Turn Your Fears Into Fearsome Performance

Facing up to her pre-race nerves, Michelle Arthurs-Brennan discovers that confronting fears head-on can help you ride faster

- Michelle Arthurs-Brennan

Nerves are not the enemy. Most of us who’ve competed in challenging events are familiar with the following: butterflies, lost appetite, sweaty palms and even uncontrollable trembles. Fear is natural — it’s what we do with it that matters, because whatever scares us also has the capacity to make us faster.

There was a time when my mind would invent phantom injuries in the lead-up to races, which would miraculously disappear as soon as the start line came into view. I’d spend all week struggling with incessant knee pain, only to realise there was nothing wrong with my body that adrenaline couldn’t magic away as soon as the starter horn went.

Those nerves became even more pronounced when I entered the Good Friday track meet at the end of March — my first time racing on an indoor velodrome in front of an actual crowd. This time there were no phantom injuries, just a vague feeling of nausea. Turns out, that’s normal too.

“You need the adrenaline and the excitement to access the best physical performance,” says Chris Hoy, who tells me that the way he dealt with nerves changed dramatically over his career — which included, let’s remember, 11 world titles and six Olympic golds.

Hoy worked with Professor Steve Peters, the psychiatrist famous for writing The Chimp Paradox whose techniques he used to harness the power of his nerves.

“Every time [you race] you get nervous because it’s a necessary part. If you’re too relaxed, you’re not mentally switched on,” says Hoy.

“There’s a difference between being adrenalised and being anxious. You can plot the graph of alertness; at a certain point it tips into anxiousness and performance drops off a cliff.”