How Tour de France Femmes Racers Deal with Pre-Race Nerves
Stage racing isn’t just about your muscles, your gut or your lungs. It’s also about the mental game, and the fine line between staying excited and feeling motivated, without tipping into nervous and jittery territory.
As the racing goes on, some riders start to calm down more and more on the start line. Others, especially if they’re in the midst of an intense battle for positions in the top 10, may find that they get more nervous the later in the race it gets.
Here, we talked to five racers who will be on the start line of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift next week to find out how they handle pre-race jitters.
Find People Who Make You Comfortable
“I used to be a very nervous person coming into a race when I was younger, and it’s something I had been working on with my coach,” says Henrietta Christie of Human Powered Health. “I’m quite lucky that I have teammates that are really supportive and really helped me channel the nerves. They’ll be like, ‘Oh, just stay near me. We got this, we can do this.’ And they’re really uplifting, which is lovely to be around.”
Think Through Your Controllables
Even with great teammates, Christie still gets nervous, especially on big stages. “It can get a bit overwhelming,” she says. “I try to take a step back and think about, ‘What can I control?’ I know I can control my eating, I can control my hydration, I can control my own handling. In racing, there are so many things you can’t control. One minute you could be in a good position. Next, you could be in a bad crash or something. So you really need to focus on what you can do.”
Get Social
“Around the start is usually pretty chill: everyone’s having chats, and you see your friends from a different team, or there will be people behind the barriers who want you to sign something or have a pic,” says Alice Towers of Canyon//SRAM. “Leaning into that and making conversation makes it hard to stay nervous.” (All the racers agree on one thing though: They try to avoid scrolling social media on race mornings!)
Know What You Need, When You Need It
“My nerves depend on the stage,” says Human Powered Health’s Marjolein van't Geloof, who has playlists she specifically designs based on the stage ahead. “If you know that it’s an important day and you have a big role to play, of course you’re going to have some jitters because you’re going to be focused. You need to stay calm, but it’s not a bad thing to be nervous. If you know that you have to be in the sprint at the end, the whole day, you’re constantly thinking about if you’re going too hard or you’re not going hard enough, and you feel a lot more pressure to perform. Then, on days I’m just a domestique working for my teammates, I feel less nervous. I quite like the balance of moving between those positions!”
Make Time For Yourself
Every morning during the Tour de France Femmes, Canyon//SRAM’s Kasia Niewiadoma can be found having her first coffee of the day solo, enjoying a bit of quiet time. This sets her up for the next part of the day: Breakfast with the team, and the drive over to the race. “When I’m with my team, I want to be present in the moment,” Niewiadoma says. That’s why she makes sure she gets her alone time to calm her nerves, reflect on the day and caffeinate before breakfast, even if it means getting up a few minutes early.
Remind Yourself You Have Time
Elise Chabbey’s background as an Olympian in kayaking helps her out a lot on start lines. “In kayaking, I had a lot of pre-race nerves because it’s two minutes of all-out effort, so you really need to be focused. It’s really sharp. I was much more stressed,” she says. “In cycling, it’s calmer. Usually you have a less hectic start and it almost can feel like a two hour warmup before the real racing starts. So I enjoy the time before the race. I listen to music, I talk to my teammates, and then as it gets closer, I know the race is coming and I motivate myself, but not in a nervous way. I’m just excited to get going.”
You Might Also Like
