Mental Toughness

Nine Precepts of Distance Runners

1. Be self motivated.

2. Be positive and realistic.

3. Be calm and relaxed under fire. Being put to the test is NOT a threat, rather an opportunity.

4. Be in control of your emotions. Tame the lion within.

5. Be energetic and ready for action.

6. Be determined.

7. Be mentally alert and focused.

8. Be doggedly self confident.

9. Be responsible for your own actions.

Dealing with Pain

This section is devoted to helping you run faster and enjoy it more through mental games. Most of these are differing forms of visualization. Some will help you deal with pain, some self-confidence, and some just help to fill the time.

Relive The Moment

To relive a time in which you felt superhuman, a time when things came off precisely as you wished them to—a dream time—reliving the moment (or click back/click up) is the simple process of thinking back to a time in which you felt the desired way, and to come back to the present with that emotional attachment to the memory. When we store a memory, we attach to it an emotion. You can easily sadden yourself by remembering the loss of a loved one, and you can easily feel supercharged, gain power or confidence by re­membering a time in which you felt empowered.

When things are rough, the pain high or the pressure on, it can help to ‘relive a prior time when you managed similar obstacles successfully. Remember this time, and come back to reality with that emotional attachment. The idea is to have your current performance follow accordingly.

See The Outcome

During difficult parts of the race, when the finish line seems so far away, it is helpful to visualize the end of the race See and feel yourself finishing in sensational time. Feel the glory that goes along with that finish, hear the crowds, feel the pride! I like to visualize myself having a great finishing kick, kicking faster to the crowd’s delight, seeing the clock tick off the seconds as I approach my goal.

Toes, Knees, Arms

I utilize this technique during the last mile of a 5K in particular it helps me to maintain the pace and forget about the pain I’m in. I basically focus on three aspects of form. I learned it from my flight instructor who always said to me (on approach to landing), “Glideslope, line up, air speed.” The point was to empower the pilot so he lands the airplane instead of the airplane landing itself. I adapted it to toes, knees, arms.

Basically all I do is concentrate on getting up on the toes for, say, 20 seconds or so, and I just repeat to myself, “toes, toes, toes...” Then I get off my toes (since I can’t run on them that long) and I concentrate on knee lift, “knees, knees, knees” Then I switch to arms. “Drive the arms, drive the arms, drive the arms.” This empowers me and keeps my mind focused on maintaining the pace through form ma­nipulation rather than effort, which allows me not to think about the pain.

Surge Alarm

A coaching friend of mine, Bill Summers at Corona Del Mar High School in Southern California, sets his watch countdown to go off every five minutes. When the alarm sounds he picks up the pace for one minute. Runners often find this form of motivation more useful than just telling themselves that they need to Surge or pick up the pace.

It is sort of like having a coach tell you to pass someone or to pick it up, compared to trying to do it yourself. It may just give you that little extra incentive of course, one Should be sure that a surge is appropriate when the alarm Sounds. It may be devastating to surge up a hill, for instance, if that is When the alarm sounds

Break Up The Distance

During difficult times of the run or race it is beneficial to break up the distance into segments. Perhaps saying to yourself aloud, “just one more mile.” Or looking ahead to the next street pole and saying, “just to the next one.” Of course, once you get to the next one you need to say again, “just to the next one.”

I find it easier to go on an hour-and-a-half run by fooling myself. Rather than saying, “OK, here goes the first minute of an hour and a half,” I say, “Think I’ll run 30 minutes and get a short workout in.” Then when I hit 30 minutes I say, “45 is a much better workout and it only takes another 15 minutes.” At 45 minutes I convince myself that “an hour looks much better in my log than does 45 minutes.” Of course at an hour I say, “Heck, I’ve come this far; might as well go for all the marbles.”

Dealing with time in this manner will help your racing too. It is often better to say to yourself, “only six more minutes,” than it is to say, “only one more mile.” Often the minutes seem more manageable than do the miles.

Key Word

Teams can have a code word to mean something “let’s go.” Rather than having the coach say, “go now,” which tips the others off to expect a surge, the coach can yell something like, “OK, you know when to go,” or some other positive word or phrase.

Dealing With Fears

A runner’s mental breaking point can be tested when the outcome of the race looks dismal: fears of slowing, not finishing or being passed in the late stages are demoralizing. The brain sends messages to “throw in the towel” with phrases such as “let him go, it’s not important,” “I can beat him next time” or “it’s too far to continue.” Whether you are an elite or recreational runner, the fears and anxieties are similar. The first step to help deal with this crisis is to focus on what can be done now. If the grandfather clock knew how many times it had to tick in its lifetime, it would have given up long ago (Lynch, 1987).

By dividing the task into smaller, manageable parts, you can continue, with confidence. As that runner goes by, hang on to him, not until the end of the race but for just ‘X” amount of minutes or miles. At that segment re-evaluate your feelings. At worst you will have run better for that segment. At best you may catch a second wind and run one of your better races (Lynch, 1987). Or try reliving the mo­ment’ (click back/click up).

Psyching Ploys

There are many ways to psych out an opponent. How­ever, the underlying principle is that you want your opposi­tion to think that you are better than he is. You want him to doubt himself. In the process you will feel more confident in your own abilities. There are dozens of ways to psych out an opponent; below is a partial list:

• Talk to your opponent during the race. He will think you are fresh.

• Wear bright colors. Some believe that staring at day-gb socks is hypnotic and as long as they are staring at your feet, they aren’t passing you.

• Sunglasses. Modern sunglasses may make you look faster and more confident to your opponent.

• Name on back of jersey. If they saw you in front of them before, and you beat them, they will remember that name. They will then say to themselves, “I can’t beat him; he beat me last time.” Nicknames are especially memorable. My race jersey has GUMBY on the back. People also see your name and cheer you on personally.

• Shaved legs. Shaved skin makes the underlying muscles look more defined. This look may make your competitors think you are better than they.

• Silence. Say nothing. Have a look of seriousness about you. There is something scary about a lack of words. Just don’t be rude.

• Look serious. Focus your eyes straight ahead.

• Wet your hair. This will serve to make you look “cool” and keep you cool at the same time.

• Wear black. There is power in the color black. It is dominating, threatening. Just don’t wear it on a hot day.

• Clean racing flats. They look sharp and faster than dirty ones.

Some runners like to brag about their supposed per­sonal records at the beginning of a race. Never let them psych you out. Never do this yourself. This only gives someone the opportunity to prove you wrong. Besides nobody likes a conceited racer. Remember that it is advantageous to look like you are here for business, but be friendly. Runners are some of the nicest people in the world; treat them so. You probably have more in common with your opposition than you think.

Pain And How To Manage It

Truly peak performances are often characterized by a complete absence of pain, sound, or thought. Things just sort of happen and you look back and say, “I can’t believe I did that.” Unfortunately, most races aren’t like that. Pain is usually associated with high-level efforts.

It is crucial to associate with pain, to recognize it and assess it before we try to ignore it. For pain may be an indicator that you are pushing an anaerobic threshold and (depending on where you are in the race) may have only minutes or seconds left at your current pace.

The importance of evaluating your body’s pains is to determine whether the pain is a sign of pushing too hard or is simply a nuisance. Identifying with your body’s signals will allow you to run as fast as you can, without pushing to the point of collapse. When we begin to feel pain we should undergo a series of steps in dealing with it. Experienced runners may do this automatically or naturally. Less experi­enced runners may wish to follow these recommendations.

Pre-Pain Association

Pain is something that is often easily diverted from our Conscious mind and often we get too swept up in emotions to feel pain. A classic example of this is going out too fast the first mile of a marathon. This excessively fast mile is not difficult enough to channel the pain into our conscious mind, but it is fast enough to cause premature fatigue.

Should you attempt to run the first mile all-out, you can bet you’ll feel it. However, going out 30 to 60 seconds too fast is entirely possible without feeling a lick of pain. So the first essential part of associating with your body is to monitor your body’s signs of effort, without Using pain as an indica­tor, Your breathing, turnover rate, perceived speed, body heat, stride length and running form are all excellent tools of measurement

Pain Association

Once our emotions have settled down, pain is more easily identified. Once we feel pain, we should associate with it. Check your body, see how things are going. Does the pain Warrant Slowing down? Your own experience is the only real indicator of what action needs to be taken, if this pain is a sign that you are going too fast, perhaps you do need to slow down. If not, you’ll need to deal with it somehow. To do so you can use one or more of the many techniques that will follow in this section.

After you deal with the pain, and depending on the length of the race, you will need to come back and associate with your body again. You ought to make sure that you are running within limits that will allow you to finish at ideal speed. Perhaps you can check back in with your body every mile mark of a marathon or every lap mark of a 5,000-meter race.

If you can not shake the pain, it does not necessarily mean that you need to slow. Certainly, the pain down the final stretch of a half-mile race can be excruciating, but this does not mean you should decelerate. There are times when all the pain in the world does not mean it is time to slow. You must learn to accept that pain, or ignore it entirely. Once again, some of the strategies of pain management discussed in the next few pages will work.

What To Do When You Feel Pain

P (erception)—Perceive the pain

A (ssociation)—Associate with it. Analyze it.

I (ntervention)—Use a strategy to deal with it.

N (egation)—But now and then check back with it.

We now know that there are many times when it is crucial to examine perceived pain. We know that we must judge our pain as an indicator of how hard we are working. Should we determine that our level of pain does not signify impeding doom, we may choose to use a strategy to eliminate or reduce this pain, so as to prevent it from negatively influencing our mental state. The following techniques are helpful for just that.

Disassociation

Simply getting your mind off the pain is the art of disassociation. Whether you are thinking of your race strat­egy, form, or thinking about what to cook for dinner tonight, you are disassociating from the pain. You are simply shifting your attention.

The Black Box

This strategy, taken from Jerry Lynch’s The Total Runner, proves often to be effective in disassociating with pain. During a point in the race when you need to put pain aside, such as the third quarter of the race, or up a hill, you simply imagine pulling the pain out of your body. It looks like a ghost of you as it slowly comes out and brings you relief. Then crumble the pain up into a ball, compact it down, squash it. Take the pain in your right hand and with your left see yourself opening a small, black box. Now take the pain and shove it into the box. Tuck the corners in, and quickly close the lid so that none of the pain is sticking out. Then take a padlock and snap the lock shut. Now toss the box as far away as you can. The pain is now locked up permanently and will not interfere with your race again. Should it somehow creep out, though, lock it up again with a bigger lock.

Employing this strategy at the very minimum works to keep the pain away as long as it takes you to visualize it all. Because of this I recommend taking some time to complete the process. At best a technique like this may eliminate the feelings of pain from your conscious mind entirely.

The Envelope

Another version of the black box is to see yourself writing a letter (disassociation which takes away from the pain in itself) that says something like, “I will deal with the pain when I open the envelope.” Address the envelope to “The End of the Race.” Now see yourself pulling the pain out

Excitement

As previously mentioned, a natural and effective way of relieving our pain is to shift attention away from it. Just like when we have a mild earache all day long and rarely notice it until we lie down in bed and feel it throbbing. Our attention can be diverted away from pain.

The best diversion for the runner is that of excitement. A common reason for personal record races being achieved without feeling a lick of pain is that we grew so excited about the heady pace we were running and at the prospect of breaking our personal record or winning the race, that we simply became preoccupied and never noticed the pain.

This experience happens quite naturally, but can be somewhat artificially induced. How can you purposely ex­cite yourself in a race? Well, first you need to choose when to excite yourself, then you simply use visualization. As you race see yourself hammering your finishing kick, leaving the competition in the dust, smashing your personal record, or breaking a world record.

Click Back/Click Up

This is another method for disassociating with pain— a process we have touched upon before. When I teach it in a mental training session I describe it like this. “Think back to a peak race… a race when things just unfolded without effort. Remember the sensations of flying along, without effort. You felt as if you could run that pace forever. Now bring those feelings, those sensations to this race.”

Your emotional state is a powerful influence over your pain tolerance. By tapping into the memory stores from a previous peak performance we may be able to capitalize on serves as a form of disassociation.

Talk To It

“Well its you again?” “Don’t you get tired of trying to make me slow?” “You know it never works.” “Well, it was nice to see you again, but I can’t spend much time dealing with you now; I’m in the middle of a race, and, well, I must start running faster now.” “See you later.”

Blow It away

As the wind passes you, simply imagine the wind blowing the pain off you.

Magic Water

As you pass the water stop take some water, and as you drink it feel it soothe as it runs down into your body, killing the pain and revitalizing muscles. Pour some over your head and let it wash the heat and pain away. The water is like a powerful fuel and consuming it brings about an automatic increase in pace.

Exhale It

Take a deep breath and then exhale all the pain. Visu­alize the pain flowing out with your breath. This technique will also help you relax, which will bring about faster run­ning.

Run Away From It

Imagine your pain running beside your body, keeping stride with you. Now you decide that you are tired of this nuisance. You pick up the pace to one, which your pain shadow cannot hold. See yourself running away from the pain. “Goodbye, my friend; see you at the finish.” Now laugh as the pain is itself. . . in pain.