Jul 22, 2026 · 56 min · 11 segments
Coach revisits his disastrous first marathon to explain why race-day success depends on preparation, confidence, adaptability, and competitive integrity. He’s covering managing anxiety to trusting…
Jeff CunninghamHost
And I think that we don't recognize sometimes how much of a puzzle it can be.
I think the pressures of race day, even if those pressures are mostly internal, And we also have external pressures that come with expectation, especially if we start trading into waters where we're a little bit more elite, a little bit more visible, a little bit more watched.
How do we deal with race day? How do we deal with training for race day? How do we deal with eating before race day? How do we deal with rest and recovery before race day? How is it different? How is it different? from a normal training week.
How much, and I think this is vital, and I think this is key to the analysis, how much should everything stay the same? Because we agree, races are different from workouts.
But we got to manage these things, okay? Anxiety, I think, is something that we talk about.
Is it situational or is it chronic? How do we deal with that? indecisiveness.
Do I do this? Do I do that? Do I eat this? Do I eat that? Do I wear this? Do I wear that? Do I warm up like this or do I warm up like that? These are all the things that get us all balled up.
These are all the things that get us, for lack of a better way of putting it, sometimes in a Do you have confidence or not? Is your confidence situational? In other words, on this workout and on these types of days, I have confidence.
Why is that? How do we manage that? A lot of it is about our ability to seize the day.
And I think that we know the incredible examples of the person who rises to the occasion.
We have some very visible, very famous examples of people who can flip the switch, who can turn the dial, right? who can meet the moments when the lights turn on and are shining the brightest.
I mean, some of the obvious examples are Michael Jordan, right? Nobody, nobody ever argued when Michael had the ball in his hand, the clock is winding down at the end of the game and you need that moment.
And I think that we don't recognize sometimes how much of a puzzle it can be.
I think the pressures of race day, even if those pressures are mostly internal, And we also have external pressures that come with expectation, especially if we start trading into waters where we're a little bit more elite, a little bit more visible, a little bit more watched.
How do we deal with race day? How do we deal with training for race day? How do we deal with eating before race day? How do we deal with rest and recovery before race day? How is it different? How is it different? from a normal training week.
How much, and I think this is vital, and I think this is key to the analysis, how much should everything stay the same? Because we agree, races are different from workouts.
But we got to manage these things, okay? Anxiety, I think, is something that we talk about.
Is it situational or is it chronic? How do we deal with that? indecisiveness.
Do I do this? Do I do that? Do I eat this? Do I eat that? Do I wear this? Do I wear that? Do I warm up like this or do I warm up like that? These are all the things that get us all balled up.
These are all the things that get us, for lack of a better way of putting it, sometimes in a Do you have confidence or not? Is your confidence situational? In other words, on this workout and on these types of days, I have confidence.
Why is that? How do we manage that? A lot of it is about our ability to seize the day.
And I think that we know the incredible examples of the person who rises to the occasion.
We have some very visible, very famous examples of people who can flip the switch, who can turn the dial, right? who can meet the moments when the lights turn on and are shining the brightest.
I mean, some of the obvious examples are Michael Jordan, right? Nobody, nobody ever argued when Michael had the ball in his hand, the clock is winding down at the end of the game and you need that moment.
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