mental aspect

Screw this go out slow stuff, the kids problem isn’t with pacing it’s with bearing the pain.

Tell the kid to go out HARD(maybe pb-30 second pace), and run HARD for as long as he can. His finishing place doesn’t matter. His goal for the race is solely to see how long he can hold that impossible pace. When he feels like stopping, he is to try and hold for another 30 seconds, then try to hold on for another 20 seconds, and so on until he either finishes or blows up completely.

The only acceptable ways for him to finish is walking or with a huge PB.

Free_the_thigh wrote:

Screw this go out slow stuff, the kids problem isn’t with pacing it’s with bearing the pain.

Tell the kid to go out HARD(maybe pb-30 second pace), and run HARD for as long as he can. His finishing place doesn’t matter. His goal for the race is solely to see how long he can hold that impossible pace. When he feels like stopping, he is to try and hold for another 30 seconds, then try to hold on for another 20 seconds, and so on until he either finishes or blows up completely.

The only acceptable ways for him to finish is walking or with a huge PB.

That was his strategy that was causing the problems.

They raced again last night. The plan was for the top three to run at least the first half side by side and lift each other up instead of making it an individual effort. All three finished in the top ten of a race with about 150 runners. He said he felt great, and more confident. Was actually smiling after the race. Maybe he has turned a corner.

Time will tell. Good luck!

Raced again last night. Kid finished 7th in a field over 100 runners. He was disappointed in his time, instead of happy with his placement in the field.

Over my head? wrote:

Raced again last night. Kid finished 7th in a field over 100 runners. He was disappointed in his time, instead of happy with his placement in the field.

Since this seems to be a mental thing, I'd ask, "What did you learn from this race?" Whatever he says, just acknowledge him and say something like, okay, think about it a bit more and I'll ask you the same question tomorrow, okay? The reason I would string it out is that, in my experience, teenage boys can be mind-numbingly clueless unless they are really forced to think about something.

I would be very interested to know what's going on in his head, if anything, before and during the race. Negative self-talk can sabotage performance. Maybe you can glean something useful from the question.

fisky wrote:

Over my head? wrote:

Raced again last night. Kid finished 7th in a field over 100 runners. He was disappointed in his time, instead of happy with his placement in the field.

Since this seems to be a mental thing, I'd ask, "What did you learn from this race?" Whatever he says, just acknowledge him and say something like, okay, think about it a bit more and I'll ask you the same question tomorrow, okay? The reason I would string it out is that, in my experience, teenage boys can be mind-numbingly clueless unless they are really forced to think about something.

I would be very interested to know what's going on in his head, if anything, before and during the race. Negative self-talk can sabotage performance. Maybe you can glean something useful from the question.

Thanks. I have every runner text me his thoughts about the race within 24 hours. After every one of them, I ask, "what did you learn today about racing?" It seemed to help him last year, but this year, he has regressed. When I ask him what he is saying in his head, he says it is not what he is thinking, but that when he hears the crowds in the last half mile, he gets physically sick and wants to throw up. I was polar opposite when I ran, getting a lift from the crowds.

After the season ended, the kid was improving throughout the year, and set a massive PR at the end of the year. He was still disappointed in his performance. I have concluded that some people just are their own worst critic and own worst enemy at the same time. Everyone except for him was ecstatic over his career results.