Performance Anxiety

Nerves. Nerves. Nerves. I am not so much nervous about Badwater itself, I applied, I was accepted and I have trained hard for this race. I am confident that I will go out there and give it my all, and unless something out of my control happens I fully intend to cross that finish line one way or the other. My nerves are on edge because I have begun my taper, I have started to really start thinkng about what I need for the race. This time, two weeks from now I will have been out at Badwater for 6 hours. Hopefully I will be closing in on Stove pipe Wells within a few hours of this time and jumping into an ice bath. From there I will proceed to climb out of Death Valley and into the mountains toward the Panamint mountains. Going into a race like this has been a life changing experience. I have never trained like this before, never have I devoted such time and effort and thought to one single race. As the days draw closer so do the overwhelming feelings of excitement and anxiety. I want to be there so bad I can taste it. I can feel the heat burning the thins of my ears, the suffocating feeling of 120 degrees is all but inches away. Never would I have thought that the desire to put myself through such a test would be so strong.

Tick, Tock.....