Hyrox Pre-Race Nerves: Control What You Can, Let the Rest Be Noise

We’ve all been there. You’re standing in the start tunnel, the pump-up video starts, thank God they’ve stopped the greatest showman theme, because it was hard to stop yourself shadow boxing and high fiving everyone when that banger dropped. The lights are flashing, music going, and suddenly you’re wired. A bit edgy, everything feels slightly rushed, and your brain starts doing what it does.

“What if this goes wrong?”

“What if my reel doesn’t get any likes on Instagram?”

That’s not you being weak. That’s your brain trying to keep you safe. You don’t need to calm it down, you just need to stop it pulling you away from what actually matters.

You’re Not Trying to Feel Better. You’re Trying to Make Better Decisions

Race day nerves are just your body and brain gearing up to do something that matters. If you look at what Steve Peters talks about, that emotional spike is expected. You’re not trying to switch it off, you’re trying to not let it run the show.

Because the feeling itself isn’t the problem. The decisions you make off the back of it are. Most bad races don’t come from a lack of fitness, they come from reacting to things you can’t control.

Before the Race: Give Yourself Less to Think About

This is the bit most people get wrong. They leave race day open-ended, then wonder why their head’s all over the place. If you take anything useful from Peters or Brad Stulberg, it’s this, make the decisions before you get there. There’s a reason Steve Jobs wore the same clothes everyday, it was one less decision to make, more brain power to become a super billionaire. 

Have a clear warm-up, a rough plan for how the race should feel, and a couple of simple cues you’ll come back to when things start to bite. You’re a strong, powerful woman Janice. You’re essentially pre-loading the day so you don’t have to negotiate with yourself in the start pen. If you leave space, your brain fills it, and not usually with anything helpful.

Don’t Wind Yourself Up Before You Even Start

This is where Samuel Marcora becomes relevant. Anxiety isn’t just a feeling, it changes how hard things feel.

If your morning is spent checking other people’s times, come on don’t lie we’ve all done it, overthinking splits, scrolling, or running through worst case scenarios, like crapping your pants on the BBJs and becoming a meme, you’re increasing mental fatigue before you’ve even started. Then when the race begins and it feels hard early, you assume something’s wrong, when in reality you’ve just spent hours winding yourself up. Chill Winston.

Control the Controllables (and Stop Pretending You Control the Rest)

It’s one of those cute phrases that sounds good but rarely gets applied properly. Race day is almost never perfect, so the skill is in adjusting without losing control of the overall effort. Respond rather than react.

If the venue is hotter than expected, your heart rate will climb quicker and things will feel uncomfortable earlier. That doesn’t mean panic, it means adjusting expectations slightly, backing off a touch, and letting things settle rather than forcing the original plan and paying for it later.

If the start is chaotic and people sprint the first 500 metres, it’s very easy to get dragged into it. You feel like you’re being left behind, you’re not, well you are but that’s ok because you’re watching people make a mistake in real time, you’ve got a front row seat to You’ve Been Framed, lucky. So just stick to your plan, they’ll come back to you, they nearly always do.

If the sled feels horrendous and the carpet is slow, (no way did you pace it badly in the first 10 minutes, na ah) that’s not the race falling apart, it’s only just begun, it just means the cost of that station has gone up. Instead of trying to force your way through it, you adjust. Shorter pushes, more breaks, but always moving forward. The goal is to manage the effort, not prove a point halfway through the race. No matter how cool it looks pushing full.

When Something Feels Off

At some point, something will feel off. Your breathing might not settle, your legs might feel heavy earlier than expected, and this is where people tend to drift.

This is where Marcora’s work is actually useful. Just because perception of effort is higher, it doesn’t automatically mean performance is lower. If you interpret that feeling as something going wrong, you start forcing it or mentally checking out. If you treat it as simply what the race feels like today, you can settle, adjust, and stay in control. Namaste.

Your Race Isn’t Over Just Because It Feels Hard

This is probably the biggest one. Something feels off early and your brain jumps straight to “not my day,” which is usually premature. Most races should feel hard at points, it is a race after all but that doesn’t mean it should all feel hard. If you stay controlled and keep making good decisions, you can still put together a very solid performance. If you panic and try to fix everything immediately, that’s when things actually unravel.

Strip It Right Back

You’re going to feel something before and during the race, things won’t be perfect, other people will make poor decisions early, and something will feel harder than you expected.

None of that is the problem. The problem is how quickly you react to it.

Control what you can, your pacing, your effort, your decisions, and let everything else exist without needing to respond to it. Most of the time, the athletes who look like they’ve had a great race are just the ones who didn’t panic when it got uncomfortable early.

If you want to take some of the stress out of race day and want a full proof guide to racing well head over to the link below to download my full guide.

https://www.wdmcoaching.com/hyrox-solo-race-strategy-guide