Hanging tough in the long run
How do you keep from losing it mentally at the end of a long run?
I was out running with a buddy in the woods a couple weekends back. We did a couple hours in the trails. As is always the case we talked a lot. Running is the great lubricator of loquaciousness. When I run I start to remember all the things that I have thought about, read and interacted with during the week and we have great conversations.
At one point my friend asked me ‘How do you keep your head in the race when you get to that spot after 18 miles? When it all starts to go south and when your ego flees the premises and leaves you without hope?’
I’m paraphrasing of course, but at first I just thought he was making conversation, but then realized that for many marathoners this is a critical issue. You do the training. You prepare for the race. The first 18 – 20 miles goes as planned and then something happens. It’s more than just a physical wall. It is a mental breakdown, or at least that’s what we suspect it is.
I could tell it bothered him. I think it’s because we can accept the fact that we were under-trained or unfit and the race spanked us because of it. But what the ego struggles with is maybe we were more than just physically weak. Maybe we were psychologically weak. And any potential weakness of character bothers us more than a hundred physical bonks.
We wonder if we couldn’t have been tougher? If we couldn’t have bared down and gutted it out to save that race? Maybe we are physically strong but mentally weak? As that scares us.
The question is how can we prepare? What can we do to be ready when the test comes? How do we overcome this physical and mental power failure late in the race? It’s a universal question, especially for newer marathoners.
Those of us who have run many marathons over many decades don’t get wrapped up in it so much because we have worked through the process by trial and error.
A runners and marathoners we have heard countless conversations of how to train and race to avoid ‘hitting the wall’, but we have had less conversation about how to prepare mentally for the test when it comes.
Avoidance and denial are bad strategies.
Expect it to happen. Don’t go into the race without a strategy to deal with the mental challenges that will come.
When I go into a marathon, no matter how well I’ve trained, I know that at some point in the race it’s going to get hard. I know this because I’ve been there many times. It’s going to get physically hard and mentally hard.
I have strategies to deal with both the mental and physical challenges.
Be prepared
Similar to physical training you can address the mental aspects in training as well. Condition your mind to expect the challenge.
- Practice it in training.
You can prepare for mental and physical let down moments by designing workouts that simulate the challenge. One of the best for this is a long step up run or a long fast-finish run. The point is that you can construct a workout where you run to exhaustion and then push it hard. The more you can spend practice time in that ‘discomfort’ zone the better you will be able to deal with challenges in a race.
- Visualize.
Do you know what success looks like? Visualize the finishing line with the clock with the time you want. Picture yourself striding strong up Heartbreak Hill. Use visuals that promote the mentality that you want to have when it gets hard. I used to bring up news footage, in my head of Bill Rogers finishing Boston, or Joan Benoit entering the stadium in Las Angeles or Rosa Mota. That light, fast easy stride of champions. Think about it as you are training. Visualize that.
- Be in the moment.
One of the words that I don’t use is ‘overwhelmed’, because that’s a choice. The situation is what it is at the end of a race, but how you deal with it is up to you. Don’t let yourself be overwhelmed.
One of the best ways to take the enormity out of the emotions in a race is to focus on the here and now. The finish line may be 5 miles away but there is nothing you can do about that. You can only affect the here and now. Be present in your body. Reset your focus to the next telephone pole.
Step one is to take a big breath and relax and be in the moment.
Step two is to do a detailed self assessment. How’s your energy? How’s your strength? How’s your form? How’s your hydration? Can you think clearly? When you go through the self assessment you’ll typically find that things aren’t as bad as you thought and you can make some minor adjustments. Don’t panic. There have been plenty of times I’ll have some strange cramp or pain that will go away as fast as it came on for no apparent reason.
Step three is to fix your form. Head up. Hips forward. Shoulders up. Stride light and easy. Hands high and light. Relax. Smile. This isn’t brain surgery.
You can deploy meditation techniques here as well to calm yourself. Repeat a calming mantra to yourself. Focus on the words. Watch them scroll across the inside of your head. Calm your heart and your breathing. Relax. Clear your mind. Get your big brain out of the way and let your body run.
- Practice reprogramming your triggers.
You know that the mental let down is coming. Make a decision before the race starts how you are going to react to it. I’ll make pacts with myself, like “no matter what happens I’m leaving it all out there!” But, more specifically, when I feel panicky and my mind starts to go negative I am going to recognize that trigger and replace the bad reaction with a pre-programmed good reaction.
Then when you are in the race and the trigger appears you can move it up into your big brain and decide to react in a positive way that keeps your mind in the game.
- Distraction techniques
At some point you may be in pain and you may want to stop thinking about it. There are mental tricks you can use. Counting is a great way to engage your mind so it will stop focusing on the pain and exhaustion. You can count to 100 or you can count backwards from ten. It doesn’t matter you’re just trying to distract your brain.
Some people will sing or repeat a distracting phrase like ‘I think I can’. Some people will think about their kids. It’s a good idea to have multiple distraction strategies that you can deploy and to practice them on your long training runs.
- Transcending the physical
There are yogis that can lie on a bed of nails and walk on hot coals. In the same way you can use the effort and pain of a long race to transcend the moment.
What do I mean by transcend? I mean that you can get to the point where your conscious mind can move outside the physical discomfort. There have been events where it is an out of body experience for me. I am not in my body anymore. I am outside the window looking in.
This only achieved if you can survive the first few waves of exhaustion. I can visualize myself riding on a magic carpet being pulled along. I’m not running. When I look down there are legs there that are running, but they are not my legs.
This is an advanced state of relaxation that is amazing if you can get there. Instead of being in pain and fighting the run you transcend it and you will find another zone and sometimes another gear. It’s a blissful state if you can find it.
Finishing up
Don’t be depressed if you have mental or physical breakdowns in a race. We all do. But take the opportunity to proactively strategize how to overcome these breakdowns. Take the time in your training to practice and see what works for you.
Experienced endurance athletes know that there will be times in every race when we are challenged. There will be times when it is hard. We expect it to happen. As we get more and more experience we can see where these challenges occur and how they impact us mentally.
Expect these challenges to happen. They are part of the joy of endurance sports.