HOW DO I COMPETE AGAINST MY FRIENDS? I’m perfectly happy taking part in an event and competing against hundreds of strangers but I get horribly nervous when I have to race friends or training partners, especially when the result could go either way. In fact, I avoid such races or I start dreaming up excuses in advance as to why I won’t beat my friends on that day, although I know that’s self-reinforcing negative thinking. Any suggestions on how to handle these situations bet er? Sarah, London
Mental preparation expert Midgie Thompson says… You’re certainly not alone here. Lots of people get nervous at the thought of competing against friends or training partners rather than strangers. They might worry that being beaten by them means that are not as good as them, but these kinds of thoughts can become distracting and do not help you perform at your best. The diff erence between competing against strangers versus competing against friends or training partners is that we oſt en care about what our friends and training partners think. Thoughts such as, “Will I be good enough?”, “How will being bet er or worse than them aff ect our friendship?” or even, “What if I do not meet their expectations of how I should perform?" The key is to focus on what we think of ourselves. Remind
yourself of what you have done in training, place your at ention on thoughts that are positive and upliſt ing and remind yourself that you are doing this for yourself.
MAKE SURE YOUR THOUGHTS ARE POSITIVE IMAGINE YOU'RE ALONE IN THE RACE, AS IF YOU'RE IN A BUBBLE.
body position in the water and your ‘feel’ for the water so you need to practise wearing one. On the plus side they also make most swimmers at least one minute faster per 1,500m, and you’ll be warm. Swimming 5km in training is a great start. For me, this is the key to building up for long swims; even though you may not be interested in what time you complete the swim, it is important to keep up both pool and outdoor swims. Pool swimming is still ideal for working on your pacing. Whereas swimming outdoors is more about acclimatisation and building up endurance. In the pool I have two types of sessions to prepare for a swim – one is with a swimming club where there is a coach on the poolside and I’m oſt en doing shorter, faster swimming, I recommend everyone fi nds a friendly Masters club to swim with. The other is just me, when I try to work on my pacing over longer distances. This helps to prevent you from going off too fast in a 10km race, or too slow and get ing cold! Also, and I think this is important, when people say swimming long distances in a pool is ‘boring’, I think they mean it’s mentally tough, and that is something you need to train yourself to do. For example, in a pool, you can fi nd out your average steady 1km pace. If it’s 20 minutes, then try to hold this for fi ve sets of 1km,
“Race you to the lighthouse?”
Before the race, it can help to simply stay away from
conversations with those friends and racing partners about the race in question. Talk about anything else but the race. Make sure the thoughts you think to yourself are positive and help boost you up before the race. During the race, imagine yourself alone in the race, as if you are in a bubble. That way, it is as if those friends and training partners are not even in your race with you. Pay at ention to what you are doing and focus your thoughts
on your own eff orts and what helps boost you, rather than distract you. When you notice you have negative thoughts, replace them with positive and upliſt ing thoughts, such as: “I will be good enough whatever the result”, “Our friendship will still be strong regardless of the outcome,” or, “I need to meet my own expectations, rather than someone else’s.” Just remember, we all have good days and not-so-good days, so just go out there and do your best on the day.
taking a short rest in between for a drink.Or you can mix it up, for each 1km: 1000m paddles, 500m kick, 1000m pull, 500m kick, 1000m swim. That’s if you have time, although I normally only fi t in one or two of these sessions a week. When outdoors, you need to increase the amount of time in the
water. If you know that you swim a steady 20 minutes per km, say, then a 10km swim would be 3hrs 20mins, so you need to be building up to swims of 3hrs. Although outdoor swims are important, keep the pool work going; Thomas Lurz (world open water champion) does almost all of his training in a pool. Have your last long swim two weeks before the event day, then start to reduce your training. Eat plenty of carbs in the build-up to the swim, then you just want to make sure you keep yourself injury free, for example don’t suddenly change your stroke or increase gym work or yoga in the last few weeks. Finally, you should have tried all the kit that you are going to use at
the event a few times, be organised, work out how are you get ing there and what time you need to leave... you don’t want to be stressed on the day aſt er all your hard work get ing yourself there. Good luck!
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