Training the mind, along with the body

ecoli

With alot of people cropping up out of the woodwork recently talking about losing their mojo i thought might not be a bad idea to start this thread. So what little tricks do people use in training / races to get them through it. Is mental thing something you just either have or you dont? and if not how do you develop this

Mr Slow

I find logging my Garmin link helps, not that I'd cut a run short out of laziness but the fact that I know I'll be putting the run up for all to see helps keep me focused.

Pherekydes

What is this mind training of which you speak?

If it's cold or wet out I just go for a sleep. This requires great mental toughness.

The rest/recovery aspect of a training program is much underrated.

PaulieC

"just one more mile",
"just one more mile",
"just one more mile",
"just one more mile",
"just one more mile",
"just one more mile",
"just one more mile"
until I'm wrecked...

BeepBeep67

Positive and Negative reinforcement.
Think about how you will feel or have felt when you have compelted a tough session or race.
Think about how you will feel when you don't finish.

T runner

BeepBeep67 wrote: »

Positive and Negative reinforcement.
Think about how you will feel or have felt when you have compelted a tough session or race.
Think about how you will feel when you don't finish.

Having a plan for each section of the race can help. Left to your own devised your mind may opt for the easier option sparking, at best, an unwanted internal debate.
Mental toughness seems to increase with physical fitness for me anyway.

ocnoc

I must train, because if I don't I'll be left behind.

Every session missed, is a session that my rivals get ahead

Tipp man running

Learned this in my first ever marathon a good few years ago when I stopped and ended up walking the last 7 miles....''If I stop I wont be able to start running again and its along way home''..keep telling myself this when I hit the latter stages of a marathon and just count the miles down.

Rantan

.....as little thinking as possible...mostly i find my brain is just trying to f**k with me in some way so i try and un-focus...also small goals are easier to meet - top of the hill/end of the road seems far away then each pace becomes a target reached..

cwgatling

The mental aspect is massive in races. The last quarter is always murder. I find if I'm not focussed it's all too easy to sit in with a group going slower than I'd like.

Hanging onto/catching someone would be a big motivator for me.
If it's hurting really bad, I'll be counting steps. If I think I'm going to die, the counter will be reset every 10 steps.
Sometimes it helps to imagine a training run where I'm cruising along by the reservoir at 8:00 per mile when in actual fact I'm at 5:30 pace fighting back the vomit.

Timmaay

ecoli wrote: »

Is mental thing something you just either have or you dont? and if not how do you develop this

Its definitely not black and white in my opinion! Yes you have some nightmare races where say you were tired from training beforehand anyways, but go out hard and fall apart 1/2 way through and everyone passes you etc, and then you have those other races where everything just fits into place and you run perfect and feel great and pull a pb. But these are both extremes!

I have a few different mental "tricks" as such that I try to use. One is say about 1/2 or 2/3s of the way through a race (say 10mins into a 5k race that I'm aiming for 16mins or so), I'm tired by now but find it hard to focus and stay motivated, I usual start telling myself "right only 6mins left, stay focused, on for a pb, only 6mins of pain, that is nothing in relative terms then comes the glory"

Another thing I do in some races is totally ignore the race around me and don't let myself get sucked into battles etc. I religiously stick to my splits and just totally break the race up into either laps or kms. I don't worry about the overall time until the finish, and just focus on running each split. I did this a while ago using a Garmin set to pace me to 16.45, which was a good bit under my pb at the time. It was a local race and I knew most people in the race, but didn't let them bother me or mess my pace. I kept checking my pace every 10/20secs, which kept me nicely occupied and not thinking about being tired etc, and then only at the last 500 or so, I focused on the race around me, and realized a friend who I had never beaten before was close, so I sprinted on home and went from finishing in 16.45 to an actual time of 16.35. I don't do this every race (today I didn't even bother with a garmin etc, but the course wasn't flat enough to try stick to one pace!!), but that race in particular it worked.


Ok this is a long post, but my final point is that in general I accept that I can't always have a good race, or good training session, and I always always try to stay positive, a bad session/race is just a minor blip, you can't get it right everytime! And staying positive is the main battle in my opinion, for the most of us running is just a hobby (yes a hobby that our life revolves around :pac:), but anyways if you have a bad race and spend the next week or so beating yourself up about it during training you simple as is are not going to enjoy much about running, and if at the end of the day we don't enjoy our hobby why bother!

thirstywork2

For me a little thing has been working lately.
Switch of that Garmin a coupld days a week especially when doign a recovery day and just listen to your body.
Pick a race mayeb 4-5 weeks away and do up a training plan and stick to it.Too manay people on here racing too much when not fit enough to do themselves justice.
If you want to tempo a run then do it but why would you do it in a race???

Run with people and mix it up.
don't try push the sessiosn when getting back and eventually the times will come down.

ronnie085

Ryan Hall talks about runners amnesia, how he deals wiith bad days racing and training

Ruu_Old

I use map my run and then I log my miles with a pen and paper. I don't have a Garmin, I have a very basic stop watch. I rarely bring headphones anymore, call it running naked. When it comes to long runs and getting through, I find whatever marker I can, the 'road slippy' sign or the next stop sign after that and so on, really helps.

shotgunmcos

When it starts to hurt I break whats left of my session goal down into chunks.

Just an hour to go...
Just 15 more minutes to a tail wind...
Just 2 more reps...
I say each one aloud to myself and it works. "Just X" ...

I also count down time after I pass the half way point of a session, the more I hurt the less I have left to do.

You often see track and filed athletes talking to themselves before a race or giving a little shout before a throw... same principle

There is an add on TV at the moment, I think for lucozade or powerade, that illustrates the mantra.

Marthastew

When I'm at a tough part of my run and my mind turns to negative thoughts I find it useful to repeat the time I am aiming for in my next race, I then start to imagine myself telling everyone how happy I am with my time, it works every time (the mantra while running that is; the race doesn't always turn out as I wanted).