* Nerves and Pressure
Dealing with nerves and pressure
By Renee Beveridge, May 2019
Like all sports, nerves, pressure, and focus are large factors in our performance. However, I would argue this affects Orienteers more than other sports people. With Orienteering we are trying to control a part of our body that is hard to tame at the best of times; our brain. Training to kick a ball or running lots for a Marathon can be mostly achieved by physical training. As long as you’ve trained enough beforehand on these skills, the key factors affecting your performance are covered.
In Orienteering our brain is the only thing allowing us to navigate accurately. When we are nervous, you end up in a state of “brain scramble”. Don’t get me wrong, you feel pressure in all sports. But it’s more crucial in Orienteering. Being fit is only useful in Orienteering if you know where you’re navigating to, and navigating accurately can only be done if you can think clearly.
This has been coined previously by Matt Ogden as a triangle; the physical-mental-technical.
Suddenly, all the training you’ve put in; the long runs, the horrible intervals, and the numerous times you’ve gone to the forest to practice navigation are meaningless because you‘ve left your brain at the start line and now the map just looks like a mush of colours with no meaning. So how do can we work on this aspect of our Orienteering?
The use of relays to train managing race nerves
I can say personally that I make more novice mistakes during relays than in individual races. I’ve made my fair share of dumb mistakes in individual races too, but relays make me gawk at my failure the most.
Relays are the one race that make you extremely anxious regardless of the level of event. The extra pressure of not wanting to let your team down and running in close proximity to your competitors (especially if you’re 1st leg) places you into a world of pressure not experienced in many individual races. This got me thinking. How can we use relays during trainings to simulate the high pressure situations we experience in individual events like Nationals or JWOC?
A couple of years ago I helped coach at a High Performance training camp in Auckland. I had a number of trainings to set and wanted to make sure each training was uniquely challenging. After reflecting on the mistakes I have made in the past, I believe that a large part of Kiwi Orienteers' training is missing; dealing with high pressure situations. We simply do not have enough big competitions every year like the Europeans do where we come face to face with our nerves on a regular basis. Think about how the majority of our club events are used by many as trainings or social events, rather than serious competitions? Compare that to O-ringen, Tio-mila, Jukola, O-France, Swiss-O week, Croatian O-week, Scottish 6-days the list goes on.
So…I incorporated a normal relay (3 per team) into the training camp. This of course would help with relay races as well, but was ultimately aimed at simulating high pressure situations in general. Immediately I saw a difference in how people approached the training; they were more aggressive and there was a sense of urgency. I clearly remember Max Griffiths having a battle with Tane Cambridge. Neither runner would’ve been running that fast and looking that crazed as they sprinted each other off to the finish if it had just been a normal individual exercise. Suddenly the element of pressure was introduced and there was no time for jogging around and being sloppy.
I believe strongly that a key to helping non-European based Orienteers improve their mental focus, is to introduce mentally stressful trainings and events. Most individual trainings and events just don’t make people feel any mental pressure. Even though we know that we are training for big future events, we often blob around and feel no real desire to run our butts off and be super focused. It’s hard to make yourself feel pressure when you know it’s just a training or another AOS and no one is depending on you like in a relay situation, and that’s what we need to change.
Focus, focus, focus
Not focusing can be a product of nerves but also a product of complacency. I would say it’s easier to be unfocused during trainings and AOS events, but sadly I find my mind wandering even in big competitions with much bigger consequences. There are a number of ways Orienteers can explain their mistakes; some are also more preventable than others. Whether it’s an inability to understand the map, complacency, or cockiness, they all end rather badly.
Reflections on focus issues during Nationals Long this year:
My long distance was going OK I finished 3rd and even if I hadn’t made my mistakes I definitely wouldn’t have won. I had made a small mistake to number 7 and was a little annoyed. Nevertheless, I began my execution of 7-8. My route was simple, and I think most competitors took it. I was to go fairly straight (blue line).
But alas…I completely lost concentration. Assuming I was still on the blue line, I started to descend on the wrong angle and crossed another river (ignoring the fact I didn’t cross any fence) and thought I was crawling up the hill toward the open land. After I climbed the hill I began to get worried as there was no open land appearing on the horizon. Standing and staring at my map like a goon I did a bearing, and knew that I would eventually hit open land at some point and this would make it easier to relocate.
This was of course a navigational error; but there’s a difference between making an error because you simply don’t understand the map, and making an error because you’re not even reading the map. This was a totally preventable mistake and wasn’t really a super challenging leg, but a small loss in concentration and I was running down the hill on the wrong angle, which made me drift off. So simply but so costly. In total I lost around 5 minutes on this one leg.
Snapping under relay pressure at NZ Relays
Obviously using relays as trainings is going to help with actual relay competitions as well..duah. Which is why NZ should probably have more relay competitions too.
Two of my mistakes during the NZ relay cost me important time. I was running around with Briana Steven, Marisol Hunter, as well as being slowly caught by Georgia Whitla and Lara Molloy. Immediately the pressure was on. Briana started in front of me, so I was keen to keep her in my sights. I wasn’t sure when Marisol started, but she appeared out of nowhere and went to a few of my controls early on. I was rather physically pooped but was still running hard and we were all going around the same speed.
Georgia caught me at control 6, and immediately I decided that it would be a great idea to increase my speed, even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up with her. This of course meant I was no longer focusing on my own course, and just chasing Georgia. Even though I knew that it was a RELAY and therefore we probably had different controls. Which we did...
Immediately I knew something was wrong, and had to stop and quickly relocate. Looking at it now, 6-7 is not a hard leg, but it felt so hard at the time because I was no longer focusing and taking the time to visualise the terrain in front of me.
The same happened on 12. I was still just behind Briana and knew that even if I stayed this distance behind her, I would have caught up time. But again, my focus on her reduced my contact with the map. As a result I became confused halfway through the leg, and was struggling to know what was up or down. This was immediately followed by the thought of “Oh no, Briana’s getting away!” instead of “Ok stop and think. Focusing on Briana doesn’t magically make the control appear in front of you. Just read the map”.
This concentration issue seems to be the same one that affects me every time, but at the time, I can’t seem to shut it out and say to myself “this is what always happens, and you know it doesn’t help…so stop it”.
Unfortunately, it seems like our desire to catch our competitors is often followed with poor plans and total brain scramble. We feel pressure because we want to do well and beat other people. Cruelly and ironically though, the one physiological reaction of wanting to do well is to have a brain explosion which always makes us do badly.
So how do we use pressure to make ourselves more determined to focus, rather than making us more determined to run faster and then make soul destroying mistakes? Or perhaps, how do we prevent ourselves from feeling pressure at all? We know that in Orienteering our competitors have no direct influence on our own performance…it’s all about our own fitness and map reading. Yet in pressure situations we focus more on our competitors than on ourselves.
I don’t have the best answer. Some races you just feel super involved with. You’re staring at the map like it’s the love of your life. But when your mind starts to wonder, how do you catch yourself? As Kay Knightbridge, W50A Middle Distance bronze medalist quickly informed me after I explained my mistake to her, “You just do it”. But how….
For one thing, including more relay type trainings is a start. Perhaps also chasing start trainings. Anything that makes you feel under pressure.
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