Mentally Prepare to Meet Challenging Circumstances: Mental Attributes of Elite Runners #7/15

#7 — Mentally prepare to meet challenging circumstances.

Our thoughts, emotions, behaviors and how we interact with others exert a major influence on how we perform on race day.

Behavior is not a simple reflex response to each and every stimulus we encounter. In fact, our individual responses to situations and environments are unique. This makes human reactions unpredictable. I have a good sense of how I'll respond to something, but little clue how others will — I can only wager a guess at best. Part of the reason for this is the sway our belief system has over our interpretation of daily and performance situations.

Our belief system is an ingrained system cultivated over our lifetime, which interprets all incoming stimuli and then activates individual specific responses. Our belief system is strongly ingrained in us — but it is not fixed and subject to modification if we so desire. 

In her book, Mindset Dr. Carol Dweck makes the following point about changing mindset or belief:

“Mindset change is not about picking up a few pointers here and there. It's about seeing things in a new way. When people change to a growth mindset, they change from a judge-and-be-judged framework to a learn-and-help-learn framework. Their commitment is to growth, and growth take plenty of time, effort, and mutual support.”

The race day mindset of elite runners is different than non-elites. Studies conducted on the mental make-up of elite marathoners and non-elite marathons found that elites exhibited associative characteristics and positive self-talk during races. Non-elites tended towards dissociation and negative self-talk. 

The thoughts and focus of the elites were total absorbed in the race itself. Nothing else mattered. All that matter was the here and now. They concentrated only on maintaining their effort at the moment and had no projecting thoughts about any future miles.  

The thoughts of non-elites were everywhere but on the race itself, a symphony of distracting thoughts bounced around their minds about non-running matters. When non-elites did think about the race they were running, they were worried about if they could keep their current pace up for the last 10K.

Eliud Kipchoge's coach, Patrick Sang, sums up a runner’s race day performance potential like this:

“The most important is the mind; preparation can be amazing, but if they don't have a good mind for the race, you know, the preparation doesn't matter and they can run very poorly.”

Any questions? Direct Message me on twitter.

Thx. | jm