out of habit

The night before a race I have chicken and sweet potatoes for dinner. I soak in an epsom salt bath, then make two servings of oatmeal, one of which I eat before bed, the other I place in a small plastic container and set in the fridge. 

The morning of a race I drink a cup of coffee from my Santa mug and make a blueberry banana smoothie, with one scoop of vanilla egg protein and one spoonful of almond butter. My fearless femme bottle water bottle is filled with orange scratch labs, and three additional bottles are filled with water. The cooler is packed with 4 bottles, a hammer nutrition flask with one shot of gel and the container of oatmeal. I put on my under armour compression socks and blue sports bra. My back pack is packed with a change of clothes, my race bag is packed with shoes, helmet, socks, gloves, skinsuit. 

I drive to the race listening to whatever I'm in the mood for, but 15 minutes prior to my arrival I switch to the bonus cd that came with Taylor Swift Red (Target Exclusive)...and I sing. 

I pre-ride the course in sweatpants, then get my number and drink the bottle of scratch labs. My skinsuit is placed on a camping chair and my number is pinned on with eight pins. I change into it and my black honey badger socks before my second pre-ride. I return to the car for a shot of gel and some more water, then a piece of dark green extra gum. 

I'm not much for warming up. I don't bring a trainer to races (which I probably should). My warm up is the first lap (which is probably wrong). Post race, it's a pair of swiftwick compression socks and a bottle of hammer nutrition chocolate recoverite. 

I do these things out of habit. There is no correlation between this sequence and the outcome of the race. There is comfort in routine.