“I’ve lived through some terrible things
in my life, some of which actually happened.”
Mark Twain
I’ve had a few conversations over the
last couple of weeks as people are coming out of winter training and are
building up for their spring marathons and starting to worry about the long
training runs that are planned.
I have to remind them that they are not
doing that run today, that run is in the future. We tend to focus on what’s going to happen
and link it to where we are now and not where we will be then. I find it helpful to get people to actually
think back to where they were when they started and how far they have
come. Some are new runners, looking to
do distances they’ve not done before, some are experienced athletes looking to
run a new personal best.
It doesn’t matter which you are, the
fear of not delivering what you are working for is the same. If we start worrying about what we ‘may not’
do then this is the image, the movie that we are giving our brain to work
on. The brain is not interested in
negatives and so thinks this is what you want and will do all it can to deliver
it!
What we need to do is visualise our
success, make that the movie that we play to ourselves. Keep that future movie with you during training,
let it put a smile on your face when you’re looking at the next part of your
training plan. Then let yourself just
think about the next training session, what do you want from that? How do you want to feel? What do you want to be saying to yourself to
make sure it’s a positive experience?
Friends of mine took part in a 17 mile
coastal run last weekend, in hail, high winds, having to scramble over parts of
the route… not what you might think as a perfect training run… BUT as tough as
it was it was a perfect mind training run.
The next run is unlikely to be that hard and however hard it gets
pulling on these memories, how they worked together, knowing that they did it
is what will make the difference – the mind can override the physical – can override
the F.E.A.R.
If you want to get the most out of your
training, you need to get your mind in it.
If you want to know more then you only have to ask!
“The only way to discover the limits of
the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.” Arthur C Clarke
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