The Starting Line Experience

As a coach, I consider my primary responsibility is to facilitate a positive starting line experience. This means want them to stand on the starting line & manage the nerves, set their intention for the race & know that they are capable of what they are setting out to achieve. This is not an easy thing to accomplish & I am certainly not batting 1000 on that score. But I do think it is essential to have my athletes realize that their performance on race day is not my responsibility. It's their's. They start on their own & they cross the finish on their own. This is the reason that starting line can be so nerve wracking: you are buck naked & all alone out there.

But that is what the training is for. It's designed to allow you to work hard toward achieving whatever objective you have set for yourself. If you have a goal in mind, a well planned training plan designed to achieve that goal, clear direction for executing that plan & a process for overcoming the inevitable challenges that crop up when we train, then you can can stand on the starting line feeling capable of your goal. There are a lot of little details buried in that last sentence & the devil is in them, for sure.

As you reflect on your journey waiting in anticipation for that gun to go off, you should feel the power from all those early mornings, all those miles, all that suffering. You can be calm & collected. You can be excited about what is coming, instead of dreading what might be on the road lying in wait for you. If this is not how you experience the starting line, then you need help. Reach out to a coach -I know a guy- to help provide you with the plan & find training partners or a community to share the miles.  Nothing can substitute for accountability in creating consistency.

& consistency is the coin of the realm.