What am I doing wrong

Get it out of your head and do what you know you can.

Case solved.

malmo wrote:

Get it out of your head and do what you know you can.

Case solved.

That’s easy to say. How do I DO that is my question.

Running isn't linear. It's common to be stuck awhile and have a leap when it leaps.

Keep trying your best. Make sure to eat and sleep. Meditate your anxiety away. Going bonkers isn't going to help you.

Trust your training. It should show at some point.

Every race is different.

Just get to the starting line and do YOUR best for that day.

Don't worry about others.

If possible and allowed get you a very good private coach.

Give me examples of workouts you run and pace at easy runs and what latest race results you`ve done and I will tell you what`s wrong.

Are you fresh? You can't run more now to make up for anything.

If you were the #1 a few weeks ago, then you still have the fitness and speed to be the #1. You put in the mileage already. You don't need to put in big mileage now or try to make up fitness. Take a day or two off.

People run big PB's when they least expect it all the time (were sick the week before, didn't sleep well, had a minor injury, etc.)

Humans are a lot less fragile than we tend to think. Everything doesn't need to be perfect.

Maybe you need to cut back on training right now. Just do the minimum amounts and minimal intensity. For the next few weeks. Then bring fresh legs at your next meets. It'll do wonders.

You do it by not expecting someone else to solve a problem you have identified is self inflicted.

Your mistake in the summer was running too easy.

You're missing a block of medium effort running and varied paced fartleks before jumping into racing.

You go deeper into the well than the other two in the early meets, so your creatine phosphate levels get cooked.

You have two moves here, one ride the wave into the meet, essentially training through.

The other is to stick with the standard taper which is not working for you.

I would try option A.

Set yourself up for the biggest meets.

This next meet, go out slower, finish as number 3 with as little effort as needed.

You need a different sort of training to get back to 1 and move up in the state rankings.

Ignore your position in the team and just work on improving your own running.

Improvement often comes in phases rather than linear.

Lots of factors affect your performance. Some are determined genetically at birth and are outside your control. Other factors like running style and stride efficiency are somewhat in your control. Training is almost totally in control.

It might be that the other girls simply have gobs of natural talent, and they did not train during the summer, and now they are on a steeper part of their improvement curve.

I grew four inches as a junior and running was horrible all year. But then I kicked butt during my senior year. So, stick with it and focus on the things you can control. Tough times don't last. Tough people do.

Call your doctor and ask for get an iron test

FormerTree wrote:

Call your doctor and ask for get an iron test

What did you miss? This has already been eliminated as a problem.

I had some frustration with this my sophomore year. Then my coach talked to me about it after practice one day, and I'll tell you what he told me. When you train consistently year-round and put in the miles over the summer like you did, you're going to be in much better shape and run a lot faster because of it, but you're going to improve less throughout the season, and you're more likely to plateau and have less linear improvement throughout the season. You will however be consistently much faster than if you didn't do the year-round training and the summer miles.

Now the other frustrating part is the fact that people that worked less hard than you that you consistently beat by a comfortable amount earlier in the season are now running as fast as you or even beating you. That's what we call talent. Some people have a lot of talent, some only have a little. The fact that they didn't train as much (or at all) during the summer, means they're going to improve more consistently throughout the season than you will, but they would be a lot faster if they put in the summer miles like you did as well (in which case they probably would have just been consistently beating you all season).

You just have to have the emotional maturity (which I didn't at that age to be fair) to accept that some people are more talented than you. You focus on what you can control, not what you can't control. You can control what you do, not what they do. You have the work ethic and discipline, which will serve you well in life. Use those skills to hone yourself into the best athlete you can be, and if someone beats you that only runs 25 mpw, so be it. As long as you give the best effort of which you are capable, you should be proud of that.

That's much longer than I originally intended, but I hope it answers your question and offers some insight. Best of luck!

And to add, part of your problem is your focusing on outcomes, not the process. Focusing on outcomes often leads to failure. It's like the classic quote "perfect is the enemy of good." If you focus on the outcome, you're trying to be perfect, and in so doing you may stop yourself from even just being good. Instead, try to focus on process goals rather than outcome goals.

Outcome goals are things like running a certain time, getting a certain place in a meet, or beating certain people. Process goals are more like running not making your easy days too fast, getting good sleep each night, and going into races with the mindsight of giving it your best on the day then breaking down how that happens (good but not too fast 1st mile, good 2nd mile, strong 3rd mile and a good kick, and maybe some mid-race surges along the way).

Bound4Glory wrote:

It might be that the other girls simply have gobs of natural talent, and they did not train during the summer, and now they are on a steeper part of their improvement curve.

.

This is likely the case. Don't look at it from a stand point of the pecking order on your team. As long as you aren't slowing down, you're doing fine. If the other girls are getting faster, good for them, they're making your team stronger.

If you are slowing down, then it's time to re-assess what's going on and you've already gotten a number of good suggestions on here about how to do that.

What are the 2 teammates ahead of you doing differently than you? Are they running different mileage or different paces? When you race with them, do you go out faster than they do or vice versa? You don't need to do everything exactly the same as them, but just pay attention to the differences. If you think that a certain change will help you, try it (just don't increase your mileage too much too quickly, because if you do you'll get hurt), just don't try and change many things at once.

Also, in the postseason this happens sometimes. Especially if you've been #1 all season, you might just be tired. Sleep extra and start tapering (reducing mileage gradually). Honestly I hate tapering but it works really well. Also make sure you ice/stretch/roll out. Basically just start dropping your mileage and pay a lot of attention to recovery and your times will start getting better again.

Getting out of your own head is kind of complicated and I'm really bad at it. A different thing you could try is going over your race plan a lot. That way by the time you get to the race, you'll be sure you know what to do and don't have to think much about it.

Good luck, you've got it!

Hmm, those other girls big improvements sound suspicious. Maybe they are doping?

So, if you're looking for suggestions on how to get "out of your head", which is the question you actually asked, and nobody answered, here's what I used to do.

On the night before, or on the afternoon of every meet, I would lay in my bed for 45 minutes, eyes closed, and visualize the entire race. I put on headphones and blasted Judas Priest the whole time (it doesn't have to be Priest. Iron Maiden, or Metallica will do.) The key was to mentally run the entire race in my mind; especially the part where I usually give in to the hurt and reduce my effort. I felt if I did this a few times mentally, then in the real race, I'd be more likely to press through the pain and run closer to my potential.

Also, don't forget to visualize the part where a stadium filled with ten thousand people scream your name as you sprint past everyone in the final 100. That helps too.

Does anyone else do this?