Your Marathon Training Is Done—Now Train Your Mind
Are you getting close to your big fall race? The one that you’ve had on the calendar for months, have woken up at 5:15 AM to stuff a piece of toast in your mouth for, have spent Saturday mornings running for 2-3 hours, have spent a small fortune on shoes, gels and electrolytes, and have said “mommy has a run tomorrow” as you put your kids to bed.
You’ve put in so much work, yet a voice tells you:
“Have I done enough?”
“How will I hold my goal pace for 26.2 (or 13.1) miles?”
“Will it be worth all the hard work & sacrifices?”
The answer isn’t in another workout or a flashy fast average pace for your long run. If you’re racing in the next 2-3 weeks; the physical work has been done. All that’s left is following your taper plan & making sure your mind is on board.
Why Your Race-Day Mindset Matters
As a coach, when I help an athlete prepare for a big race, or when I help a woman lose weight, the mental side is just as important as the physical side. We may know what to do but whether we actually do it has more to do with our mindset than the plan itself.
A large part of my role as a coach is understanding my athlete’s mindset and a lot of this is through consistent communication – I ask athletes to leave comments on every long run and speed workout. When I review the run, I read their comments, along with the miles, paces, heart rate, temperature, etc and it gives me a picture of not just the physical side, but the mental side. On the weekly Run Fuel check in form, I ask about both wins and struggles – and take it a step further to ask “How can you improve or learn from this struggle?” When I notice trends across comments or feedback, I reach out for a further conversation.
How Mindset Can Affect Your Race Performance
See this in play with Allison, who set a half-marathon PR during marathon training last weekend. This was all mental – I gave her the push to go out a bit harder than she usually does and see what happens. I knew she had the fitness, but also knew she might be conservative because she already hit her sub 1:40 goal in the spring.
3 Ways to Mentally Prepare for Your Marathon or Half Marathon
Whether I am your coach or not, I want to share 3 ways you can mentally prepare for your race so that you not only believe it’s possible to hit your goal, but you stay mentally strong during the race so you actually hit it (or at the very least feel proud of your effort the entire time!).
- Listen or read to a mindset/mental performance book – my two favorites are Deena Kastor’s “Let Your Mind Run” (a memoir of an Olympian with insights) and “Courage over Confidence” (written by a performance psychologist).
- Review your training in detail -write down all your long run distances, the highest mileage weeks, look at the details of the hardest speed workouts including paces and distances, journal about the biggest wins, hardest things you overcame and ways you grew (think about even little things like – more core work, stronger mentally, more consistent, better fueling, more sleep, etc). Celebrate ALL the wins and remind your brain that YES, you did A LOT of work. Everyone misses a few runs, and it’s common for most people to miss or modify at least one big long run too. When you write all of this down, you’ll see how far you’ve come.
- Listen to podcasts addressing the mental side of racing – this recent one is great from Running Rogue Podcast: Facing 7 Common Pre-Race Doubts.
How Mental Preparation Can Help on Race Day
At the end of the day, there’s no guarantee you’ll hit your goal on race day. But if you do the mindset work, you will have a better experience – you’ll be less anxious before the race (some nerves are normal!), you’ll be able to handle setbacks during the race better, and at the end, you’ll feel more proud of how you raced.
Don’t skip this part.
I am rooting for you!
Happy running,
Nicole Dobransky
PS My 1:1 run coaching athlete roster is full now but I will be opening spots up in mid October, after the Chicago marathon.
You must be logged in to post a comment.