Managing Performance Anxiety with Kristin Keim MA, PysD, CC-AASP | Koopcast Episode 126

Trail and ultra runners, what is going on? What's happening? Welcome to another episode of the KoopCast. As always, I'm your humble host coach Jason Koop. And on this episode of the podcast back for her second appearance is none other than Dr. Kristen Keim, who is a clinical psychologist, as well as a sports psychologist that just happens to work with a lot of the top endurance athletes in the world today. And I wanted to bring Kristen back on the podcast to discuss this very specific issue that a lot of ultra runners are currently dealing with now that the race season is back upon us. And that is performance anxiety. This is something that can be crippling not only during the event or the days before the event, but also in the in the weeks and sometimes even months before the event actually unfolds. And I wanted to bring Kristen on the podcast today to give the listeners a little bit of a toolkit and some guidelines to use. If you happen to be one of those athletes that notices yourself getting a little bit more nervous or having a little little bit more anxiety than you should, as these races start to roll around. As with anything in sports psychology, some of these elements are very esoteric. And so you're not going to find a take

step one, then step two, then step three type of approach. But what we wanted to portray overall is this system of looking at your values and how those values tie into your racing life. I always love conversations with Kristen and sometimes they go on way too long. And fortunately, Kristen had a heart out that actually, that actually provided the conclusion of this particular podcast. We started out talking about that. So I'm going to get right out of the way. Here's my conversation with Dr. Kristen Kime, all about performance anxiety. Got to be mindful if you're hard out, because otherwise, this is going to take until Friday. Thanks for coming back on the podcast. I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me. Seriously. This is super fun. You know, I, um, it's as the cosmos always works out in the way that it should. Uh, we kind of came back, we kind of got connected back when I was trying to get you this book that got lost as UPS. And, and I just happened to have this thought around performance anxiety, because the season is starting to like kick off. The ultra running season is starting to kick off. And season. Well, and exactly. You're, you knew exactly where I was going with this. And for many athletes. We're not. Yeah. You know, cause the fires and I mean, whatever things are getting canceled still. Yeah. But for, for a lot of athletes out there, they're kind of like looking at this going, oh my God, I haven't raced in two years.

Exactly. And when you combine that fact with ultra running has this kind of weird, this weird proposition anyway, where a, we don't race all that frequently, you know? Oh, well you can. Yeah, you can. And, and ironically enough, ultra runners kind of get dinged around for like racing too much. And I'm like, well, let's look at like mountain bike cohorts and triathlete cohorts and things like that. It's really like, you got to make sure who you're comparing yourself to, but we don't race very frequently, which is a tool that you can use to help curb performance anxiety. But also there's this really fascinating component of ultra marathon running that I, that I really love. And then some athletes learn how to cope with this very well. And other athletes struggle with it a lot is that the, the space, the space of time between any of your longest training activities and the race is so big. And it's, it's that part becomes very difficult for athletes to internalize. And it manifests in this really interesting way where they always ask, what should my longest long run be? And I'm like, well, if you're doing a hundred mile race, it's kind of immaterial, whether your longest long run is 40 miles or 50 miles, it's like extra 10, you know, that's not going to make a difference in the entirety of the, of the training program.

You can do a ultra, but never run that mile to do well at racing the ultra same with, I mean, kind of same thing with the bikes. You don't necessarily have to go out there and do tons of a hundred mile rides. Yeah. A hundred percent. And so, and so all of these things kind of forward feed into this performance anxiety concept, which I think comes out in ultra running in a lot of different ways. First off my colleague, Patrick Wilson, who I've had on the podcast as well, he and I had a really cool conversation about how anxiety itself leads into GI distress and GI distress is such a prevalent issue within ultra marathon runners. The second of which is, is people just don't sleep before the race. And that's not of a big consequence in a shorter race, but when you're talking like a 20 or 30 hour race and you're missing a few hours of sleep, cause you're all like wound up the day before than the day before that, maybe even the day before that.

Well, that's what I was going to say. So any of these, especially again, the beautiful thing about the healthier, which is also not healthy road racing is, you know, you, you know, you're not, you basically almost detrain unless you're able to like go to a training camp because, you know, you're going to be the one, the GC race racer, right? Rider. Um, but you don't see as much of the GI again, because like, you know, your body is being more primed. Um, and you have more opportunity to, uh, you know, kind of teach the body what it needs, but when you only have one race and that big gap, right. Um, you, you really can't, uh, get it properly because you just physically aren't going to be doing that kind of, and again, again, like then cortisol levels, we all know, like there's nothing like a race versus simulation race, right? The simulation can never match. I mean, I mean, I hope that your simulation, but then I do have a lot of clients that get even probably more nervous when they're trying to do like, you know, FTP tests or, you know, whatever, which then again, why do them, you know, like if it's going to cause that much anxiety, then it cancels out any of the

productivity of why to do it. Um, and I, and, but, and then there's the cookie cutter where, you know, how one athlete is going to handle stress or whatever. Um, I mean, you can coach two athletes where on paper they might have the same training program, but their body and their psychology and the social piece, right. Are like one 80, you know, differences, but yeah, it is more again, because I'm a psychologist, but the first thing I will admit is like, we don't know. We don't know shit about the brain. I mean, we act like we do, which is the scariest thing. I've been in and out of the hospital with saying tons of neurologists, having myself worked on the other side in neurology, giving neurological tests and, you know, evaluating and writing up case reports and making assumptions. Um, we really don't know enough about the brain big scope. So we really, don't know enough about the brain when it comes to the athlete with, um, you know, now we are understanding fascia, right. Is, is basically like a whole brain, um, and within our whole body, but also that brain gut component, um, which I think we used to just kind of be like,

yeah, yeah. But now it's like, no, now we actually have empirical evidence. Yeah. And I was actually reminded of the performance anxiety piece again, popping up in different circumstances because I was reviewing some lab data that we have and inevitably, so we have a physiology lab in here in Colorado Springs for, for, for the listeners where we do metabolic testing, mainly lactate threshold and VO two max testing. And the people were just in our office. Okay. Yeah. Um, I mean, yeah, so standard deal, standard deal, right. Standard metabolic tests, but the people were bringing in all different kinds of athletes, elite athletes and regular athletes, the athletes who have never done a test before always have elevated lactate levels at the beginning of the test because they're just so nervous, right? They're just so that nervousness starts to come out biochemically. We don't measure cortisol and things like that, but it actually starts to come out biochemically at lactate because they're just burning off more carbohydrates because of the anxiety.

So, so let's, so let's, let's start there, right? I first want to create this like physiological overview of what performance anxiety is. And then once we understand that physiological overview, we can go through, uh, more of the kind of the tactical components of how athletes can view their training and then also the race to try to try to reduce this depending upon their situation there. And so I'm going to, I'm going to turn it over to you to go over the physiology side of it first. Cause I've heard you explain this before and I think you have a very good way of doing it. Yeah. I mean, I think what a lot of people do is they focus so much on like the day before or the night before, which is great. Hey, I'll take that. But, um, you know, for any listener, you don't have to be a professional. Um, and again, like you can, I mean, I have athletes who for them work, you know, maybe they might the week of a main race, especially for ultra runner would be something that got that sport would be advantageous to someone having a job and, you know, just taking off, uh, let me personally, my job, right. It is a job. So that, so I was going to get there, right. Where, um, it is a job, but when it comes to D D, are you going to be racing every weekend and like,

you know, flying all over Europe or over the United States? Yes. There's pro runners that might have that lifestyle. Um, but there's also a lot of longer distance and ultra athletes where, you know, they coach or something, um, and work remotely, but, you know, for me, I work remotely, but I mean, there's good and bad to that, right. Uh, boundaries, you know, uh, also when you're working, if you're a good coach, it's mental energy is energy. And I think we forget about that as endurance athletes is that, you know, especially like with my college or high school athletes that are, you know, at an age or, or in a sport where they're treated as if they're, and they might actually have been veterans because they started when they were like five or whatever. Right. Um, the more that it's our identity, the more that we expect, we have sponsors again, these all create anxiety and that word performance anxiety. I mean, it just sounds negative. Right. Totally. Anxiety. We're really there's good anxiety and it's called eustress E U S T R E S S which a lot of, you know, people just know coaches even talk about, or look it up. And I actually tell athletes like, look that up, you know,

grab a physiology book, go to a library, go, go online, um, follow, you know, coaches that are going to like talk about this and share this. Um, cause a, you got the athletes that overthink it on the technical side. And then there's the athletes that just think they can run and, you know, there'll be good. Yeah. You might off raw talent, but raw talent usually tends to underperform under train or over train. Well, and I've heard, I've heard this performance anxiety described as being along. It's kind of a spectrum, right? Yeah. And shape curve or U shape curve, depending upon how your X axis is oriented. Right. I look at like, like a, like a necklace almost where a rainbow is black, white, like hot, white, like hot fire, white and the black, um, you know, whether this is over and under, and then you won't color.

In between. Correct. And the vocabulary that gets used and you use the word you stress, that's probably a little bit more technical, but the vocabulary that I think that is more colloquial that most people identify with is the difference between arousal and performance anxiety. So why don't let's go through that transition, right? An athlete is, it manifests however you just described, right? It could be from sponsors. It starts, it first, yeah, it starts off with what is your, what is the athlete, right? What is their why? And what is their objective? You know, like, okay, you're good. Like I was good. I was good at lots of different things, which was kind of my kryptonite. Um, you know, cause I didn't know what I wanted to do cause I could, I could do this at this level. I can do that at this level. Um, but if you want to do well and like, you're doing a sport, like the ultra running, yes, we need to have like some cross training in there. Right. Um, but the main thing that your identity around, at least for that, you know, I like the three week idea, right? Like, so what is that three week? So you can have performance kind of,

of anxiety, um, based off of, you know, it's the winter time and it's an excitement, right? Like it's the newness. Now we're going to have like a new plan. I can forget about last season. Um, or what I see is like an athlete one worlds and their winter is so stressful because media all over the place interviews, expectation, you know, it just is like a kryptonite. Um, and so I think that that's where it all starts, um, is that there's good in between and bad of states of arousal. And so I, I like to inverted you, which is typically what a lot more of the sports psychology. Um, I mean, yeah, we could do a PowerPoint and do the graphs and the pies and, but when athlete, so if you go to my site and any athlete can go to kind performance consulting LLC, and that is actually an activity I have all my athletes do is it's like a pie and it's more like a bullet, you know, kind of looking thing. And then they have like shade or on a skill of like the pain scale on a scale of one to 10, 10, um, you know, like there's all kinds of different ways that you can get this feedback. And I really think that

whether you're doing sports psychology, you're a coach or just an athlete that listens to podcasts, um, a visual idea of kind of what you want to work on can either evoke and be more stressful or take away. And I would say nine out of 10, it actually is helpful to, cause then those are the areas that, you know, you're going to work on. Um, but those, but that's kind of where we want to start is where your objectives are and are these objectives goals, whatever you want to call them, are they going to actually cause more stress, right? Because the athlete is only focusing on the outcome versus the process and are the process. So it starts way before you even are towing the white line. And I think that's where athletes go awry a little bit is they're thinking about this is what I would describe as an acute phenomenon, something that's happening at whatever moment in time they are experiencing it. Uh, it's prototypically, not all the time, but prototypically in the way that I described it earlier in this podcast was the day of a race or a night before the race, you're thinking about something that is triggering you either the outcome

of the race, are you getting nauseous at mile 50 or I don't have my lucky socks or kind of whatever it is. But, but in reality, that's a manifestation. If I'm understanding your framework correctly, that's a manifestation of something that is important to you that should have been identified weeks and months and maybe even years beforehand that you wanted to work on. And had you gone through this process of here's what is important to me, pie chart, bar graph, however you want to do it. Right. That's how you're able to control how much anxiety or arousal actually happens when you're, when you're kind of faced with that situation. Yeah. And that's why what in the off season, I like my athletes to do something that is going to make them completely vulnerable. So like, you know, someone who's never done art or doesn't cook, you know, so then in your off season, you're learning how to be growth mindset. Everyone will know what that means, right?

Or they'll hear that. Well, that's what the growth mindset means is that you like some of my athletes where, I mean, honestly, they worked with me their whole career. So, you know, they had things to work on, but the one thing that I think helped them separate themselves from, you know, the best in the world was that they literally always want, their idea was just them getting better. I mean, yeah, they kind of compared because we're human, but at the end of the day, what got them excited out of the bed was to try to break their own records or, you know, make it up that hill climb or, and I mean, and that was it. I mean, I can't take, I mean, you know, that's, that's who they are.

Just that's why genetically, not just physiologically, but more important genetically and your parents, that high school coach or whatever that sparked you. Yeah. It starts way before any time before that race. But I do like the three week or like the two week or whatever, because whatever you're doing three weeks, like, so like Ironman championships are going in three weeks. So like right now, whatever my athletes are doing with me, their diet, their coaching, it's like, you know, Hey, just stay healthy. Don't break anything, you know, meet with me at least once a week.

And, and not over-train because you want the magic to be for that one race. Yeah. You're trying not to screw it up. Right. Exactly. You already are doing your race. That's how I look at it. It's like, you know, the race started at least one week before, and that's where that anxiety, because yeah, some athletes cannot sleep at all the week before, but if they were crushing eight to 10 hours for, you know, more often than not, which that is something good to track. Um, then that can be that, uh, if it is that where they're like, okay, yeah, my week sleep, it's been kind of shitty this week, but I was crushing it the whole three months leading up to it because we all know based on science, unless you tell yourself that that is going to mess you up, it really isn't going to mess you up.

Well, and that brings me to a question that I just kind of feel it on, on, uh, on Instagram. And this is from Brian. He asked, how does performance anxiety manifest differently? Pre-race versus during and what physical and mental aspects do we see in kind of those conditions? And this kind of goes to what you're talking about is we can't think about this as a, what I was just describing as an acute phenomenon. It's something that's the seeds have been planted for it many weeks or maybe even years in advance. We've got to remember that depression, anxiety, people want to cut their heads off. It's a body thing. So like, so one of my athletes would get to nationals and they raced in Europe and they would come back home from nationals and would get dropped. And like, literally they were like beating the world's best in the classics and they would get dropped at like the nationals. And, you know, and then we realized like they were basically racing even in Europe with one lung because they had such bad allergies. So this was Chattanooga or wherever it was. And they were literally just having asthma attacks. Like they didn't realize it. Right. We thought it was maybe panic attacks. And it's like, it's not panic attacks. And then realize, I mean, you know, luckily I'm more medically sound. And I was

like, I think you're having asthma attacks, which I mean, granted, they still would like get third place with one lung and, you know, having an asthma attack, but, but that's it. Like, you know, hyperventilating, you know, what comes first, the, the, the egg, the chicken, you know, um, it's all, and then it's all in the same pot and it's different for others. Um, but that is something to think about because I know I get athletes all the time to think that, Oh, I just get worried. Yeah. It doesn't work like that. If you're worrying, is that limiting that shit is going to happen while you're taking tests? I mean, you know, then, then they think back and they're like, Oh yeah, like I can see that. Like, so there's a parallel in other aspects of their life is what, what you're probably saying that people are just under this one umbrella. Huh? Interesting. So it, to, to kind of describe a little bit of the framework, and I want you to take it a step further, you're starting out with who the athlete is and what's valuable to them in some proportional manner.

The performance is valuable to me. Challenging is valuable to me. The social aspect is valuable. Well, when we have bigger fish to fry. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's some, it's some, and sometimes the, sometimes, yeah, sometimes the, especially for elite athletes, there's an economic incentive as well. So how do you then take those, that value set that you're creating with those athletes and translate it into actionable things that they can use not only to combat performance anxiety very specifically, but then perform better on race day more broadly. Yeah. Well, and I mean, that's kind of it. Um, you know, I'm trained, uh, cognitive behavioral therapy is more of my CBT. So we are more about like the now and the future. So that's why that mindfulness meditation, all that's kind of in the CBT. Um, you know, there's other frameworks, um, um, you know, if everyone went, I mean, I was surprised when I started first down the road of psychology where there's all these different, uh, types of therapists and, uh, uh, theories and, you know, philosophies and, um, you know, psychodynamic, um, there's some tools from that that I pull from, but like, I always say it's peeling an onion back. Like, I don't need to know, you know, what went on when you were four years old or whatever. Um, maybe that is something that

we eventually talk about, but in the here and now, um, you know, we want to be like, okay, what are you doing? Right. Cause you know, everyone's doing something and I'm very growth. And what has happened with sport, I feel like, and I, and I get it from my athletes is like, it, you know, it, it's kind of like that they forget where they were at. So like, okay, just think a year ago, you couldn't do X, Y, Z. Right. Um, and we forget about that process, which is why I love journaling, um, uh, beyond just the numbers that what you're feeling. And so my job is to help kind of connect the brain and the body, um, in a way that sets that athlete up to really understanding goals or objectives and, and how that side job or that role of the, the team, if they're on a team and, you know, maybe you're on, you're on a team and your team is actually the, the thing that's going to bring you down or the coach, you know, I mean, you know, it's not that they're a bad person. They just, you've, you've moved on or they just are, it's unhealthy what they're doing. Right.

Or you don't believe in their training. We see that a lot. Number one. Yeah. We see that a lot when athletes want to move from coach to coach and it's very, very rarely a battle worth fighting, even when the coach is doing everything correctly. Like you can see all the programming is correct and things like that. If the athlete doesn't believe in whatever, for whatever reason, it's like, okay, we'll figure out a solution. This is clearly not the right, you know, coaching structure for you. Here's where I think you need to, where I need to, uh, where I think you need to go from there. Well, and as coaches and my job is, you know, you've got to hold those strong boundaries where, you know, as, as I always say it, like you're not a cheerleader, like, you know, like it's, and even me, I mean, I'm not sitting there boosting egos. Like, I mean, I'm there to teach and I mean, you know, oftentimes, especially my male athletes, that is the thing that they seek out is that, you know, they don't need to hire me around someone who's just gonna, you know, lie to them because they want to be cool on Instagram with them or whatever, you know, we got to have those boundaries. And I, and so again, I mean, that ties into, um, performance anxiety, because again, like there's thousands and thou, I mean, for the little field of, you know, sports efficacy and, you know, actually doing research on it, um, you can find,

uh, 15 libraries of anxiety, uh, because again, like every person is a unique unicorn and what they look at anxiety. And so my job and your job and the athlete's job is to figure out the like three main things. I mean, and so usually, and you may figure it out like that. It may take a few years. It may take a few sessions. I mean, I have some people that are so self-aware and they're too self-aware, right? I mean, there's a level of being too empathic or compassionate, um, or too focused on the numbers, which again can spike. And which I've seen is that, you know, again, like they become such a number that they actually can go above that number. Right. Because in a race, we all know you could do anything. It's kind of like if the truck falls down on your, on you or your friend and you know, the mom that's a hundred pounds is able to lift the truck up. Right. Like that's like, that is a human outlet function thing that we really can do. Um, and, but that is anxiety.

I mean, that is propelled of like synergy of the brain and the body kind of just forgetting that you're human and you do become super human in a way. Um, which, I mean, I think that that's why I, I stare away from that mental strength because like mental strength isn't, it looks different. And for me, you know, the athlete that is able to, you know, basically be told you're never going to walk again, but now they're racing competitively again. Right. It's like, that's mental strength to me versus a win. Right. Something within a race. But I want to kind of bring this back to like a little bit of a pragmatic, uh, prototype that I think a lot of athletes will, especially ultra marathon athletes will identify with. They've done all this training and going into event inevitably that involves some sort of like social isolation, right? They don't get to see their family and you know, the, you know, the husband or the wife or the partner in the relationship has to like, give me a second. Let me kind of like build up into it. Cause I think you, I think you understand some of the prototype that I'm going, that I'm going with. It involves a lot of sacrifice.

Yes. Cause endurance activities doesn't matter where they're, it doesn't matter whether you're bio psycho social. And the first piece is the bio. Correct. Correct. So it takes a lot of time to train. And a lot of times it interferes with their personal life. They get close to the race and they start thinking about all the times that they've been training and all the times that they had to miss out on this or forego that or whatever other kind of sacrifice, whether it's a social sacrifice or a time sacrifice or whatever. And they think about the proposition of what if I don't finish or what if I don't get my silver buckle or whatever outcome that they have fixated on. And they're comparing the work to this theoretical outcome that hasn't happened yet. And that creates this concoction of anxiety that can be two, three, four weeks before the race, because they can think about their training and the outcome. And I'm wondering, cause this is a common, this is kind of like a more common situation that we can start to peel back. You already started with, they need a value set, but when you have an athlete and you have had athletes that have been through this based on your reaction to it, what do you, every, what, so what do you take them through? Like, cause everybody's going to be not everybody, but they're going to be a lot of people listening to this podcast that resonate with that exact situation. Right. Right. Yeah. No. And I mean, I think that's it. Um, you know,

uh, autonomy plus efficacy is my equation to equal confidence and the right objectives and the right amount of arousal or, um, confidence and understanding and being able to understand that. Like, you know, I, I did it. I did these exercises and the why, and it starts way back where, why are you doing this exercise? Like, so your coach has you do this. Why? Right. You know, and just the more that you really are working on the autonomy of why you're doing certain workouts and why are you making these sacrifices? And, and like, I mean, and again, like my best lessons as a therapist is just every athlete that I had the privilege to work with is like a dissertation or a class for me.

Um, because I now know I can help athletes understand that. Yeah. Going to your buddy's, um, bachelor party the week before, you know, tour of Utah or something. And then they win a field sprint. And I'm like, yeah, it was probably because of that. And then they want to be like, well, should I do that before? But we can talk about like how that was correlated that again, you can be. And so like, I empower my athletes that, you know, are overseas doing blocks to like, you know, go on a vacation or come back to America and, you know, go to that family summer lake house or beach house, you know, whatever. Um, and so, I mean, I think like, again, we compare, which, you know, comparison is just, we're always going to compare it's human nature.

Um, but the more that we, you as an athlete focused in on what, what workouts do you enjoy that are going to like, you can do that, help you feel confident that you have autonomy and that you and your coach know that like, if you're in this window doing this, um, or even just staying healthy, like didn't have to be in a boot, I didn't get a stress fracture or, I mean, so again, like these goals or objectives, again, need to be evaluated every three to five weeks or, you know, after a race, um, you know, I always like athletes to, you know, write down right away journal about the good, the bad, the bad, um, you know, again, never quitting, you know, like, unless it's like, again, I don't, I think it's stupid to do permanent damage just to finish a race. Right. Like, but all these are actually ways that you can help that trait or state anxiety, which again, like, is it a physiological because you have a generalized anxiety disorder and what we can see through a lot of like Port de France riders, um, yes, they might've doped or done whatever, but at the end of the day,

they actually did have like a mental health challenge, which, which first chicken or the egg. Um, if you already have a predisposition for, you know, an OCD or a ADHD or whatever, you have addictions. And if you have addictions, you're not going to probably make the best choices. Um, and that's why, you know, the field of psychology where people can get off because they, uh, you know, claim insanity, right. Um, that is again, what I see with a lot of ultra runners or Ironman or endurance athletes, just like Michael Phelps or Lindsey Vons, like, um, you know, a lot of unhealthy behaviors.

Um, again, I can't speak to, you know, either that I wasn't their therapist, but I hypothesize that again, like sport becomes the medicine when actually that's where you can get yourself into trouble and actually create or bring out that more clinical issues is because again, you, you're doing the ultra, um, but getting to run those many miles feels good. Dopamine kicks, but then that turns into the eating disorder, you know, or the, or having more, uh, uh, panic attacks or more stresses in your life that you might not have done if you hadn't started to do ultra running.

But the more, so the more and more that you kind of go through the dialogue, it seems like the more problematic cases, or at least the origin of a lot of this performance anxiety orbits around the identity being too closely matched to the sport itself. Yep. And the interventions that you can take are many. You could, you just mentioned one that I use a lot, which is reviewing training, right. You can go back and look at the training. What was the purpose of this? Have you done enough training? What do you, how do you feel about it? And things like that. But at the end of the, have they taught with the coach? I mean, you know, a lot of times now it's just the computers, um, you know, they, it's like, there's nothing more that's going to help than to have a dialogue with your coach and especially, you know, leading into an athlete's a game or a race, right. It's just now, do they need to text after every word? I mean, then there needs to be boundaries. And that's a problem too, though, is when people are, so that coach, I would say calls the, the, the issue because they didn't put the boundary up and that, and then they, they, you know, talk with me and they're annoyed. And I'm like, well, um, you, you let them, you became too open and willing. And it became more, you know, as a friend buddy.

And yes, I mean, I want to be a friend and be, uh, you know, someone to like me, there's different stages of friendship. Um, but that it does start with those boundaries and that plays into that self efficacy, which is the definition of that, right. We want the athlete to, if you were to get sick and be off the radar, that they would be able to coach themselves at least. Yeah. A hundred, a hundred percent. I believe in that, but let me kind of like backtrack a little bit. So if the origin of this, if the origin of a lot of performance anxiety is really rooted in too much identity being tied to the sport or the ultimate outcome, I get that. Their self-worth is too attached to it. We got that, but there's still athletes out there that have a, have a reasonable level of attachment to their sport. And I don't know if that's the, and what I'm saying is they don't have that kind of like preexisting my whole self-worth or the majority of my self-worth is kind of wrapped up in this, but yet they still have performance anxiety manifest itself either before or during an actual race absent of that tie-in. So in those, and there's, once again, there's going to be a lot of listeners out there that are, you know, they're amateur recreational age group, however you want to describe it, ultra runners. And I would say that they have a healthy relationship with, with running,

but still for whatever reason, I have to come combat that. So let's say the first step is kind of checked off, right? I have a reasonable relationship with ultra running, but I'm still having this. I have a coach that I trust. I've done all of the training and these things still happen either before or during the race. What situation? Okay. So yeah, go through it. That's a big one. I mean, I can tell you, and it actually was fascinating to me because I would take an athlete and on paper, it's like, well, you should be performing at this level. Well, they were bonking and then they were having panic attacks. Well, they were basically not eating enough because that was again, what came first, they were too fearful to like take their hands off while they're going over, you know, massive descents or rocks or whatever. Right.

So then the cortisol levels were growing up and then they only had one jail for, you know, a hour, a two hour, five hour mountain bike race or whatever it is. Right. I mean, or they were dehydrated. And so you and I know that like fueling and not, you know, the hangries, it's actually a real thing. You research shows that you will go into negative self-talk and overthinking because you are not getting the caloric intake. And so like some athletes, when they're trying to like be a lower weight, they like wait to like last week or two weeks, they're saving themselves up for an increase in negative self-talk and increase in cortisol level. And two weeks out, they're already underperforming. Like the rate that like, if we were to say what would look like leading into a performance and maybe they still win, but like it was uncomfortable. Um, they should have, should have won by like minutes compared to the things. Right. Um, but that's it. It does everything that you do. And that's why I like the three weeks is like you are eating, drinking and sleeping.

Um, that performance that is that week or day before that is causing however it's manifesting, how it's somaticized. Right. And so some people it's more somatic physical, some people, it is just more of panic attacks. Um, and then some people, uh, they don't even really realize that they have an issue, right? Because they just don't have the coach. You know, it's like they were under trained and, um, and they were just going off raw talent and now they're actually training. And so that just takes a year or two for your mind and body to really just understand and make and connect the dots.

So then that can create some anxiety that, you know, you just have to get through in a way. So I kind of say it like hitting your head against the wall when you want to race in Europe, right. Or do finishing your first crit. Rarely does anyone not just get blown off the back the first time. Um, or, you know, again, I think it's, it's harder for some, some athletes when they from the gun, have a silver spoon, have sponsors and are doing great and didn't have that learning curve of being the domestic or, uh, you know, a lot of bad races and things like that. Yeah, exactly. You know, um, because that's what teaches you just as much as working with me or a good coach. Um, you know, like for me, failure is the good juice. Like I want you swimming in failure because only by failing, do we actually get to the other side? So again, there are, there's always something good out of the future hypothetical anxiety. And how the easiest way to look at it is coulda, shoulda, woulda is past and that's depression. And that means comparison, whether it's to yourself or someone else, or I have to, or I need to, or, you know, are comparing to the future hypothetical, that's anxiety. And then we take that and we say,

where are you? Remember, like, are you black on the depressive or why on the anxiety? And then we just got to make sure, which everyone hates me saying it, like trust the process, enjoy the journey. Well, yeah, you should, but I mean, there's days I wake up and I don't want to talk to people, but then five minutes, my first patient or client, I don't, I'm not thinking that anymore. Right. Because I genuinely do love my job. Well, as a pro athlete, you know, yeah, either now it's time to retire or you're going to underperform if you don't enjoy riding in the rain or running in the rain or, you know, but then, you know, again, like not to digress, then we have to look at like, okay, this athlete doesn't typically have the stressor.

Maybe it is that now, you know, they, they subtracted too much out of their life. Like their identity is not to be just a pro. Cause I think a lot of people think that, oh, everything's going to get better when I decide to quit my job and be professional, but maybe they, then they, again, that just, oh, the importance of the athletic identity to the point where it actually becomes the limiter because then it's only that identity. Yeah. That's a tricky, that's a really, really tricky spot for that. I've had to manage before being a coach, but I know a lot of other athletes don't consider a lot of other emerging elite athletes don't consider when they're trying to make that transition. This is how difficult it is.

It's not only from a practical point of view, how do I make it not having my side job or how do I make it only as an elite athlete from a, I got put food on the table kind of thing. Exactly. But also how do I make it when that's all I'm doing? Like I'm sitting around playing video games the rest of the day. That's kind of what you should be doing. It's interesting. And it's some athletes, some elite or emerging elite athletes kind of get that intuitively for whatever reason, but many do not. And they have to have good counsel around them to say, it's okay to play video games for six hours today. That's part of your recovery or whatever the activity is. Yes. And I mean, I usually get athletes where, you know, I can just text them like they know that, but they just need the coach or someone else to give themselves permission. I mean, I'm okay with that. At least then you, you know, you're not lying, which I mean, a lot of people, you know, I mean, I, I, I even saw that when I was racing, I'd go on a training ride. We had just done five hours and you know, there's no reason that we, I mean, now I take back, which I should never have been training five hours, but that was,

that was no story. More is more, you know, uh, when I raced. Um, but, uh, yeah. And then, I mean, yeah, it is, I mean, it just comes back to that, uh, kind of just belief and understanding. And I always tell athletes, like from my standpoint, you get your pro card when you tell your coach, I'm not training today because like, I just, I need an extra day of recovery. And what is one day? I mean, I think that's the issue that the next stage that I've been working on with my athletes, whether they are a doctor and, you know, just want to win the local, you know, master's crit or whatever, um, is just, is that piece, you know, right there. I mean, it's just understanding, um, that, you know, it's okay to take a break and it's okay to Netflix and chill. Um, yeah. Are you doing that for two weeks without like an injury? This is a luxury tangent, you know, of talking about how elite athletes can manage this. The fact of the matter is, is most of the people listening to this are just like normal people. And I kind of want to like, I kind of want to like leave on some direction that we can give those people specifically on how to handle this leap. And a lot of it, once again, pandemic kind of caused disruptions in people's schedules. And so whether they're an experienced athlete or a new athlete alike, when they get into an ultra marathon situation, inevitably,

there's going to be a jump. There's going to be a jump from the most amount of training, the longest, long run longest, whatever to their actual race. And I kind of want to want you to, to leave with specifically, how can an athlete look at their training, look at their self-worth, self-worth, look at their identity and things like that in order to have that leap, not be as problematic from training to the race. Yeah. Well, and this is kind of a fun activity. I have, and again, like I can't force my athletes to do this, but the ones that do it, trend actually do very well. And I'm not going to say it's because of this one thing, but it works for some athlete. So, and it doesn't have to be like, you know, you can make it as something you just jot down on a piece of paper, or you get a poster board and you make it be kind of like, we call it in psychology world, a vision board, right. Where, you know, like you're the middle. And so like, okay, the middle can be your spirit guide, okay. You know, the more you make it kind of fun. I mean, I, you know, I'm very empirical evidence, but like I have crystals next to my bed and, you know, uh, you know, when times and, you know, things like that, because again, like, why not?

If it makes me feel happy and empowered or, you know, whatever, that's much better than drinking or, or, you know, having a bad day at work and just normalizing, having red wine, a glass of cup, we know now can lead to two to a bottle. Right. Um, and I think that that's it. It's like, you know, I, I, I, you know, offer the idea that like, you need to create a vision board where there's the psychological, what are the things that from previous sports or something you and your coach, you know, realize is going on. Um, and it can be really simple, like, you know, figuring out like, you know, because I am an ER doctor, I'm all my feet that like, I can't do the same training as the other guys on my team. Right. Um, because you're up and you, or you have a stressful job.

Right. And that stress comes in. So, I mean, it really does start with the ground of that. And the first thing is just visually being able to see these things. And I feel like that's the piece people wanting to understand that the visual piece is going to help everyone, whether you are more of an artistic or intellectual person, that's the power of journaling. That's the power of writing this shit down. Cause a lot of people don't even want to write this down because then it feels like, well, it's real, it's real, but you're, but you're, you're going to perform better or more chances to perform better. The more real it is. And the first step is actually write down these goals, but, but it's not just about sport, right? So, okay. Nutrition, what are three things you're going to do with your nutrition?

That's going to help with alleviating the negative pre-performance anxiety. Cause it starts with that. Right. Performance anxiety in its core is a good thing because you need to have arousal, right? Butterflies, you know, yes. The person you're married to should still give you butterflies. You know, like every day, you're not in the honeymoon phase, but I mean, you know, you should still be attracted. You know, maybe it is more intellectual or whatever, but like, yeah, I mean, you know, so there should be some type of attraction and sports kind of saying, you know, like you should most often, and I hate that shoulds a strong word, but in sports, when your job is to be of a performance base, that's where the shoulds are allowed, right? Like, yes, you have to do X, Y, Z to be in the top five of your sport, right? Or to have realistic objectives. And so first step is figuring out just your heart and soul, what you want to do. And then you talk to the realist, you talk to your coach and it's like, okay, yes. Are you ever going to make the Tour of France team? Probably not, but what is going to

help you be at least getting to cat one, right? Or at least being able to, you know, complete an ultra, right? Which I mean, a lot of people, I mean, and this is where I don't know, and you can tell me like, what's like, how much experience of being a runner does it take to finish an ultra, not like try to win or be sponsored just to complete the ultra distance? Well, and that's what I was kind of getting at. It's not as much as people think and people blow it up in their heads that, you know, I need 20 years of running and to train for 20 hours a week and to do a hundred kilometer long run before I do a hundred mile run or whatever they've got kind of like cooked up in their head.

It's like people go and do centuries. And I mean, these are people that look like they have never ridden their bike ever in their life and they're able to go do a century. Yeah. And I'm not saying that that experience is not helpful. It is. It's tremendously helpful, but the prerequisites for completing an ultra marathon in terms of what you need to have on your palmares or, you know, race resume or whatever are really not, are really not that high. It's a very accessible sport where you can get away. I mean, you know, like you can do the trails and I mean, you know, like there's a lot of more positives and that's where that starts to again, at the top would be like, why are you doing this? And what are your outcomes? What do you want? Besides like, you know, if there's a placement on great, write that on there and that can kind of be at the top.

Um, but how I work, it's how, how can sport just like in high school, I love high school sport. I love college sport because again, like you're able to learn these life lessons through sport. And I think as adults or the older we get, we forget that like, just like it's an entertainment that this is just like, hopefully the job you choose to do, um, is something where it's forever growth mindset, right? Like I always want you to be mastering and not be the master, you know, like you all, you want to choose a sport or job where, you know, you are constantly looking for outlets to better yourself, not strangling it, right?

Where it's cycle centric, where, you know, everything, your whole identity and self-worth is around it. Um, and that's easier to do when we actually like create a vision board where it's like, all right, relationships, what area, you know, what am I doing good? All right. My marriage is doing great, but we haven't been on a vacation in two years. Well, maybe you need to go on a vacation. You know, again, it's like going out on top, like what are things that are great and working for you? And then how can you apply those to the areas where you start to, you have a, a trait anxiety that turns into a, a trait, I mean, a state, um, then turns into that trait and it's often turns negative.

It almost sounds like a map. Like a lot of trail runners are used to like looking at Gaia, you know, the trail maps and things like that. Okay. I want to go from point X to point, point Z and I'm going to take this trail over there. You know, like too cutesy, but I usually, it's a wheel and if the hub isn't there, it doesn't hold the spikes up. Right. And so you kind of can think about it visually as that, it's like, you know, for every race that you do, the wheel can somewhat turn, but you, you know, I want all those folks to be there at least, you know, touched on or worked on mastered, at least, you know, the hub, you feel ready. And then you just said something beautiful was like, that's what is exciting about the ultras or hiking or whatever is that, you know, the other things of, you know, looking at a map and, you know, you're, you're going to stop at AIDS and like take the AIDS and, you know, sit for a second if you need to, or, you know, whatever, it's an adventure.

This is, this is a beautiful place to leave it because I've always thought that for athletes who have completed an ultra, they have all the tools. And I'm not, I'm not saying that it's bad that you get nervous before race or it's bad that you have performance anxiety or whatever, but because you've been through that experience, you've had all the tools. In addition to that, because you've trained for it, you also have all the tools. Exactly. And you remember that and go back and review your training and how meaningful it is to you and what all these training things were done in that, those two things combined. And that's why it's good to keep a training journal. Not just a training log. Not just a training log. Yes. And taking notes, you know, because your time is valuable.

Um, and I think a lot of times we talk to coaches, you know, again, it's that famous saying, are you listening with the intent to reply or, are you really listening? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you know, so, and I think a lot of times it's just human nature is that we, you know, we don't want to hear that it's going to take work or that, you know, those are great goals. It may take a while. Um, Hey, and I love when people prove me wrong. I mean, I, you know, it's not a fight. I mean, I don't need to be proved me wrong. Um, but I, I tend to have aspirations one step beyond my clients. Um, because that's just, I need to have my own goals that I, do I ever tell the athlete it? No, but I let them know like, Oh, well you made it this far because I knew you could.

And again, like, I don't know if that's like a six cent. I don't know what it is. It's just something, uh, you know, which is why I think I'm good as a, as a therapist that I just, I read people, you know, energies and I've been around the block a lot with hundreds of humans. So I kind of know what to compare and like your ultra running is, yeah, it's, it's own culture. Um, but like you said, I think the best thing you said that I now can take away because it was an assumption that I made is that people tend to overthink what they need to do to do well at ultra. If they were a sprinter, it's, it's enough. I mean, trust me, I could look at a hundred different training programs from ultra runners, whether they're contrived by our coaches or they do it themselves or they're following a plan and I can look at it and go, yeah, you can be successful in it. You know, here's how, you know, it all kind of like maps out, but in the, in the runner's head for a myriad, for a myriad of reasons, it should be two X whatever, whatever they did. So if everybody could take away that you've done it, I kind of feel like Stuart Smiley, right? That old SNL character, right? You're good enough. You're smart enough. And gosh, darn it. People like you, there's an application in, uh, dirt's training to that, to where your trainings get it. First off, you can't

change it, but it's going to be enough. And you're going to figure it out on race day and give yourself a little bit of grace and a little bit of credit, you know, remind yourself that that remind yourself as like, you know, if you grew up in the eighties or, you know, anything before, like, you know, the internet, I mean, that, that was how we did it. We just went out there and on Saturdays, you rode your bike and you got lost or you got bitten by the neighbor's dog or whatever. Like it's, that's what, that's the beauty of it is that first it, it, you don't have anxiety. It was something that you don't want to do well at. So that, so that's a good thing, right? That just means it is important to you. And often I think that helps a lot of my clients, just that simple thing. Oh, I'm nervous because it means something. And that means I, I have done the work and then, you know, whatever outcome it's then, you know, your best next race is only going to go as if, you know, what you learn from the previous race or it's no bad races except for, you know, don't ever quit unless you're injured and don't be stupid and keep running or whatever. Right.

Um, because then, you know, that mentally and physiologically is no. So if anyone takes that away, like our grounds covered there, just don't put, unless you know, in the back of your head, you should quit. Dr. K. Thank you for coming back on the podcast. I'm glad we could reconnect again. Again, I think, um, sorry if we didn't go down the route, the route that you intended. I can kind of jump around sometimes. It's all good. And I think, um, you know, I'll go through this during the intro. It's a listeners of Valarie. I've heard this a lot of times with sports psychology, people want like a definitive framework. And that's my bias too, because I'm a framework person. Like I want ABCD.

And in reality, you have to understand concepts first, and then you can use a loose framework to apply those concepts second. And I hope that that's kind of what comes out of this conversation. So if anyone wants to work with me, I mean, that's the cool thing that I think why, again, if an athlete doesn't want to work with me because I work with someone else, that's fine. But that also to me shows lack of confidence, because if you were truly confident, you would know that like that coach or that sports psychologist, I never talk about another athlete. I never talk about how are you going to beat this person because then you're giving them the power, right? Everything needs to be about you. Now, if your coach wants to go and look at their files or physiologically figure something out, great. But like, I would say to that coach, coach, you know, just don't, don't, you know, just kind of have it like be like the, like, I say, a shadow figures next to you. Yes, this is what your competitors are at. And this is how I'm going to framework it. But don't, you know, one person against one person or, you know, and that's kind of how it is. It's like, I went to school for lots and lots of hours. And I think that, again, I'm still working on myself, still comfortable for me to talk about my strengths, but, you know, I, when I first

started out, yes, it was more, you know, like, this is how I'm going to apply it. I'm learning how to do this. Now, when I sit with someone, there's extensive paperwork, a, you know, but like, I can tell right now, if someone is reaching out to me at a certain age of a certain sex, and they are a one in all the areas, and the five is like, in a bad place, most likely, they probably should be circling all those fives. And within like the first 30 minutes of a session, I call BS on the door, right? Because I've worked long enough where no one is a one and then wants to talk to a sports psychologist. I'll just leave it at that. That's a good, that's a good insight into your practice and who's, who's, who's seeking you out. And that's why when people go see another sports psychologist or a mental trainer, who isn't clinically trained, it is going to be a lot more cut and dry, like, all right, we're going to learn work on self talk and imagery. Well, the athletes that come to me who want to win the tour of France or the Olympics, like you already are doing it, or you wouldn't be there, right? So that's it, like, you have the tools. And I would say

to the listeners out there, do a vision board, figure out first, what you're good at, what what's your why, and then you and your coach from your last race or your last sport, like, like high schoolers, they're better swimmers, but they run track. It's like, okay, well, what do you do good in swimming? All right. I need to understand on your best workouts, on your best day, who you are, and like, visually having that. And then wherever your, you know, home gym is, you know, have that vision board, or have a post it. No, constant reminder of where you're at and where you want to go. We need that. We think we put too much on ourselves to just think that, oh, well, I'm broken, or, you know, I can never do this, which is like the self loathing, you know, kind of idea where it's like, I mean, no, like, but you can't do it alone. So that's why I'll end with it takes a village.

Yep. I love it. That's a great place to end, Dr. Kime. I appreciate all your wisdom on it. All right, folks, there you have it. There you go. Much thanks to Kristen for coming back on the podcast. And more importantly, thank you for being such a wealth of information and a critical resource for athletes around the world to lean on. Athletes that use Kristen as part of their village to become better are always happier racers. And as Kristen always likes to say, happy racers go faster. If you have not heard the original podcast that I had with Kristen, where that is the particular theme of it, a link to that will be in the show notes. Y'all go and check it out. I appreciate the heck out of all the listeners out there. If you like this particular podcast, go ahead, share it with your friends, share it with your training partners, and hopefully it enhances their racing and their lives as well.

That is it for today, folks. And as always, we will see you out on the trails.