Head Games

I put up a blog post on my race at Grandma's Marathon but didn't spend much time on what to me was one of the most intriguing aspects of the race, which was my mentality during training and during the actual race. This is the first race where I tried mental preparation before the race, and also paid attention to managing the mental aspect of running while I was racing. This will almost be like another race recap, but not focusing on the race as much as my mental state during the race. By writing this stuff down I'll have this post to look back on as mental prep for the next challenge I take on, to remind myself of the benefits of having the right mindset for training and racing.

This year I made a couple commitments to marathon training that set me up for the high mileage I put in through April and May. The first was running through the winter. Some of these terribly cold runs made good mental fuel for hard workouts in the spring. The second was running consistently. This meant running when it was windy, raining, snowing, or sometimes all three at the same time. These sacrifices gave me motivation to train hard on hard days and to race hard on race day. Running in miserable weather meant I had no excuses to not run when the weather was nice. I also set a race goal, committed to it, and announced it so my success or failure would be evident.

Wintery Mix, good for mental toughness!

Nichole has been a great fan of Dr. Asp, and she has worked with him for her last several marathons to help with mental preparation. He has a somewhat generic marathon training program Nichole used for her first marathon that she sent out to her athletes to try. The program mentally walks through races, hard workouts, all the buildup to the race, all the work done in preparation. It has you picture the day before the race and the morning of the race so when race day approaches it is easier to stay calm and relaxed. Then it walks through the race itself, staying relaxed, "almost holding back" in the early race, dealing with the pain and using it as information as the race goes on, and working hard, fully committing as the end of the race draws near. My favorite quote from the program is "full effort is full victory."

The race went well for me, but how well did I follow my plan? Was the good race just a result of a lot of training, or were there other factors? Well, I can tell you the mental focus was a defininite factor in racing as well as I did. I did my best yet at holding back at the start, running easy and letting a lot of runners get away as the race spread out. Things didn't stay rosy for long though.

I took my first gel and my stomach wasn't happy with it at all. I began to worry that I would have trouble getting calories during the race. My shoe came untied and I lost the friend I was running with. These small upsets and the effort level I was holding were enough that I considered dialing back my goals and settling for just a PR race. Mentally the race started to seem like a lot more work and motivation just wasn't there until after mile 10. By mile 13 I knew I something had to change. I came through over 1:20, not on pace to meet my goal. I decided I had worked too hard to just coast in, months of training, passing up other racing opportunities for this goal, so I committed to running through mile 15 at a faster pace. Nichole really stresses that there are no negative thoughts allowed while racing, so I just refocused on what race was still left to run.

By mile 15 my attitude was starting to turn around. There was an interesting study a while back describing how marathon finishing times look somewhat like a bell curve, but with distinct peaks at arbitrary time intervals, 2:30, 2:40, 3:00, 4:00 ect. This has been attributed to runners pushing themselves harder when that next time cutoff looms closer. I was determined to use those statistics in my favor, knowing I could push myself to make it under that 2:40 mark. I resolved to stay under pace until mile 20 so I would be ahead of pace for a slowdown late in the race.

Distribution of Marathon Finishing Times

After mile 20 I tried to take things one mile at a time, or one person at a time. I was using every mental trick I could think of to not give in to the building fatigue and slow down. I reminded myself it was only 10k to go, that almost every run I had done since March has been longer than 10k. I looked at the glittery nail polish on my fingers and reminded myself that I had a team out there running, of all those training miles where they looked up to me to always be the one on pace, to make running look easy. I worked off the runners around me, making up reasons why I should be going faster than them. When my mile 21 split was a fast I used that surge of adrenaline and excitement to lock in at that faster pace.

From mile 23 on things just really hurt, so I tried very hard to shut out signals from my body. Only 5k to go, but miles seemed to take forever. I reminded myself that it wouldn't hurt less if I slowed down. I remembered how much some of those tempo workouts hurt, and how I responded then. Erik was cheering, urging me to keep up the pace, keep passing other runners. For the last 20 minutes my focus never moved further than about a 10 meter sphere around me. When I finally got to the part of the course we had run on the day before I was so relieved because I could wrap my head around what was left. After that it was just pushing through to the finish.

A runner has a lot of mental tricks they can bring to bear when racing (or training) get tough, and I had to use just about all the ones I knew. Going into the race calm and prepared was key for going out in control and conserving energy. Using the energy of the people cheering for me helped me dig out of a couple low points. Using other runners as goals, to stick with or pass, helped me keep my pace where I wanted it. Pushing out negative thoughts let me focus on the race ahead of me. Breaking the race into reasonable chunks helped keep my mind from wandering. Being prepared to hurt to chase a goal is the reason I stuck out the last miles.

I think my increased training and the ideal race day weather would have been enough for me to easily get a PR even without a great race. The mental preparation is the edge that let me set an aggressive goal for the race and actually achieve it.

I have been sitting on this post for a while, not sure if I really wanted to put it up. It was interesting for me to write, but don't know that it will be that enjoyable for anyone else to read. I have had a pretty quiet week last week though, and in the interest of putting up blog posts on a somewhat regular schedule I decided to post it. This Friday is the TNC invitational mile, and Saturday I talked myself into signing up for a 10 mile in Stillwater (even though I still haven't gotten my prize from the last race I ran there) so I should have more interesting things to post about.