Power Of One - How to Get Back on Track After A Bad Race

How to Get Back on Track After a Bad Race

Ok, so you lost. So, what?

Every athlete knows that not every day is going to be a good day. You’re not always going to be 100% and be at the top of the pack. It doesn’t matter how much you train, where you trained, how you did it, or who you are. Every athlete has a bad day every now and then, even the best of us. It’s what you do after your bad day that makes the difference.

“If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.” – Fred Devito

4 Tips to Getting Back on Track

Recover properly

It can be too easy to let your bad mood get in the way of proper recovery. Your body needs time to rest and rebuild after any workout, even when you feel like you didn’t make the mark. Now’s the time to practice your favorite recovery ritual or even try a new one. There are a ton of methods and products out there to help your body recover, including CBD recovery products that help your body relax and repair your muscles quicker. Your body might need extra recovery time to recover your mind and get your mind and body back on the same page. Take at least a day or two to relax and do activities that are easy for your body and mind. Now’s the time to get back to those gratitude and visualization exercises.

Remember why you run

Even though you’re frustrated and your mind is probably stuck on everything that went wrong, it’s important to remind yourself why you’re doing all of this in the first place. Maybe it’s the health benefits, or maybe you’re out to prove someone, or yourself, wrong. Whatever your personal reasons to run are, it’s more important now than ever to remember those reasons. If you’ve lost touch with your reasons, it’s time to dig deep and connect with your inner motivations. Why are you doing this? Why do you want to? Why should you keep going? Always go back to the why.

Figure out what you can improve on

The first thing you’re going to think about is everything you did wrong, and your one mistake could circle your head over and over and over again. But how is that going to help you move forward? It’s time to reframe your thinking and move away from what went wrong to what you can improve on. Did overtraining affect your performance? Did you eat and hydrate properly before the race? Did you get enough sleep? Was there something you could change in your kit that could make a difference? Focus on what you can change for next time so you don’t make the same mistakes.

Reassess your goals

It’s now out of the norm for runners to set goals that are somewhat out of their reach. If you’re finding yourself stretching yourself thin to reach your current goals, it might be time to head back to the drawing board. We’re not saying to completely throw away the goals you’ve already set but maybe add a stepping stone or two on the way to that goal. You don’t need to jump right into being the best of the best; that’s just not realistic. Set a smaller, more reasonable goal that you know you can hit. You’ll get the satisfaction of achieving a goal and be on your way to reaching your major goal.

Losing sucks, and you might feel like crap right now, but this setback is just an opportunity for you to become stronger. Now that you’ve been through one bad race, you can get through them all!

Now, lift yourself up and get back on the track.

“The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.” – Sir Roger Bannister