Finding validation and growth after DNFing a major event.

Not finishing a big race or event can be distressing, but that doesn't mean it's the end of your career.

During my time as a college athlete, there were several seasons where I just couldn’t finish an event, and I had no idea why. I think most of my outdoor track seasons were spent sidelined or DNFing races. It wasn’t the physical component that was making me struggle, it was psychological. I was burned out and using running as my only coping mechanism to get away from life stress. However, leaning into it and putting so much pressure on performing well (at least my expectation of “well”) led to a vicious cycle of burn out that took me several years to understand and reflect on.

Empirically, there’s limited evidence looking at the psychological effects of not finishing an event. However, there’s plenty of evidence that psychological stressors and strain, negative social interactions and low social support can lead to higher prevalence of overtraining and burnout, especially during heavy blocks of training. This can turn into a vicious cycle where our main instinct and coping mechanism for not finishing a race... is to train harder without connecting the dots that there’s an opportunity to grow if we take a step back, or maybe two. As a college athlete, this is something that I struggled with quite a bit. Exercise can be considered a healthy coping strategy to stress, but with caution. If we’re constantly pounding miles on the road, or laps in a pool, we may be feeding into a cycle that has no end in sight. I’m going to show you my process to recharge and rebuild after any event- whether it’s a workout, a hard race, or a rough presentation.

Recharge

The first step when taking time to recharge is taking a slow, deep breath. It’s important to acknowledge that if we try to change anything within 24 hours, it’s out of a reactional response to release some of our negative emotions (fear, guilt, shame, anger, etc.). There’s nothing wrong with feeling these emotions. In fact, identifying when you’re aware of these emotions is a part of breaking the cycle. Simply identifying our thoughts and building a bird’s eye view of them is what Dr. Ethan Kross talks about eliminating rumination in his book Chatter.

I’ve written previously about the importance of psychological rest and taking time away from your event. I believe it’s an important practice to have at a micro and macro level in your training. I’ll recycle this article to Sub Stack at some point, but I highlighted some key practices to include that are based on several studies looking at the mental aspect of recovery. To recharge, you need to take time away from your sport to process through any emotions and to make sure you’re physically capable of moving forward. Having a healthy support system and hobbies outside of your event are helpful, but even leaving your bike or running shoes in the garage can help with this process. I usually give myself 24-48 hours before I start the next process of recalibrating my goals and what I’d like to get out of my next training cycle.

Reflect and Rebuild

When it comes to constantly growing and building mental resilience, open-ended cycles of reflection are fundamental to any mental training program. When we give ourselves the grace and space to grow, we can focus on the unimportant things we need to find the results we were looking for. Trusting the process means putting your ego in the back seat for a while and breaking down the steps of your own gap analysis to achieve your goals. When I break down my own performances, good or bad, I use a process called SWOOT. I’m sure you’ve heard of SWOT, but in that process, I give myself opportunities of grace and acknowledging that I may have mismanaged my emotional energy during the race. For example, this can come off as an overly angry inner narrative. It’s when we dig into the process that we learn how to build awareness and acceptance of those little nuances in our own psychology. This is my own personal bias, but this is where I believe it’s important to reach out to a mental performance coach or licensed mental health practitioner who’s experienced in working with athletic populations. I’d be happy to work with you, and you can sign up for a 30-minute conversation on my website here.

Strengths

·        What were my physical strengths during this event?

·        Where did they show up?

·        Which of my physical strengths didn’t come through during this event?

Weaknesses

·        Where during the race did I mismanage myself (physically, emotionally, mentally, etc.)?

·        Physically, what was challenging during that event?

·        Mentally, what was difficult during my performance?

Opportunities for Growth

·        Where can I see myself growing from my weaknesses during this next training cycle?

·        What are some actionable steps I can take in the immediate future to help with my goals?

·        How am I going to track these steps to measure the process and progress?

·        Realistically, how many days can I practice this out of the week to ensure progress?

Opportunities for Grace

·        What were the consequences of the challenges that I had experienced during that performance?

·        When I think about it now, what are some of the emotions that come to the surface?

·        When I think about it now, what are some of the physical sensations that are going on?

·        Were any of those challenges in my control?

·        Were any of those challenges outside of my control?

·        If any of those challenges were outside of my control, how can I accept and let go of this tension I’m feeling?

Threats

·        What are some threats to progress within the immediate future?

·        What are some threats to progress in the long-term future?

·        How am I going to cope with being held back from working through the process?

·        How am I going to make sure that in this process, I’m moving forward and not regressing?

If we didn’t feel emotions after an event that we failed to finish, it’s likely that we had little emotional investment during the process leading up to it. Hopefully throughout this read you learned how to recharge and reflect after events to constantly manage your goal setting process to be sustainable, motivating, and performance enhancing. Next week, I’ll dive deeper into learning more about how to understand and break down your inner narrative and learn how to say no when it’s telling you to stop. If you know someone who would value reading it, feel free to share this blog post with your friends across social media channels to get them connected.