After the hard physical work of preparing for your big event, the last phase of nailing your peak is mental preparation. We have all heard of the “home course”, “home rink”, or “home field” advantage. When you compete somewhere you know inside-and-out, it is easier to anticipate what is coming, what it will feel like, and how you will handle the effort and different scenarios on that particular course. Imagine if you raced world championships on your favorite training route. You would know every corner, hill, cross walk, stop sign, tree, and even some of the cracks in the road.

When you race a key event in your season, you goal is to gain as much of that home course advantage as possible. Consider these steps:

1. When you tour the course, take mental notes of what you will see, where the terrain changes, where the turns, up hills and down hills are, what weather you might experience, where the aid stations are, etc. You should have a good mental picture of the course in your head after touring the course.
2. Break the course up into smaller, more manageable pieces, so you can focus on these sections as they come, on race day. Have goals for each section.
3. Try and anticipate where on the course the effort will be high, and some of the more challenging areas. Look forward to these challenging areas as some of the tests of racing, and get excited to put in the effort there. Undoubtedly doing a good job in these sections will make the racing experience more rewarding.
   

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