How Can I Stay Motivated During a Xc Race?

so last year my PR for the 5k was 21:13 (i was a sophomore in high school). I trained really hard this summer but had to cross train a lot because i was coming off of a stress fracture =/ anyways i haven't even been able to hit under 22 mins this season! Today my race time was a full minute slower from my time last year on that course, i don't know what is going on. During the race I have soooo many negative thoughts and I feel awful…I loved it last year and I did so much better but I don't know what is happening this year, any advice?? how can i get rid of these thoughts?!

Suggestion:

You can remind yourself of a few important facts:

- You have just come off of a MAJOR injury, especially for such a young runner, and even though your stress fracture has healed and you have been training some, your body is still in the process of fully recovering.
- You haven't had a lot of time to train intently since returning to running.
- It is the beginning of the season, and most people's times will improve as the season progress.

Based on these things, what you've described makes perfect sense – it's exactly what I would expect. It's just not fair to yourself to compare the times you're running now to the best times you were running when you were healthy and well-trained. Of course those times were better! Dwelling on what you used to be able to do will only make you miserable and frustrated, and I guaranty you won't enjoy running.

It's time now to focus on progress. Forget about what you used to be able to do and focus on improving what you can do NOW. Right now, you're in the 22 minute range. A reasonable goal would be to try to break 22 minutes. There's no shortcut for doing this – just like you've done in the past, you will have to work hard and be patient, but over time, if you are disciplined, you will see improvement.

If you continue running for years to come, you'll find that all kinds of things can happen in our lives to cause us to have setbacks in training and our performance to suffer some. It's really important to focus on what you can control and always put your energy towards moving forward, whatever situation you're in, rather than dwelling on the past.

Good luck!