Going Longer Part 4: Embrace the Mental Game

The longer you go, the more critical your need to embrace your mental game. Having your goals laid out and your self-talk dialed in will not just help you have a faster time, they may make or break your ability to finish a race of novel distance.

When you train or race for several hours or more, you have no choice but to keep yourself company in your mind. You can be the negative, energy-sucking training partner, or you can be the helpful, rational training partner. The time you spend, or not, refining your mental game will decide who shows up in your head on race day.

Just about anyone can get through a sprint- or international-distance race with the negative training partner chatting in their head, but it takes a mentally trained athlete to dial that self-talk to positive or rational for 5, 7, or 15 hours. Dial in your mental game, and you’ll be assured to embrace an effective mental companion come race day.

One of my clients, Jill, decided to run her first 50K trail race and she summarized her experience with the following observations: “The mental capacity needed to complete this type of endurance event is monumental. The conversations you have with yourself are fascinating, from all perspectives: ‘This is great.’ ‘Now it isn't.’ ‘That hurts.’ ‘Now it doesn't.’ ‘Can I finish?’ ‘I can do this!’ ‘Look at that, how beautiful.’ ‘Did I really sign up for this?’ ‘Paid for this, no less.’ ‘I'm so lucky to be out here.’ ‘I could be sitting in an office staring at a computer.’

“It's very easy to think ‘I could be done right about now.’ The funny thing is…there's no where to go but forward. So…you go. And go, and go some more. In the end, the reward is beyond measure. Sure the medal and t-shirt are cool, but the sense of accomplishment is quite unexpected. You relive each segment of the race and begin to remember the smallest details about the foliage, the terrain, the people, the snacks, the weather, the sounds, and the feeling. You then realize what you just did and smile.”

Embracing your mental game will offer you the possibility of walking away from all events with a strong sense of personal satisfaction. Ignore your mental game, and a bad day on the roads can turn into what my adventure racing teammate so aptly observes, “A whole lotta pain and suffering.”