired for hard effort? In some cases, that is true.

It is just as likely those sunny souls have methods to control their thoughts. Those might include something as simple as prayer, believe it or not, to take the burden and pressure off their minds. But if you are not the praying type, and don’t want to depend on Providence to help you run a PR, there are more practical ways to get your mind on track.

Practice pays off

If you want to succeed on Sunday morning, that means you want to practice getting ready for your big race so that the sensations associated with rising early and getting out the door on time and in a good state of mind are not so foreign and harsh feeling.

If you have a pre-race routine that includes setting out your equipment then do that the Saturday before your planned race. For runners, that means your racing uniform, shoes and any water or prep you will use for the race.

For cyclists, the system must be more involved, because there is so much to remember. Bike, helmet, gloves, kit, shoes, water bottles, food, arm warmers. The list goes on and on.

But it’s not just about the physical equipment. You should be most focused on how your mind is prepared for race day. So you need to set out your mental equipment where you can see it too.

Objectifying your anxieties

Here’s a nifty trick to help you focus on race day.

The week before you are set to race, write down everything in your head that you want to go right on race day. That means your goal time, splits, and feelings you expect to have when racing. These include feelings of well-being, of confidence and self-fulfillment.

If you are worried about failing somehow, write those feelings down as well. Many people are worried about failing in the eyes of others. You’ve likely talked up your race prep to many people in your life. “I’m running a marathon” sounds good to say in August and September, but when October comes around and Sunday morning dawns dark and windy, all your negative thoughts can overwhelm your aspirations. You immediately doubt yourself. Fear gives you the jitters. Your stomach starts to churn…

But that’s not where you want to be, is it? So don’t get caught by surprise. Spend time leading up to the race anticipating the many factors that can lead to stress. What if the weather is bad, either too hot, too cold or too windy? Are you willing to adjust your pace and end time in order to complete the race. Getting those thoughts down on paper can help you come to grips with the fact that some things really are impossible if conditions are not right.

Yet you want to be flexible as well, able to adjust your mind to overcome adversity in general. It helps to imagine yourself all the way from getting up in the morning, driving to the race, getting your registration and number and stepping or riding to the line.

This helps you eliminate distractions that can crop up on race day. Some friend gets in your face and starts blabbing about how great they feel, and then says something like; “And how are you feeling?”

They might mean well but what they are really doing is throwing their anxieties on you! They’re looking for that one person who will admit they are not feeling well so that the fearful friend will not feel so alone.

Be ready. When you’ve rehearsed what you’re planning to do on race day you can say, with all pleasantness and confidence, “I’ve trained and am getting ready to run the race. So I’m going to focus on that.”

When Sunday comes

Thinking that far into race day; imagining all the preparations and confidence stepping to the line with a flexible and clear mind will help you overcome anxiety.

That way when you rise at 5:00 and feel fearful, you can turn to that firm resolve built up in your mind and tell yourself, “No, this is just a circumstance I am imagining. I am well prepared and am going to do exactly what I’ve practiced and get ready to go.”

So remember, to prepare for Sunday mornings, it always helps to:

1. Write down your feelings and objectives in advance
2. Account for everything you need by making a list and rehearsing setup the week before
3. The week before the race, get up at the exact same time you anticipate rising on race day, and use your preparation process to go out for a workout
4. During the week leading up to the race, look at your list every day
5. In the week leading up to your race, be smart about how you talk about your event. Don’t waste precious energy worrying out loud or expanding your “worry sphere” by telling everyone you meet what you’re doing. Keep counsel with a trusted few and avoid those who might be naysayers.
6. On Saturday night before your Sunday race, focus on the positives you’ve accumulated in training. If you have a training partner, call them or spend time with them to affirm each other in the effort.
7. Choose a time to get up and fix in your mind that you will not hit the snooze button or sabotage yourself in some other way.
8. Fix your breakfast while keeping your list handy to go over. Keep anxieties at bay with the confidence you gain from having rehearsed the physical and mental needs of the day.
9. At the race, keep conversations pleasant and minimal. Focus on what you need to get ready, not by socializing, but by acting on your needs and goals.
10. Take time to rehearse your mental objectives and revisualizing the work you’ve put in, the successes you’ve had in training and the good feelings you want to experience during the race.

The Sunday Morning Tarsnake does not need to send you off your road to success. Preparation, objectifying your fears and goals and using them to “stay ready” can help Sunday morning be everything you want it to be.