Dealing with Disappointment
You’ve spent months visualising your celebration pose as you cross the finish line. You’ve announced your intentions on social media. And, most importantly, you’ve put in the time, following your training plan to the letter. That PB is yours.
Except that it wasn’t.
These things happen. So many things, sometimes completely out of your control, can have an affect on your performance on the day – vicious headwinds, a busy course, stomach problems, too tight shoes…the list of reasons for not quite hitting your target could be endless. But how do you deal with the disappointment?
1. Every day’s a school day
Try to objectively identify the factors that affected your race and work out how to avoid these in the future. This could be anything, from practicing with different nutrition to preparing better for weather. Either way, make sure you learn from your disappointing experience and put that new found knowledge to good use.
2. Find the silver lining
Try not to dwell on the things you didn’t do and instead find nuggets of positivity. Think back over the race or even your training leading up to the day and pick out the moments you noticed improvement. You may not be able to celebrate a new PB but you might have finally got your nutrition right, felt more comfortable over the distance or became faster on your hill reps during training.
3. Second time lucky
There are thousands of races across the UK. If you don’t quite reach your goal in one race, chances are you’ll be able to find a suitable race for a second try. Just make sure you give yourself enough time to recover and build back up to avoid a second disappointing race.
4. Find a new focus
It’s not unusual to fall out with the idea of running for a while after missing out on a PB. No one will judge you for taking some time out but rather than quitting completely, why not find a new distance to focus on. It will take your mind off the disappointment and stop you looking back at what could’ve been and, instead, looking forwards to what might be.
