For many of us, race goals and plans are often in the works up to a year in advance. Back in January, I set my goals for this year, knowing I wanted to conquer the Beach2Battleship Half Ironman faster than my performance at Augusta 70.3 last year. When you sign up for a race 7 months in advance, it seems like there is an eternity until race day. 20 weeks of training sounds like a long time. But it sneaks up on us in a blink of an eye. Months become weeks. Weeks become days. Days become minutes. And before you know it, it’s here. The moment we’ve been preparing for. Sacrificing for. Anxiously dreading and eagerly awaiting. Race day.

Today, the countdown app on my iPhone alerted me that I am officially 30 days out from my big goal race. In just 4 short weeks, I’ll be a ball of nerves waiting to see if everything I’ve been working for these past 5 months will pay off. Scratch that. I’ll be standing at the starting line knowing I’m ready to blow my goal out of the water. (See bullet #4 below *wink*)

As my 30-day countdown begins, I will be focusing on these 6 things as I enter the home stretch:

1. Nutrition: I will not only be focusing on the food I put into my body every day (emphasizing lean proteins, fruits, veggies, healthy fats, and grains like brown rice and quinoa), but I will really begin to perfect my race day fueling and hydration plan. During my last 2 long rides and runs next month, I will simulate what I plan to eat for breakfast and how much and how often I plan to eat and drink during the race.
2. Staying hydrated: I am going to focus on getting enough liquid into my body each day. I can go hours at work without drinking anything, and I want to make a conscious effort to drink more to ensure I am constantly hydrated. (You can read more about tips to stay hydrated, how much to drink and how to prevent dehydration here).
3. Executing my training plan as prescribed: I want to stay laser focused on executing my training plan to near perfection these last 4 weeks. If my plan says ride the bike for 2 hours on a Wednesday, I want to ride the bike for 2 hours on Wednesday. No cutting corners. No sleeping in an extra hour. No excuses.
4. Training my brain: During these next 30 days, I want to erase self-doubt and really believe in what I know I am capable of. I love these articles by my friend Tere Zacher about going beyond our limits and being mentally tough. I am going to focus on the positive, chant cheesy mantras to myself and show up on October 26 believing in what I can do, not “thinking I might be able” to do something.
5. Incorporate daily stretching, foam rolling and focused recovery: This is something I am very inconsistent with and I am committing to be more focused on this during the next 4 weeks. I’d like to go to deep stretch yoga once a week, get 2 sports massages before race day, foam roll and stretch before bed each night and take Epsom salt soaks as needed. We work our bodies hard and we have to be kind to them to ensure they are healthy and recovered for race day.
6. Sleep: Consistently get 8 hours of sleep each night. To get all my training in it is critical to get up early to fit in workouts … which means I’ve got to get to sleep earlier. I am terrible at this. The more rested I am, the better I will feel and the quicker I will recover.

What fall goal race are you training for and how are you feeling about it? What do you focus on during the month leading up to a goal race? What techniques do you use to train your brain to believe in yourself and stay positive?