Mentally Challenging

For me, it's not being mentally drained afterwards... but having to dig deep mentally and to stay positive no matter what is happening DURING the race.

I truly believe that a person's memory of their race experience is directly related to their attitude towards the physical challenge on the course.

If I sit down and look at my HIM and IM... neither race was spectacular performance wise... but during the race I had a great attitude and stayed positive... so my memory of both is great. I enjoyed both race throughly, even though each one presented it's own physical challenge (aka: I didn't get to run any of the marathon at my IM thanks to my Achilles started to hurt on the bike).

Sure, I was hurting... I got down at one point at my IM... I had 13 miles and a good 3.5 hours left on the course. It seemed daunting. But I just started saying aloud, "stay positive". Turned my head right around.

It's all about attitude. It really is. Mental training is means that before you go to that race, you tell yourself that no matter what happens... you will stay positive and keep a good attitude. NO MATTER WHAT.

In both my races, when things got hard I also reminded myself that I was actually DOING it. I was DOING a HIM... I was DOING an IM. Me. Little 'ol me. I would smile and remind myself how lucky I was just to be there.

What I tell my athletes is that it is important to train your mind as it is to train your body. This is effectuated by getting them to really push through flat spots in their training day. For example, if they are not hitting their intervals or pace on long bike or run, they continue to stay in the "game" and push push push their minds. This is also the reason I am a huge advocate for not training with music because it separates the mind/body connection and you are listening to the music rather than your body or the fighting voices in your head.

As long as there is not any physical ailment occurring during training or other physiological reason to stop training that day, it is imperative you continue and work your mind out.

I can give you 2 very good examples that I personally experienced that I used to workout my mind.

1) My training called for a 7hr ride on sat and a 5hr ride the following day. 7hr ride went fine until about 2 hrs left when my arse started hurting...bad. Turned out after the ride I found two quarter sized bloody lesions on my arse right at the point of my sit bones...ouch. Well, the next day I had to ride 5hrs on those bloody things (no pun intended, ha ha ha) and the pain was so EXCRUCIATING that it gave me migraine headaches and made my eyes water...just sheer PAIN. But I did not stop cycling because I knew I wouldn't tear a muscle or break a bone, etc. There has been nothing to this day that has been that painful.

2) 2007 chicago marathon was a death march and they closed the course and shut down the race about 15-20 minutes behind me. it was HOT HOT HOT and I was hurting BAD BAD BAD. Miss Kelly was so nice and ran the last 6 miles with me and she can attest to the fact that I was have a bad day...but I did NOT stop running and turned that day into a mental workout. I ran that race and put more energy into not stopping running to get a mental workout that it was harder than any IM I've done and even was harder than the multiple 24-hour adventure races I did. To this day nothing has been more challenging than the effort my mind made my body do that day.

These type of experiences begin to just scrape the surface of how much our mind can really control our bodies and allow us to do things we never thought was physically possible.

x2. x100. I'm working on this right now. I will NOT go quietly into that good wheelchair. And that means that even when my willpower has entirely failed me and I just downed an entire snack bag of Fritos, I still get my sorry arse off the couch and go for a run. Just because I failed once tonight does NOT give me permission to fail again.

Another major concept that I try (and usually succeed admirably) to hold onto is how freakin' good it feels to finish a workout. I can get through a lot of Idontwannas by remembering how awesome the conquering feeling is at the end.

for me, the training is the mental preperation.

i train enough so that when race day rolls around, i dont have to think about what to do next, or worry about what i may or may not be able to do, i simply have to push play.


i think if you have a training plan that you are following, and assuming your training is reflective of your abilities and goals, then you should have very little mental issues on race day,

sure there will be parts where you hate your life, but there will also be times when everything is going perfectly according to plan. you need to ride the highs and try to minimize the lows.