Sage Advice on How to Deal with Race Weekend

Race Day Advice

Paddle Monster Coach and Olympic Gold Medalist Larry Cain knows a thing or two about racing. In his Paddle Monster blog this week, he talks about how “ultra-focus” on the race you’ve been training for all winter can actually work against you.

“Focusing on the outcome before a race is pretty certain to make you tight on the start and negatively affect your ability to get off the line fast, he writes. “You’ll almost always find if you are relaxed and focused only on the task at hand that you’ll get a better start.  Similarly, focusing on the outcome in the middle of a race is guaranteed to make you tight.  Once you’re tight you’re inefficient and once you let your focus wander to one thing it is easier for another to disrupt it as well.”

Here are some more nuggests, and yes, we’re talking to y’all, those of you who just might be obsessing a bit a little event in Carolina this weekend.

“No mater how hard you’ve trained and how badly you want to win, there are things that you can’t control that can get in your way.  You can have the best race you’ve ever had yet someone, on that day, can be just a bit better and you can lose.  Yet how can you feel like a failure it you did the best you possibly could?  What the other competitors do is beyond your control.”

“Conditions are beyond your control as well and serve only to distract you and cause your focus to waver should you worry about them.  The reality is being mentally relaxed allows you to be looser, which in turn allows you to deal with challenging conditions better.  Stressing about conditions beyond your control makes you tight and makes it more difficult for you to handle those conditions.  That’s why the “Love the Conditions” philosophy is so important.”

Want to read the whole blog?, Head on over to Paddle Monster.  There’s more good stuff there, too.