Pre-Race Syndrome

I'm actively working on not freaking out about my first 100k in less than 1.5 days. Between school, work and life in general, these race jitters have been very distracting. But staying in my comfort zone and not signing up for races that challenge me would just be boring. So technically, I choose to be freaking out. Yeah, I'm so smart.

Overall, I guess my nervousness is a good thing because it means I am not taking the race and my success for granted. And how could I...it's 62 miles worth of fun, but I have never ever run this long before.

If you have a race coming up soon, you probably know what I'm talking about. Pre-race syndrome, or PRS for short, presents with a variety of symptoms, including (but by no means limited to): strange dreams that seems to center around missing race start, showing up without shoes, getting lost on the course or forgetting how to run; a desire to eat every carbohydrate source (and other things) in sight; frequent mention of the words "taper" and "sucks" in the same sentence; a heightened affinity toward talking about two or three-letter phrases such as BQ, PR, LSD, DNF, HR, XT, ITB etc as well as an almost uncontrollable desire to say "screw it, I'm going for a run. Now."

I have an acute form of PRS. I have spent countless hours coming up with the perfect race strategy, calculating distances and projected paces between aid stations, as well as the number of calories I should be eating at each point of the course. Naturally, I expect to throw my plan out the proverbial window by about mile 10, maybe even before that.

You can do all the mental preparation in the world, but at the end of the day, the best plan is to start running...and if problems arise, to suck it up and keep running. So, that's plan B. And plan C. And D, E, F...

Dear Rio del Lago 100k, I'm coming to get you.
Good luck to everyone racing this weekend!!!