You followed your training plan perfectly and made nutrition a priority by fueling with whole foods. You were able to take all the breaks you needed during this marathon.
In short, you nailed your training.
But come race day, when the chips are down and you’re at mile 22, you start making deals with yourself:
- Trading “A” goal times for “B” goals…
- Adjusting your goal pace because it starts to feel intimidating
- Promising yourself that if you can just get to the finish line, no matter what the time, you’ll be satisfied. Anything to make the pain stop!
Sound familiar? Can you identify the missing piece of this puzzle?
Mental strength.
Here’s the thing: you’re in good company. Most runners focus on improving every physical skill they can think of when trying to achieve a personal best. It can be difficult to find time to focus on the mental aspects of training, but it is just as important as the physical aspects.
Sports psychologist Justin Ross, co-founder of Denver-based MindBodyHealth (and episode #10 podcast guest, understands this as a high performing runner himself. But he also understands the value of mental toughness and encourages runners to spend some time cultivating this very useful skill:
“Mental toughness is what you do when you start to feel uncomfortable. It’s definitely a trainable skill.”
This is good news for runners who are always trying to improve their performance. You can start training for your goal time more effectively by taking some extra time to focus on the mind-body connection.
The Mystery Behind Stopping
There are, of course, limits to human athletic ability. This is true, regardless of how well trained you are or how many mental strategies you have at your disposal. Running is tough and eventually we all come to a point where we have to give up. What causes athletes to slow down or stop during a race is a question that physiologists and psychologists within the realm of sports science are looking for an answer to. We still have enough energy left even after we stop. The decision to stop running comes from your brain, not your muscles or energy system. All experts agree that the brain is what controls physical exercise. Although they have not reached a consensus, they are still debating how it persuades us to stop before we becomecompletely exhausted. Is it the brain that acts on signals from the body, or is it our psyche that controls everything? This question has caused an interesting discussion among theorists.
Marcora is a sports scientist with a mission to unravel the connections between the mind and the body Samuele Marcora, a sports scientist at Kent University in England, is one of the most lively contributors to the discussion on the connection between the mind and body. He thinks that the fatigue people feel while running is only in their heads. According to his research, signals from the muscles, heart, and lungs do not have a big influence on whether a person decides to stop or slow down. Mental factors such as tiredness can directly affect the decision to stop. Marcora is a well-known scientist who studies how endurance athletes perceive exercise. He believes that runners who say they are exhausted are actually just experiencing a mental block. He believes that runners who say they are exhausted are actually just experiencing a mental block and that what they refer to as exhaustion has nothing to do with their physical ability to carry on or not. All you have to do is make the decision to give up.
Marcora’s official title is Professor of Exercise Physiology, but he feels more of an affinity with psychology than with physiology. Engaging in sport and exercise is driven by motivation in order to achieve specific goals. He explains that the study of behavior is a branch of psychology, not physiology. I attended a lecture given by Marcora at Radboud University, where he explained how his concept of fatigue works. After we talked, we sat down at a picnic table on the university campus.
The primary focus of his research is studying fatigue in endurance sports. Marcora is trying to understand why humans cannot maintain a certain speed or level of strength for a long period of time. What causes runners to slow down during a race, sometimes even to walking pace? This statement from Marcora implies that previously it was believed that a person could work out until their body was no longer able to get enough oxygen to the muscles. ” If that’s the case, the muscles can’t generate the necessary power quickly enough. The idea that people only get tired because their body forces them to is the accepted theory. Although there has never been any data to strongly support that model, some people still believe in it. Marcora believes that running rarely leads to physical exhaustion. The results of his research show that we don’t stop running as soon as we receive certain signals from our body.
In 2010, Marcora and his colleague Walter Staiano asked 10 male athletes to do an endurance test in which they were asked to pedal a bicycle ergometer for as long as possible at a certain level of resistance. Marcora and Staiano asked each athlete to pedal as hard as they could for just five seconds before the test started. A record of the power generated by their leg muscles was kept. After a short, explosive test, the men were asked to cycle until they could no longer continue. The average time was 12 minutes. The most interesting part of the test was the final part. After the athletes completed the endurance test, the scientists had them repeat the five-second explosive burst of cycling.
Just picture it: You are completely exhausted but you are asked to cycle like a madman again. Surely your legs would refuse. Nothing of the kind, as it turned out. The men generated less power during the second explosive test, but they still generated 3 times more power than during the longer endurance test. Isn’t that strange? First you pedaling hard and then you can’t pedal anymore and then you start pedaling again hard. This means that Marcora and Staiano do not believe that tired muscles and lack of energy are the problem. So what caused the cyclists to give up? Motivation, or rather the lack thereof, they suggest. The participants were aware that the final test would only take five seconds, and were therefore able to perform well. The endurance test was much longer, and the athletes didn’t know how long they would have to keep going. This is what most likely caused them to lose motivation. According to Marcora, people who stop because they are exhausted still have alot of energy left.
How to Train the Brain
Ross says that in order to train your mental strength, you need to be willing and optimistic.
- Willingness: This is the measure of how willing you are to get uncomfortable to achieve a goal.
- Optimism: According to Ross, this is your ability to believe that what you are doing matters. For example—believing that a particularly difficult track workout will deliver the results you want.
According to Ross, you can work on either element at any given time:
“These are the key ingredients to mental toughness and if you can harness them, you’ll better manage when the going gets tough.”
Ross explains that a lot of the training for these components is about “finding your why.” This means understanding your motivation for running and what your goals are for a given run. He says that if you have specific goals, you are more likely to try and achieve them.
If you have a goal of running a personal best or qualifying for the Boston Marathon, the 20-mile training run is an important part of the process and will make you more likely to embrace it. This positive attitude will help you to keep going even when your legs start to feel tired later on in the run.
Ross breaks optimism down into three basic principles:
Be In The Moment
When you are in the middle of a tough repetition, try to think that you can complete the next rep as well.
It is also understood that you will feel better when you get to the rest. If you are running 800m reps with a 400m easy jog recovery, you will be able to push through the interval if you look forward to the recovery interval.
Think Broadly
The ability to see the connection between working hard and achieving your goals is an important skill to develop. If you push yourself to complete the second lap of an 800 meter race, it will help you run the type of race you want when your goal race arrives.
Think Long-Term
Connect your daily actions to your big goal. This means that you can look ahead and plan your training in larger blocks of time.
For example, if you’re training for a marathon, you might break down your training into a weekly schedule, and then envision how each week’s training will help you reach your goal. Being consistent with your training is the key to becoming a successful runner. Showing up and doing the work each week is essential to achieving your race-day goals.
How Often Should You Train Mental Strength?
You cannot work on your mental strength all the time. You can improve your brain health by dedicating some time each day to brain training.
Ross suggests disconnecting from your music, podcast or whatever it might be to focus on your mind and body.
You can improve your weaker moments by being aware of how you feel or react at different points in your training. You should practice often so that you will be prepared for anything that might happen on race day.
You can remind yourself that you are strong and have been through this before. You know how to get through this.
Mental Strength Cues
Although you may be new to building mental toughness, many of the principles involved are well-tested and reliable. Here are some additional ways to strengthen your brain game:
When running gets tough, it’s easy to negative thoughts about yourself. Try to practice positive self-talk instead.
Statements such as “I’m so slow,” or “this hurts so much,” can start a downward spiral that sabotages your efforts. Think positive thoughts instead of negative ones. For example, tell yourself “I feel strong,” or “the effort is making me faster.”
You won’t have to spend long chasing away the negative thoughts.
Finding a mantra can help runners of all levels. Try out different positive statements and see which ones you like the best. Then put it into practice on your next run.
If you like the phrase “that which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” repeating it to yourself can help you push through difficult tempo miles. In time, this statement will become second nature to you and help support your efforts.
Imagine watching the winter Olympics and seeing downhill skiers quietly going through a run in their head before actually hitting the slopes. This technique is called visualization and it is something that many Olympians do.
If you imagine yourself finishing the race or pushing through a tough moment, you are more likely to succeed. Before beginning a task, it is helpful to spend some time visualizing a successful outcome. This will increase the likelihood of executing the task as desired.
Training for a race can be difficult to find time for. If you feel like you don’t have time to add in mental strength training, you’re not alone.
If you want to do well in a race, it’s not enough to just have a good physical conditioning. You also need to be mentally prepared and in the right frame of mind.
Final Advise
Train your brain to combat fatigue. If you’re feeling stressed out or like you need a break, going for a run can be a great way to clear your head. If you are about to enter a race, it is advisable to avoid any strenuous mental tasks beforehand and to set yourself an ambitious but realistic goal, one that will motivate you. You should pick songs whose rhythm matches your stride frequency if you like to listen to music while running. The mind is a powerful tool for improving running performance. It takes time and effort to improve your mental game, but it is possible to learn and practice new skills.
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