Learning to Deal with Losing
One of the most difficult adjustments hurdlers often have to make when they move up a level (besides a raise in the height of the hurdles) is the fact that the competition is much tougher and wins don’t come as frequently as they used to. A lot of times, the lack of tangible success can lead to major issues with self-doubt, loss of confidence in one’s abilities, desperate attempts to “work harder,” and sometimes it can even lead to quitting altogether.
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The competitive mindset that can fuel great performances is the same mindset that can lead to mental breakdowns. For those who begin hurdling in youth track, the push and pull between winning and losing begins at a young age. The national champion over the 80 meter hurdle distance might be in for a rude awakening when he moves up to the next age group, where the hurdles are a click higher and are spaced farther apart. Also, a lot of the kids who were easy to beat before may suddenly hit a growth spurt, making it easy for them to pass you by.
This type of challenge continues throughout a hurdler’s career. The transition to high school competition is a big one. The transition from just competing in local meets to competing in national meets is a big one. The transition to college is a big one. And for the chosen few, the transition to the pros is a big one. The transition at every level leaves some people behind, as they are unable to adapt to the increased expectations, higher demands, etc.
I remember when I transitioned from high school to college, I wasn’t just transitioning from the 39’s to the 42’s. That adjustment was relatively easy, all things considered. The real transition for me came with the fact that everybody was good. There were no scrubs. In high school, I could just look at guys during warm-up drills and see which ones I would need to worry about and which ones were garbage. Usually, at a given meet, there might be a handful of guys I needed to worry about. But my freshman year of college, I was the fourth-best hurdler on a team of four hurdlers. And I was good. I was at a DIII school; our best guy ran 15.5, the next guy ran 15.6, the next guy ran 15.7, and I ran 15.8. In early season meets, I was running times that were faster than I had run at the same time of year in high school, but at any given meet, I might finish 35th out of 50 hurdlers, and spend the whole bus ride home trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.
At meets, there were no scrubs. Everybody looked good in warm-ups. It got to the point where I had to stop other hurdlers warming up because I was starting to allow myself to feel intimidated.
Now, as a coach, I see it a lot. The fear of losing. One of the worst episodes happened this past spring. Our school team, which pretty much sucks, was competing in a meet against about five other schools, including the school that Anna Cockrell ran for. Cockrell, if you’re not familiar, was one of the top prep female hurdlers in the nation last year, in both the 100h and 400h. She has run in plenty international meets, as well as the US Olympic Trials.
Well, I was assuming Cockrell wouldn’t run in this little mid-week meet, or at least she would use it as a practice and not run the hurdles. But surely enough, when the field events got underway, I saw Cockrell warming up for the hurdles. I knew who she was, but my hurdlers didn’t. I had two girls, a ninth grader and an eighth grader, neither of whom could come within four seconds of her. Maybe they won’t be in her heat, I hoped. But it turned out there was only one heat.
The more Cockrell warmed up, the more I caught my girls gaping at her, literally open-mouthed. The eighth grader walked up to me and asked, “Who is that girl? Does she run the hurdles?” I told her don’t worry about that girl, focus on doing what you came to do in your lane. My ninth grader didn’t look nearly as panicked, simply nodding to Cockrell and saying, “That girl is a beast.”
When the starter called the girls to the line, I gave my girls a little pep talk and encouraged them to run their best. But the eighth grader wasn’t having it. She was having a very public meltdown. She kept her back to me, like she was afraid of looking at me. When I finally looked into her eyes I saw that she was crying. She was crying at the starting line. She was so intimidated by this girl who was going to be long gone by step one anyway that she basically folded before the race even began.
Now, that’s an extreme version of what happens quite often. We focus on opponents in the lanes beside us. We focus on what happened the last time we ran against this person or that person. We get so caught up in focusing on our opponents that we forget to run the race. Then when we do run poorly, we realize that if “I had just run my race,” things probably would’ve gone a lot better.
I think the mindset going into each race has to be one of confidence not only in one’s abilities, but also in one’s training. That eighth grader, for example, hadn’t been putting in any quality training hardly. She had missed workouts for play practice and was often very unfocused when she did come to practice. So yes, when she did meet someone of Cockrell’s talent and focus level, she didn’t know how to respond. But for athletes who put in the work, you owe it to yourself to go out there on race day and find out how good you are at this point in the season.
Fear of losing can be addressed in practice. Hurdlers can practice starts over as many as seven hurdles, with teammates of comparable ability. Switch up the lanes each rep, switch up the style of giving the commands each rep. If there are no athletes of comparable ability, find a slower sprinter to use as a practice dummy. Have the hurdler sprint over the hurdles while the sprinter sprints without hurdles.
When I was in college, and we had four good hurdlers, practicing starts against each other really helped me to get past the fear of losing. It was like, I know I might lose, so why be afraid of it? Why talk myself out of a good race?
Now, as a coach, I feel it is part of my job to instill confidence in my athletes. With some it’s not even an issue; they’re self-motivated and they’re hungry for success. But even the self-motivated and hungry can struggle with confidence at times. Look at what happened to Keni Harrison at the US Trials this past summer. She went into the meet as the national record holder, having run times that no one else in the field had come close to touching all season. Yet she still fell prey to confidence issues. Even her coach wasn’t aware that doubt had crept in, as he later said something to the effect of, “I didn’t know we switched from planning to dominate to trying just to make the team.”
As a coach, it is my job to closely monitor the mental state of my athletes, especially at big meets. I have to know the warning signs (in terms of body language, talkativeness, etc.) that indicate an athlete is in a fearful or doubtful state. I have to know when and how to approach that athlete, what words to say, what words not to say, and what tone will work best. Some athletes need to be pumped up, some need to be calmed down, some need to be left alone. The athlete’s job, I would say, is to live by the old mantra, “Respect all, fear none.” Acknowledge that anyone can beat you, but don’t be afraid of losing to anyone. Run your race, in your lane.
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