I know this guy. Chances are you might be this guy. But for sure, everyone knows this guy. Who is this guy? I will tell you. This is your basic triathlete with control issues.

This guy raced Oceanside 70.3 last year. The guy trains right, eats right (depending on your POV), and spent every race after Oceanside sabotaging his performance with worries. In Oceanside he got a flat tire. After that he bought some obnoxious tires, to make sure this never happened again. He finally has gotten over it and has promised me he is going back to normal tires. He lost sleep over flats, lost countless seconds to racing on monster truck tires, and the street cred he amassed was lost.

The cliché goes, “shit happens”. Yes, yes it does. But in today’s mixed up world of two piece bathing suits, ultimate Frisbee games, and McSalad-Shakers, do we really need to add more worries on top of race day panic? The answer is no, no we don’t. Yet, we do. Let go of your control issues, starting…now.

Most beginner athletes spend a lot of time worrying about things they cannot control. The weather, water temperature, flat tires etc. These are what I like to call “what if” situations. Throw these out. What if I flat, what if it rains, and what if it is cold, what if Mustakrakish the Finnish Death Troll awakens and eats my race belt? You can make it as outrageous as you want. The key word is “if”, meaning there is no guarantee these things will happen, so why worry at all about them? You can’t stop these from happening anymore than you can stop Danzig from getting knocked out by Danny at “the res” a few years back. (Danzig had it coming though).

If these things do happen, it is not the end of the world (unless Mustakrakish awakens). Chrissie Wellington won Kona with a flat, some guy qualified for Clearwater even after his cassette blew up at mile 10 of the bike at Vineman 70.3 and Kieren Doe finished IM Arizona with no shoes. Were these athletes standing at the start wondering “what if…?” No, they were thinking, I need to race as well as I can today. You don’t get anywhere worrying about things you can’t control.

Not worrying about these “what if” situations, it will make you less of a basket case and save you some nervous energy. Focus on racing your best that day. You put in the training, you showed up to the race, and you are on the start line, there is not much else you can do.

Get amongst it. Race hard and have fun. I am not asking too much, just let go of your control issues.

Written by Chris Berg