Hey guys,
So i had a question about racing mentality, I usually do like mile/2mile and I seem to get rly lost mentally during the race. Got any tips on what to think abt during a race? ~Almost~ Everything is appreciated.
Thanks
Hey guys,
So i had a question about racing mentality, I usually do like mile/2mile and I seem to get rly lost mentally during the race. Got any tips on what to think abt during a race? ~Almost~ Everything is appreciated.
Thanks
hate. pure hate and nothing else.
I prefer to, what I call, "race dumb." I don't think of anything at all. Not literally, of course, but I just don't think of anything. I don't day dream, I don't calculate splits, I sort of just acknowledge how my body feels.
I find that the more I do this, the better I often do.
Hey, Concerned Carl here.
For me, I find that reciting the words of a novel, poem, or song during a race that you find particularly compelling can often lead to big PRs. I'll include below the first chapter of what I say to myself during my races, Immanuel Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." It is quite a long book, but with my superior intellect I've managed to memorize all 879 pages. I tend to run ultra marathons so there is plenty of time for me. For your 3200 meter race perhaps an abridged version of the work would suit you better.
"Experience is without doubt the first product that our understanding
brings forth as it works on the raw material of sensible sensations. It is
for this very reason the first teaching, and in its progress it is so inexhaustible
in new instruction that the chain of life in all future generations
will never have any lack of new information that can be gathered
on this terrain. Nevertheless it is far from the only field to which our
understanding can be restricted. It tells us, to be sure, what is, but never
that it must necessarily be thus and not otherwise.c For that very reason
it gives us no true universality, and reason, which is so desirous of this
kind of cognitions, is more stimulated than satisfied by it. Now such
universal cognitions, which at the same time have the character of inner
necessity, must be clear and certain for themselves, independently of experience;hence one calls them a priori cognitions: whereas that which
is merely borrowed from experience is, as it is put, cognized only a posteriori,
or empirically) Now what is especially remarkable is that even among our experiences
cognitions are mixed in that must have their origin a priori and
that perhaps serve only to establish connection among our representations
of the senses. For if one removes from our experiences everything
that belongs to the senses, there still remain certain original
concepts and the judgments generated from them, which must have
arisen entirely a priori, independently of experience, because they
make one able to say more about the objects that appear to the senses
than mere experience would teach, or at least make one believe that
one can say this, and make assertions contain true universality and
strict necessity, the likes of which merely empirical cognition can
never afford.
But what says still more is this, that certain cognitions even abanAdon the field of all possible experiences, and seem to expand the domain
of our judgments beyond all bounds of experience through
concepts to which no corresponding object at all can be given in
expenence.
And precisely in these latter cognitions, which go beyond the world
of the senses, where experience can give neither guidance nor correction,
lie the investigations of our reason that we hold to be far more
preeminent in their importance and sublime in their final aim than
everything that the understanding can learn in the field of appearances,
and on which we would rather venture everything, even at the risk of
erring, than give up such important investigations because of any sort
of reservation or from contempt and indifference. a
Now it may seem natural that as soon as one has abandoned the terrain
of experience, one would not immediately erect an edifice with
cognitions that one possesses without knowing whence, and on the
credit of principles whose origin one does not know, without having
first assured oneself of its foundation through careful investigations,
thus that one would have long since raised the question how the understanding
could come to all these cognitions a priori and what do
main, validity, and value they might have. And in fact nothing is more
natural, if one understands by this word that which properly and
reasonably ought to happen; but if one understands by it that which
usually happens, then conversely nothing is more natural and comprehensible
than that this investigation should long have been neglected.
For one part of these cognitions, the mathematical, has long been reliable,
and thereby gives rise to a favorable expectation about others
as well, although these may be of an entirely different nature.
It continues for another 800 pages or so, but I'll let you enjoy those later!
Hope this helped!
Hey Carl,
I know that you are concerned, but I am trying to learn and be the best that I possibly can, so can you please try to take this seriously? It would be appreciated!
Thanks,
TroubledRunner56
TroubledRunner56 wrote:
Hey guys,
So i had a question about racing mentality, I usually do like mile/2mile and I seem to get rly lost mentally during the race. Got any tips on what to think abt during a race? ~Almost~ Everything is appreciated.
Thanks
You should be thinking about the person in front of you and how to close the gap, unless you're in the lead pack. In that case, you should be thinking about when you're going to kick and what position you need to be in to make that happen.
TroubledRunner56 wrote:
Hey Carl,
I know that you are concerned, but I am trying to learn and be the best that I possibly can, so can you please try to take this seriously? It would be appreciated!
Thanks,
TroubledRunner56
If you wanted to be taken completely seriously, you came to the wrong site buddy
How do you approach life?
Do you enjoy your math classes? Do you like to analyze strategy, 200m splits in your races, and XC winning scores? Then maybe take a highly cognitive approach to racing, too. Figure out the right paces ahead of time and sketch out a couple possible strategies. How will you react if someone goes out too fast? How will you react if you won't? If this sounds like a fun time, then you should spend your time in races thinking about the race. We're only talking like 5-10 minutes here.
Or maybe math isn't your thing. If you're not much of an analyst, then a highly cognitive approach may not be the best. Latch on to the pack and turn your brain off until the last 1-2 laps, depending on the race. Let everyone else do the hard work of setting the pace. With 200-800m to go, look around, see what you have to do, and do it. The less thinking the better.