How Do you Stay Mentally Tough in a Race?

FINALLY a poster who's honest enough to admit that he's full of sh*t.

make sure you stay relaxed during the race, don't tense up

when ever you feel tired, just think about how good it will feel when you win. Don't back down, it will feel worse once you give up

when you do hard workouts at practice, it gets you tough for the actual race

run hard, fast, and to win, forget about the pain

you stay mentally tough in a race but having put in the right physical training in practice. "Train hard, Win Easy", the Kenyan way.

Heard through the grapevine wrote:

I think there might still be 1 or 2 sports cliches in existence that haven't been posted in this thread yet.

I know cliches piss me off

When you race, imagine there is just one thing: your opponent's back. Whoever is in front of you, just focus on their singlet. Bring them closer, then concentrate on destroying your opponent. Think about it in those terms. If he slows down when you're right off his shoulder and practically breathing in his ear (not too hard, he must think you're fitter than he is), then focus on the guy in front of him, do the same thing to him, and so on.

I never understood the appeal of middle-distance events over 5ks and 10ks as in those shorter events you get less time to really get to know and then defeat your opponents. Winning in a strictly positive sense is nice, but running everyone else into the ground for half an hour is more satisfying. In middle distance you spend about 2-5 minutes or whatever trying to get slightly better positioning without having to make huge energy-sapping surges (if you're doing this you shouldn't have trouble focusing as you're constantly thinking, "I'll get f***ed if X happens, I must get around this guy.")

Everyone's well-conditioned, but you can be smarter than everyone by not taking the lead unless everyone else is being a pussy, or it's the last third or so of the race and you feel you need to kill them off before the final quarter, 200m, or 50m or whatever. If you're smart, and you're making many well-reasoned split-second decisions you will beat people who would otherwise beat you. You are in control, and you will succeed if you decide to. If you continue to make these well-reasoned decisions throughout the race, you will not lose focus.

If you cannot make those decisions, then track and sport in general is not your thing and you belong elsewhere as you are wasting your time.

It's important to remember that fighting fatigue is the essense of the sport. Cross country is really a very raw and brutal form of distance running. All runners who are even half way committed are suffering in a cross country race. The champions are the people who can best carry the burden and run through fatigue.

I agree that tough training will make you tough, and prepare you for lactate build-up and oxygen debt. But in the end you just ask yourself what you are willing to do to win, and remember that your job is to accept that there are no shortcuts.

do you ever feel that your mind has overdone what you were actually destined to accomplish?? i mean, do you ever feel like your mentallity is superior to any and all of your opponents and therefore that is why you beat them in a race?

im not going to go into the depths about the psychological requirements that are needed (physiologically) to run times such as 159, 427, etc... but the ratio of mental prowess compared to actually physical training involved in catastrophic. the old saying "nobody can coach is desire" is very true, and i believe i am walking proof of that.

in other words, do you believe in fate and that it was actually someone else's turn for victory; but you overcome the odds of fate because you were that mentally tough?

i am often left with the feeling that it just wasnt meant to be, but yet i still come out on top and believe that i just pushed the limits more than anyone else. obviously, mentallity effects physicallity. anything done physically is FIRST done mentally and a mental picture should be accumulated in order to achieve that feat.

this is a very odd feeling that i get, but i guess its only natural once you have grown to love a certain sport so much; or should i say grown to love anything/anyone so much. the endorphins that i have developed over the many years in this sport have created something more than words can describe, a word much stronger than passion; a word whos meaning is my entire physiological being and everything within it. its like me and running are 1 of a kind, 2 separate nouns combined together by likeness over the many years to form 1 unique friendship.

back to my original statement, i sometimes feel that it was my destiny to only be a much slower mile runner. i believe that with my own mentallity i broke 427 and prooved destiny wrong, because thats how hard it was to do. the mind is very beautifull and its amazing the things that it can do with the right ammount of desire, therefore im a firm believer in mind > matter, mentallity > physicallity.

dont ever let them tell you that you cant do it.

only you can control your mind.

Count how many seconds the guy in front of you is, and then pick up the pace for a minute, and then count the seconds again. If you are closing in, you'll likely keep up the increased pace.

Timdog wrote:

If it's on the track, just try to focus on one lap at a time. Don't even think about the next laps.

I remember Lance Armstrong said something like "Just keep telling yourself to hang on, hang on for this next minute, keep hanging, and then when yoiu near the finish, you realize you can still sprint past."

For XC, just tell yourself to hang with the leaders till this or that point, then tell yourself to hang on till the next point, then the next until eventually, you'll be near the finish and then tell yourself "time to destroy these guys" and blow by them. Thinking about the whole race takes too much mental energy and if you just focus on each section as they come, you can race better.

Just run within yourself man. That's all I can tell you.

Flagpole wrote:

I've never understood this kind of question. Either you have the burning desire to destroy the other runners in the race or you don't. I'm not sure you can trick yourself to feel this way. Either you are an intensely competitive person or you aren't. If you have the training and the physical gifts to be able to compete for the win and the competitive spirit to go along with that, then you just may win more than you lose. The way you fight through the pain is to either train yourself to run at that pace without pain or go out more slowly. Severe pain isn't associated with all good races.

Right...not.

More often than not, most people will find themselves in positions whre they can't win. Staying mentally tough has little to do with winning 90% of the time.

It's an excellent question of the original poster. One should always aim to improve themselves, perhaps with the goal of being the best, but the righ now focus on winning is of little help to most. Most racers are going for prs, something that's not as visible as beating everyone around them. People have to improve to get to the point where they can just focus on winning and that's all they need to stay focused.

For many it's getting to that point that is the struggle, and staying mentally tough in a race where you know you'll finish in 10th, or even 20th place is a different battle. Having people pass you and still trying to do your best is a different battle. Running within yourself to do your best, how you do that is a good question when everyone else is beating the heck of out you. One has to focus on themselves first and foremost, and not worry about how fast everyone else is running. Work on getting yourself better, and the rest will come.

run hard, you'll thank me

the underlying issue is DOUBT.

everybody manages it differently. Some break the task into smaller parts, "...one more lap". Some focus on the opponent, "..just catch that guy". Some on their own efforts, "...pick it up for this turn".

Everybody faces it - even the best. The main fear is, "if I feel like this NOW, how will I feel at the end of the race?!"

Plan on having doubts, so you can be prepared when they occur. Don't lie to yourself and, "be tough" etc. thats just denial, and usually results in more guilt if you can't keep going.

the pain won't last as long as the defeat you will feel after you lose

Fear of/or embarrassment of losing. "can't" is the worst four-lettered word in our vocabulary!

can't= CAN AND NOT TRYING!

Paula Radcliffe says she'll just count to 100 when she feels crappy to clear out her mind and get herself back together.