Harnessing My Competitiveness

Last year ACTUALLY racing

    I am an EXTREMELY competitive person.  When I go out for a run and see somebody in front of me, I always feel the need to catch up and pass them.  When I don't do a race, I always log online and look up the results to see how I would have placed.  However, in a race, I am so zoned into how I feel myself that I rarely inspire myself to go faster and to catch a person in front of me.

    Over the past year I've thought about the competitive things that I do and have realized that I use my competitiveness in the completely wrong way.  Why am I competitive about races that I am NOT in and yet lose my competitiveness in the races I AM in?

    All throughout my swimming career,  I had been told that I am a "practice swimmer."  I work incredibly hard in practice with the ability to hold an "at-or-near race pace" for incredibly long sets.  Then, when I race in an actual swim meet, I don't go very much faster. People I crushed in practice now somehow beat me. I can always push myself to new levels in practice but come race time,  I can't rise to the occasion. I'm not exactly sure how I can fix this problem...but, I'm working on it.

First Place- I obviously know SOMEWHAT 'how to race'

    Last year while training for the ING Marathon (my first full marathon) I came to the conclusion that I can't always run and pass people when I'm training.  Ultimately, what the person in front of me is doing has no bearing on what I'm doing.  The person in front of me might look slower than me BUT they might also only be out for a 3 mile run.  Myself, on the other hand, might still have 10 miles left in my distance run.  So, if I'm doing 10 miles and they're only doing 3, should I be running faster than them? Probably not.  I'm only hurting myself and my training by feeling the need to 'beat' them.  My goals are different than every other person out there and it's important to keep that in mind.  The key, in essence, is competing against myself in training and not against others.

    As to the need to log online and look at race results to see how I would've placed, this practice both has benefits and a down side.  The plus is that it gets me excited for my next race and motivates me in training.  The down side is that I'm spending so much time fixating on races I never competed in. Then, I get upset when I don't perform in my own races the way that I had imagined I would. The problem here comes down to a problem with myself.  By the time I hit a race, I've already created a mental image for how well I expect myself to perform.  If I beat those people that I thought I would...great. But if they beat me, I'm crushed.

Looking focused at IM 70.3 Miami

    When I set such high expectations for myself it's hard to ever live up to them. So, although I find it fun to check other race results, I think I need to constantly keep in mind that: I wasn't in that race, so I can never really know how I would have done.  It's fun to imagine how I would have placed.  But, it's important to realize that my thoughts aren't real.  Ultimately, the way I perform in a race comes down to how I feel at that very moment and NOT how I expected that I would perform.  Staying in the moment is essential to competition.  It's going to take a lot of hard work on my part, but I'm going to try.

    Lastly is my issue with being a "practice" athlete.  How am I so able to push myself in training and have issues with pushing myself even harder in a race? Honestly, I don't know.  Maybe I just really enjoy the thrill of pushing my body on a daily basis.  I admit that's it's not as easy to push myself in a run as it is in the pool. Maybe I just really enjoy swimming.   I'm not sure. But I don't think that I've ever really left a triathlon knowing that I pushed myself as hard as possible.  I think I'm still too cerebral.  In a race I'm so caught up in my mind that I don't really 'let go' and allow my body to test itself.

    So, that's this seasons' race goal...to stop thinking as much and to let my body take control using my competitiveness to my advantage.  The training is there.  I just need to let my body embrace the competition and really test itself.  Hopefully I'll be impressed with the results.