Every Saturday morning when I gather to meet my pace group, I always try to have a different topic to talk about. We have returning and new runners, and being that I’m very new to being a head mentor for my group, it’s important for me to offer some helpful guidance. Some that is not just helpful to others, but for myself as well.
This is what happened to me this past weekend.
Early, and I mean early, Saturday morning, I met up with some friends for a pre-dawn run at 5:30AM. Now considering I usually run at 4AM during the week, you’d think running at 5:30AM would be so much easier. No. It’s just as tough, but there’s something about telling someone you’ll be there, and you’ll be there. But the best part of running that early is catching the sunrise that turned the clouds into orangy-pink cotton candy. It was absolutely beautiful.
The route we took is a familiar one, but with a nice little change to it towards the end. Let’s just say hills were on the menu this morning and we ate them all up. At the end of both my runs this morning I was stuffed full of hills! Having that beautiful sunrise certainly took our minds off all the hills we were having.
At least they did for me. And that was my topic for the day.
Many times in training we focus on the physical aspects, but we forget, what I believe is the most important component — the mental part.
It’s like the funny joke that floats around here and there, and it goes something like this:
Running is a mental sport and we’re all crazy
It’s true. But, let’s leave out the “crazy” part for now. I can talk about that in another post.
What I’m getting at is, what we tell ourselves, is the most important key to training. Sure, we put our running shoes on and we get our miles in, but our minds decide to do those things in the first place! We decide to sign up a race. We decide to go for another run. And we either tell ourselves we can, or we can’t. And, we either tell ourselves these hills are tough, or I am tougher than these hills.
Those early hills were not easy for me and I still had another 7 miles to run with my group. Turns out the first half of that run was pretty much all incline. My group kicked butt by the way considering the humidity was at 1000%.
During my 16.48 miles this day, I really sprung into the mental training and told myself my legs were strong even when they physically didn’t feel it. I focused on that sunrise and those clouds. I focused on how much stronger I got with each step I took. I told myself I am powerful. I told myself I can do this. And you know what? My body responded. Why? Because the power of those positive mindful mantras overrode what my body was feeling.
Sometimes what I tell the group isn’t just for them, but for myself as well. I’m just as much in training as anybody else is, and there is still so much mental training I have to do, because I still have that “crazy” part to deal with.
Thanks for reading and Happy Running!