How Flow-Seekers Can Overcome Race Day Anxiety in Amateur Running

In amateur running, race day anxiety is the cascade of physical and mental symptoms that hijack your body before the starting gun fires. Your stomach churns. Your legs feel heavy during warmup. Your mind races through worst-case scenarios while you wait in the corral. For The Flow-Seeker (ISRA), this pre-race turmoil creates a specific problem: it blocks access to the intuitive, present-moment awareness that defines your best performances.

Athletes with intrinsic motivation run for the pure experience of movement. They chase those moments when effort becomes effortless and the miles disappear beneath their feet. Race day anxiety does the opposite. It yanks you out of your body and traps you in anxious thoughts about splits, competitors, and whether your training was enough. The very thing you love about running becomes inaccessible when you need it most.