I get nervous

This is an observation. I've noticed it most lately when I'm racing cyclocross. I tell myself that I just need to stay calm and not worry about how well I do, but once we've started and I'm out there riding, especially during the first half of the race, I feel the nerves and worry. I worry about whether I'll run out of gas and not be able to finish. I worry that if I pass the riders in front of me, when I know that I can if I want to, that I won't be able to stay in front of them, or that I'll make a mistake. I worry about flatting. I worry about ramming my balls when I remount and doing serious damage (Seriously, who wants that?). But I know that all of this stuff distracts me from the race itself, and from riding as well as I can. 

Dave U says to me, at Cross-Tastic on Sunday, that he told a friend who rides in the A race that since he's finishing at about the same place in every race, he needs to do something different. "You know, just go as hard as you can out there and if you bonk you bonk. At least then you know that you went as hard as you could." 

Well I can see the sense in that. It's also intimidating to me, because then I'm going to worry that I'll bonk early, and end up DNFing or getting lapped/finishing way back. I know that I'm over-thinking it. I'm pretty sure that if I went hard, I'd still finish, and I'd probably finish better than I have so far this season. Then again, I've been pretty wasted by the end of most races, so I'm not sure how much better I can finish. Anyway, the question I have is, how much physical energy does being nervous and worrying about how well you'll do actually take out of me when I'm racing? Does it actually make my body less efficient? My hunch is that it does - if not physically, it must mentally. 

The other way I see this, for myself, is that I've never really liked participating in organized competitive sport. Sure I am a competitive individual and always want to go hard, but that's different than having a "killer instinct" and being able to "play to win." Most times I feel myself playing to "not lose," or to "not suck." Actually I'm often a "when the going get's tough just try to keep going" kind of player. I don't really set the bar high enough or, I'm okay with setting the bar a little lower. At least that's what I hear myself saying when I'm out there racing: "just finish well" or "don't do anything stupid." 

I think I could push harder if I could stop worrying about all this fear of failure stuff. I'm hoping that more racing will help to fix that. The more I race, the more normal it'll feel and the less I'll think about it. If I can just enjoy the exhilaration of being pushed by competition I'll compete better too. Having coached for the last few years I much better understand the value of competition and the necessity of an opponent to help you play better. The better the competition, the better you play. This seems to be a general rule. So I'm loving the race, and learning to embrace the effort needed to compete hard right to the end.

Ride report

in:       2'C wind calm

out:    8'C wind calm