I’ll admit, I’ve feel like I’ve been cruising along a little bit for the last almost four months.  Riding high on the success of three milers well run, feeling strong, capable and A-OK!

Then this week happened.  Heart racing whenever I thought about the race, I thought I was handling it ok..until yesterday. Tears fit for the sailing of Noahs arc are released, maybe I wasn’t quite as OK as I thought.  Turns out I’ve been an absolute nightmare. Snappy? “NO, I’M NOT!”, stressed? “NO, I’M FINE”. Ugh, sorry one and all. Seems this whole final race was freaking me out more than I realised, ok ok, I was totally and utterly oblivious!

It should have been evident after a series of events: 

Firstly my choosing different shoes for race day…what’s rule number one again!? (thanks High Beam for supporting me by providing my old faithfuls when I realised the error of my ways!)

Next was panic buying hundreds of dollars of race nutrition I haven’t really used before…deja vu to the first rule of a race once again!

And finally somehow setting a new circadian rhythm and waking up regularly at 4am and not getting back to sleep.

Yup, irrational, difficult, and really quite unaware, though the signs were all there.

This has happened before each race, and amongst those around me we’ve even jokingly called it my pre-race crazies!  Some, have even likened it with the cult-movie synonym ‘Bunny Boiler’!

This has been the first time though that I have finally become more conscious of it.

Each race build up has had its own challenges.

Niggles that have amplified closer to race day – as is the nature of pain and its psychological basis.

My ability to blow things out seems to increase in magnitude in a direct correlation to the magnitude of the event.

Questions over gear, fuel, etc.

Each race has had its difficulties and it’s a case of learning from each experience and a whole lot of trial and error.  This can freak me out as I go into another event wondering if I’ve got the mix right this time.

At the end of the day I know I’m going into this race and I’m going to finish it. I know it. So why the crazies?

Well running any race and putting yourself out there is a big deal.

This final one in the Thir Series is a long way, and in that time anything can and will happen.  But that is exactly what I both love and hate about the distance – I love the challenge, the problem solving, the unknown. But paradoxically I also struggle with the unknown of it all, because it all depends on variables on the day (and night….at 4am….in horizontal rain), and there are so many of those variables that are out of my control – more on that topic in another blog!

So, what am I going to do to handle the crazies for the next two weeks?

I have a plan to deal with my snappiness, with a behavoiur ‘intervention’ that I have to instigate every now and then!

That all sounds very fancy like an episode of ‘Miami CSI – The Crazie Chronicles’, but in reality it’s me hand writing signs on pieces of paper and sticking them around the house that read: Stop, think, respond, with examples of responses I can give that bring me into the moment and engage my brain before I go from rational thinker, to a scene from The Kardashians.

And the rest?  I’ll start listening to my hypnotherapy recording to get my headspace right and I’ll work on my race plan with variables that are within my control.

So, pre-race crazies, I think I’m done with you for now! I’m ready to move through these next couple weeks, ticking off the training and the planning, while getting excited and remembering that I do this because I love it, and the other stuff will all work out on the day…or not! Either way I’ll deal with it.