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The Butterflies In My Stomach Are Having A Party

October 17, 2013 By

Raceinfo

Since September 2009, I have run seven half-marathons, four ten-milers, two 15K races, two quarter-marathons, twelve 10K races, one 8K race and three 5K races. That’s a total of 31 races covering more than 400km.

You’d think I’d be OK with pre-race nerves. And yet, as I sit here now, three days before my 8th half-marathon, I’m in absolute flitters. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, I cannot concentrate on anything apart  from the countdown clock on the race website. Which, in case you’re interested, currently reads 2 days, 18 hours, 59 minutes.

The biggest cause of the problem is Taper Madness. This is a real condition – so real that there’s a website devoted to it. It happens during the last two or three weeks before a distance race, when you reduce your training mileage in order to rest your body. The reduction in physical activity plus the pre-race jitters result in you prowling restlessly around the house in search of something to do with your overflowing energy levels.

Not only is this not fun for me, it’s not great for my family either. My constant fidgeting and nerviness has them on edge. I think they were somewhat relieved yesterday when I told them that my training schedule called for a short run.

“Get out,” they told me, “and don’t come back until you’ve run for at least thirty minutes.”

That run did me the world of good, although I went somewhat faster than I was supposed to. I couldn’t help it. It was either that or explode from the pent-up energy. For the remainder of the day, I was calmer and less antsy, and generally nicer to be around.

This morning, I’m back in bounce-on-the-ceiling mode, and I’m likely to stay that way until the start of the race.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle.

 

Filed Under: Race, running, Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Races, Taper Madness, Tapering Tagged With: , ,
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8 Things Runners Should Do The Day Before A Race

May 26, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

This time tomorrow, I will be about an hour and a quarter into the half-marathon I’ve been training for since February. If things go according to plan, I will have a little less than 10km to go. I will have been injected with the mental boost that comes from passing the halfway mark, and I will be mentally preparing strategies to overcome the energy crash that usually happens at around 18km. I will be visualizing myself crossing the finish line, hopefully with a personal best half-marathon time under my belt.

But that’s all tomorrow. Today I have to get through my final day of pre-race freak-out. I am a bag of nerves and my body is trying to play its usual tricks on my mind. And somehow, while these butterflies create havoc in my stomach, I have to get myself organized for tomorrow, and make sure my body has the nutrients and hydration in place to go the distance.

I have run my share of races, so I have been through this enough times to be in a position to share a few hard-earned points of wisdom with runners who suffer from pre-race jitters.

1. Your body is thirsty. As athletes, we all know that we’re supposed to drink x-number of glasses of water a day. But some of us aren’t as diligent about it as we should be. If I was better about my general hydration needs, maybe it would kick up my race performance a notch. It would certainly be better for my overall health. As lax about it as I am, I always make a special effort to hydrate properly the day before a race. It does mean more trips to the bathroom, but going into the race with at least a day’s worth of proper hydration behind me really does make a difference.

2. Watch what you eat. This one seems obvious. We want our bodies to be properly fueled for the big event. Don’t go nuts on the carbs: it’s actually better to do your carbo-loading two days before the race. The day before, you want to keep your diet simple and healthy. My pre-race day nutrition consists of lean protein, very little fat, and a small amount of carbs. That is what works for me, and it is important to note that something quite different could work for someone else.

3. Now is not the time for experimentation. If you just bought a new pair of six-inch heels, wait until after the race to break them in. Especially if you’re a dude. Keep that new jar of miracle wonder-vitamins in your medicine cabinet with the seal intact. If you’ve never had super-hot Thai curry, don’t eat it today. Everything you wear today should be something you’ve worn before, and everything you eat or drink should be something that you know from experience is tolerated well by your body.

4. Remember that your training is done. Going out for “one last speed training run” is going to serve absolutely no purpose, and may in fact do you harm. It is easy to worry, on the last day, about whether you have done enough training. You start to obsess about the week you had to take off due to a cold, or the fact that you had to cut short your last long run because you turned your ankle on an uneven paving stone. Remember that training is not an event, it’s a process, and you will have built your base long ago. The best thing you can do today is loosen up with an easy run around the block, and then rest for the remainder of the day.

5. Do stuff you like. You are tense and nervous, and you need to relax. Don’t worry about the things you should be doing. They can wait. Keep yourself busy with activities that will relax your mind and help you chill out a little. For me, it’s writing and messing around on my laptop. For someone else, it might be reading or watching TV. If you actually enjoy washing dishes and doing the laundry, knock yourself out. Come and do mine while you’re at it.

6. Prepare your running outfit. You don’t want to be fiddling around with safety pins and your race bib while you’re lined up at the start line ten minutes before the siren goes off. The day before the race, you actually want to put on the clothes you will be wearing, along with your heart rate monitor and whatever fuel belt you will be using. Then you can pin your number to your shirt, and experiment with ways to make the number work with everything else you are wearing. Men and flat-chested women have an easier time of this, simply because they have a larger available flat surface. For women like me who are more rounded on top, more coordination is sometimes required. Don’t wait until race day to figure it out.

7. Pack your bag. Most races have bag check facilities, and it’s well worth taking advantage of them. My bag typically contains several bottles of water for before and after the race, the pre-race snack that I eat right after I get to the start (about an hour before the run begins), a light jacket and track pants to put on after the race, and an alternative set of running clothes just in case I get to the start and find that I have miscalculated the weather. Your race bib usually comes with a bag check tear-off strip at the bottom. Remove this from the bib and attach it to your bag.

8. Get plugged in. Charge up your training watch, your iPod, and any other electronic gadgets that you are taking. Getting to the race and seeing the “battery low” message flashing on your watch can be very disorienting. Leave your goods plugged in for the day, and then unplug them and leave them with your race clothes before you go to bed.

Pre-race jitters are normal, and in some ways they are beneficial. They give your adrenaline a handy boost leading up to the race. Don’t fight the jitters, embrace them. Coexist with them as you go about your final race day, getting yourself ready.

And then, when it’s time to line up at the start, enjoy the run and visualize how great it will feel to cross the finish line.

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, Pre-Race Jitters, Race, running, Taper Madness, Tapering Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Here Come The Butterflies

May 12, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

Two weeks and one day from now, I will be lining up for my first half-marathon of the season, the Toronto Womens Half-Marathon. I am looking forward to this race immensely. Not only for the chocolate station. And shallow and all as I am, not only for the aid stations manned by shirtless firefighters who douse you with water.

I am excited about the challenge of it. With the help of my friend and coach Phaedra, I have really been pushing the boundaries in my training this season. I have managed to survive some fair significant disruptions, like unexpected travel to South Africa and a couple of bouts of illness.

The two races that I have done this year – the Good Friday Ten-Miler and the Toronto Yonge Street 10K – have both yielded PB’s (personal best times). I am eager to see if I can repeat the performance over a longer distance.

I just have to get through the final phase of training, which is referred to by many runners as Taper Madness. While tapering is an essential part of training, it can be a period fraught with anxiety and mild (or not-so-mild) paranoia.

The science behind tapering is this: you spend twelve or fourteen weeks training intensively for this event, putting in your mileage and your speed work, having a battle of wits with hills, and spending entire Sunday mornings out on the road. You build your stamina and your strength, and you get used to spending long periods of time on your feet.

The training is a long process that should be properly planned and carefully executed. And if you’re not physically capable of running the distance of a half-marathon two weeks prior to the race, chances are that you won’t be ready on race-day either. The last two weeks don’t really have any value in terms of building your fitness level or your strength, so you are better off cutting back your mileage and giving your muscles time to rebuild in time for the big day.

Because you are reducing your mileage, you have more of a build-up of energy, so you get jittery and anxious, and you start imagining that the twinge in your ankle means it’s broken, or that the little pimple on your chin means you have smallpox.

Some runners can get through the tapering period without incident. They are cool, calm and collected, and don’t suffer from any attacks of nerves. “Butterflies? What butterflies?” they ask with infuriating serenity, when you question them about whether they are nervous about their upcoming race.

Other runners cannot sit still. They pace around restlessly, talk a mile a minute and fidget incessantly. They turn into hypochondriacs, anxiously assessing every little ache and every occasion on which they need to clear their throats. Because they stop sleeping, they advance seventy-two levels in Farmville in a two-week period.

Guess which category I fall into? I’ll give you a hint: I’m sitting here typing this at 4:12 in the morning.

Technically, my taper hasn’t even started yet. It will start after my long run tomorrow. But I tend to start feeling the jitters right before that last long run. I feel that there’s a lot riding on the run. If it goes well, I will go into Race Day with confidence, but I will be worried about whether I can repeat the performance. If it goes badly, I will be obsessing about whether I’m ready for the race.

So the butterflies have shown up, right on schedule. No matter what tomorrow’s long run is like, I am going to spend the next two weeks driving my family nuts and breaking out into occasional bouts of maniacal laughter. At night I will be banished to the sofabed because my incessant fidgeting will keep the husband awake. I will constantly bug the children, who will indulge me by playing with me for a while before my six-year-old gets exasperated and goes, “Momm-meeeee. You don’t play the gamethat way.”

Right now, the butterflies are not obeying any air traffic rules. They are flying around in chaos. But it is my hope that when the starting siren goes off on the day of the race, the butterflies will reconfigure themselves, arrange themselves into beautiful patterns, and fly in formation.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ilker/287399328/. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, Butterflies, Half-Marathon, Race, running, Taper Madness, Tapering, Toronto Womens Half-Marathon, Training Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,