How to Develop Mental Toughness for Training and Racing

Hello, fellow runners, I'm your host, Finn Melanson and this is the run to the top podcast, the podcast dedicated to making you a better runner with each and every episode we are created and produced by the expert team of coaches at runners connect dot net where you can find the best running information on the internet as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget. It's the beginning of february and that means most of us are in the midst of training for spring races. With race is still a few months away though and the training starting to get difficult. This is a great time to start thinking about the mental component to your training and racing. Mental training is often overlooked as we focus so much of our attention on the physical aspects of our workouts, but being mentally strong in knowing how to overcome the mental challenges that every race and training plan present is a critical piece to your success. So to today, you'll hear from some of our best guests we've had on the podcast over the last few years on mental training. They'll cover improving your confidence, how to deal with bad things happening on race day, pushing through pain and mental training techniques you can use in training to improve your mental toughness for those of you who are runners connect members and want more on mental training, be sure to check out the mental training summit inside the courses section of your training plan, if you're not a member and you want to check it out, there will be a link in the show notes at runners connect dot net backslash 575, if you struggle to get to sleep or stay asleep all night, then you're going to love the new product from by Optimizers called sleep breakthrough.

Sleep breakthrough is a delicious sleep drink that supports your natural melatonin production and relaxation without creating a dependency so you can have your best night's sleep on demand. I'll tell you more about sleep breakthrough in the science behind it later in this episode. But if you want to learn more now, head to sleep breakthrough dot com backslash run to the top. I'd also like to introduce you to a new sponsor of the show timeline, nutrition timeline has developed a groundbreaking product called Mid top your that actually revitalizes your mitochondria, which creates energy in nearly every cell in your body. Later in the episode, I'll explain the science and how you can get a sweet discount. First up, we are going to hear from steve Magness, a world renowned expert on performance, olympic level coach and author, he'll talk about confidence, embracing the good and bad of race day and how to transcend discomfort. Our confidence is founded in in doing the work, meaning there's like actual evidence behind it that kind of gives us this quiet, inner confidence and you again, you talk to any runner and they're aware of this, right?

Where do you get your confidence from? Like leading up to a race, you look back on the work you've done. You say, you know what I'm nervous, but I'm prepared. Like I did everything possible. I did all my long runs. I put in my mileage, I did those workouts to those tempo runs. Like that's where real confidence comes from, because it's, it's based and founded on something reel, but, but I have to ask the question. So how do you have confidence when you're trying to do something you've never done before? You know, most people toe the line of a marathon, hoping for a pr trying to do something they have never done before. So how can they have confidence that they can actually do it? That's a good, that's a very good question. And what I'd say there is, what did you do preparing for that marathon? You trusted the process that if I followed this training program, if I listened to my coach who has this experience, then I'm going to be prepared to do it, right?

So it's not pulling it out of thin air. It's saying, hey, it's almost like putting your ego aside, you're saying like, hey, I've never done this before, but I'm following the guidance of a coach or I'm training with this group, who has a lot of people who have done this before. So it's not necessary. Like we have to drive our confidence is coming from, Hey, there's no doubts. There's like, I've got this in the bag, It's more of like, embracing reality of Yes, this is gonna be really difficult. Yes, I'm not sure if I'm gonna hit my marathon goal, but I know for 100% fact that I did all the workouts I put in the work, I listened to my coach, I showed up on sunday for my long runs with my, my teammates and that's all I can do. It's almost like having that a surety that, like, I've done everything I can to prepare for this, and what happens after this is like, you know, down to execution a little bit of luck often.

I think we fool ourselves and we think like, oh, I have to be incredibly optimistic. Like I have to think that everything's going right. I have to visualize as you said, like everything going according to plan, but what happens there is you're setting yourself up for unrealistic realistic expectations, right? You're setting yourself up for like, I'm gonna feel great. I'm gonna come through the half marathon on pr pace. I'm gonna get all my bottles. I'm not gonna have any trouble like getting my fluid down all that good stuff and that perfect day, like very rarely comes, you know, only a handful of times in our career and they're they're great, but it doesn't come that often. More likely than not, something is gonna happen, Something's gonna go in your way and if you set yourself only up for perfection the moment that you miss that bottle, Your split is a little slow, Your brain goes from like, oh everything's going great too. Oh dear God, we're not gonna like, hit our goal, like throw in the towel, freak out.

Everything's done because you set your expectations too high. So that's where I think embracing reality is important. It's not being like a Debbie Downer or even realistic um it's kind of being like a, I'd call it like a tragic optimist meaning, you're like, you're like, hopeful for the future, you're hopeful, it's gonna work out, but you're just a little part of your mind is prepared, right? You know, you've visualized what to do if you're you miss a bottle or you visualize what happens if it all of a sudden it's really windy and you're a little slow or or what have you, you've prepared for the things that could go wrong so that you don't jump straight from like, oh, this is a little tough to like, you know, I'm done, freak out. Yes, great advice. And another thing that I really liked was to uh the concept of raising the floor. So we all have, you know, whatever time goal, if we're racing for time.

And so we're like, this is my shoot for this, you know, that everything's perfect, shoot the moon goal, that's my a goal and then maybe this is my beagle, but nobody talks about that floor. We talk about the bar, but we don't talk about the floor. So what is raising the floor mean? Yeah. So this was one that actually came about from some athletes that I coached, they were talking about this one day and I'm like, this is brilliant. Like you guys are spot on. And what it basically means is the floor is our kind of minimal, acceptable race or minimal acceptable performance. Where even if we show up and we're tired and we're fatigued and things aren't going well, we're still gonna be capable of X performance. And I think so often, like you said, we focus on, oh, the pr day, like raising the ceiling, shooting for the stars, all that stuff. But what I've learned as a coach is that those big performances show up or come up when you are consistently showing up.

So to consistently show up is about raising that floor. So that even on a bad day you're still gonna run, I don't know, a 2 30 marathon on your best day, you might run to 20. But if you, if you can always know that you're gonna show up and you're gonna run. Hey, even if I fall apart, I'm gonna run about 2 30. And when we reframe things like that, it makes it where it's we're not just like reaching for the highest goal, but we're getting that consistent standard one athlete who I think does this really well, who I worked with in the past is is Sarah Hall, if you look at her, she like, shows up, she races all the time and sometimes it's lights out, but other times it's just pretty dang good, you know, and I think that's what you see with a lot molly huddle is another great example. Like you see this with a lot of really good runners in particular, female runners for whatever reason, who, you know, they just have a certain standard of excellence and they're always gonna be in that that's that, that spear, even if they don't feel that great and what that tells me is, if we can raise the floor high enough and when it comes time to like, hey everything's clicking, then you're gonna be able to like hit that ceiling or raise that ceiling even more so to really deal with difficult things.

Like it has to be more than just us, okay, It has to, it can't just be like selfish or ego, like, you know, me wanting to make some money or win a prize or what have you is we have to have, like purpose and meaning behind it and then we have to have, like, support others around us that are like part of our village that are in this journey with us together and if we can have those two things that meaning that community, that purpose behind it, then we're able to withstand some pretty incredible things and this goes beyond you know, beyond just the discomfort in running, This goes to handling incredibly difficult or harrowing experiences in life as if if you can you can see it beyond this just yourself and your narrow view of the world and you're able to withstand things. Yeah, yeah. That, well, you know, the first thing that comes to my head when you you say that we need the support system, you know, the deeper meaning.

A lot of people listening to this show are, you know, recreational runners, you know, they might be advanced runners, they're doing this despite what their wife thinks, despite what their husband thinks. They're running, getting up at five in the morning, running alone before the kids get up and they don't always feel that support, you know, but, you know, so what do you say to them? How how do you how do you transcend discomfort when, you know, running is just your passion? Well, I think it's even, it's almost even more important with um the regular folks, because it's not your job, right? You don't get paid to do it, like, you're choosing to go out the door every day and go through this pain and discomfort, that doesn't always feel that good, and it's often tiring, but like, for whatever reason you get out the door and you do it again, and what I would say to that is like, this is the importance of, like, you're running community, if you can find training partners, you have a coach, if you have support, some sort of support group that helps, like, anything like that, that gives you this kind of, this is not just me trudging out the door to get things done and and again, all I'm like the science nerd, so I'll turn to this, but there was this fascinating study that took a bunch of runners cross country runners actually and put them at the bottom of like an incredibly steep hill and when they were standing there alone, they had them, guess like, how steep do you think this hill is?

And they'd be like, you know, 20 degrees, whatever it is, and they say it's super steep. Well then, you know, later on they take them back and they'd stick their training partner next to them a different hill, sorry. So it was actually a slightly different hill that was as steep and they stick the training partner next to him and be like, how steep do you think this hill is? They were more accurate and thought it was like less difficult when they're training partner was near them because like, when we have that support, like the challenging stuff, the harrowing stuff seems a little bit more manageable because we know, you know, if we fail, it's okay, we've got friends, we've got support, like we're going to be okay, so in your own running like create that community and sometimes it doesn't even have to be in person. Right, That's the beauty of what we have now is like use travel for some good, Right? Right? Right. Great community and connection there where people feel like, you know, they're involved in your journey to complete your 1st 10 K or half marathon or marathon or whatever have you, or more importantly, you know, if you're trying to do a marathon for the first time, sign up for a good cause, right?

Like that, that gives you community, but it also gives you purpose where it's like, hey, this isn't just about me, I'm doing this to help others for something that's far greater than just me checking the box on something that is difficult to do. Yeah, great. So, um how do you suggest that runners practice all these techniques? Let's say. We give them a whole, you know, shoebox full of tools and you know, the whole, the whole thing, you know, um talking yourself in third person mantra is, you know on and on and on, We give them a whole bunch of mental tools. Do you suggest that we practice them, just like our running workouts, you know, monday we're gonna work on mantra is Tuesday, we're gonna work on talking to ourselves in third person, you know? So how does one actively practice mental strength techniques? Yeah, that's a great question. And I think this is often where the rubber hits the road because like we have all these these cool things that we can do, but they're only as good as like your capacity to use them meaning is just like your, your muscle, like your mental muscle can go stronger, the more robust that we use it like the more frequently we use.

So you have to practice this stuff. So I'm a big believer in like being intentional, which means just like you have goals for, you know, your workouts on the physical side. Your, you go out for a, you know, 400 m repeats and you say, hey, I need to run these in 90 seconds, whatever it is, you have some sort of goal that you're trying to accomplish to get things. I think the same thing should be done on the mental side is like give yourself a strategy, it fits with like the demands of the workout you're going through and say, hey today I'm gonna work on this, I'm trying, I'm gonna get a little bit better or I'm gonna explore what it looks like for using um, you know, different self talk, whatever it is and the way I like to do it is, is as well as say, hey, use these in the hard workouts, but not the most important workouts because the most important workouts are the ones that you just want like naturally for you to get through to handle.

If you're worried about like trying these different mental techniques often they can backfire because you're trying new things. So you want to like try it in the workouts that are hard but they're not like, hey, this is my big indicator workout for the boston marathon to see if I'm ready right there. You just want to like do whatever you do, you can to like make it through and get okay. But in the other workouts maybe instead of the marathon simulator, you're doing 800 on the track, which isn't as important for the marathon, but it's still difficult. You say, okay, I'm gonna try these techniques because if something doesn't work well and like mentally I spiral and get frustrated at the end of the world. Next up is brad stolberg, author and writer for some of the biggest publications in the world. He'll talk about why grounded Nous is important and how to create self distance to give yourself a mental edge on race day. Yeah, So I'm gonna talk about grounded Nous in two different ways, both of which will relate to a mountain.

So the first way is if you see a big beautiful mountain, most people immediately glance up, they look to the mountain's peak and they admire the peak and perhaps if it's a really steep and prominent mountain, they'll also look at its slope, maybe the last few pitches on the way to the peak. Very rarely do. People look at a big beautiful mountain and focus on its base, but it is the base, it's the foundation of the mountain that sustains the slope and the peak and it's the base that is what holds the mountain solid sturdy to the ground throughout all kinds of weather and over time and without a strong base a mountain degrades very easily. That's the first little metaphor. The second one involving a mountain is climate, so there can be two climbers and they both really want to get to the top of the mountain. The first climber is constantly obsessing about getting to the peak there, wondering what it's gonna feel like when they're at the peak, the selfies, they're gonna take the post on social media, they're gonna make what their friends are gonna think of them.

The stories that they're gonna tell over drinks about being at the peak. The second climber wants to get to the peak equally as bad, but they're really present for where they are, they're focused on taking consistent small steps, are being patient, they're even enjoying the view from the side of the mountain as they climb towards the peak. Now both of those climbers are going to get to the same place, but I argue in the practice of grounded Nous, the texture of those clients are completely different. The one that is constantly obsessing about getting there probably won't climb as long because there's so much more susceptible to burning up. So grounded Nous is both about developing a really solid strong foundation out of which all striving in goal setting and goal pursuing comes, what holds you to the ground and it's also about what provides gravity, what keeps you grounded as you strive for big goals because otherwise it's so easy to get caught up in this compulsive need to get their, that very quickly becomes stress, anxiety and exhaustion.

And for runners far too often, this thing that is for many people, a hobby becomes like tiresome because there's so much pressure to achieve these goals and they're so focused on what's out in front of you versus being where you are. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that definitely makes me think of the marathon, you know, instead of climbing the mountain, running a marathon 26.2 miles or 42 kilometers. If you think about that all in one chunk that is overwhelming. I don't care who you are or how many times you've run a marathon. That is a big thing for your brain to grasp. But if you think, okay, I'm just gonna run to that telephone pole or I'm just gonna stay in this one mile, it's easier to focus. It's easier to, you know, eat the elephant one bite at a time. So is that the kind of thing that you're talking about? Yeah, I think so too. To both stay in that one mile and to do what you can to accept that there are gonna be highs and lows over the course of the 26 miles and when the lows come your present for them, you accept that they're happening, You work through them.

And when the highs come, you show restraint, so you don't want to go out at 5 40 paise because you feel good in the first mile. If you're actually a 7 30 pace runner, And if it miles 17 things start to go to crap, you don't want to be impatient and you know, have your mind spiral to a bad place. You want to be there with what's happening and try to work your way out of it. I can't believe I forgot to use this. So this is this is something that is, it's one of my favorite practices in the book because it's so effective. And it's funny whenever I'm talking to like radio or people about this that aren't runners, I use a running analogies like runners. So when we're in situations that were um we care deeply about and we're really invested in. It's pretty hard to think clearly about what's going on. There's a lot of emotions that get involved. So researchers call this self distancing. You want to create some space between yourself and the experience that you're going through. And meditation is a great way to do. This takes a lot of practice.

Something that doesn't take any practice that you can start doing tomorrow. But it's equally effective is what I like to call giving advice to a friend. So pretend that a friend is in the exact same situation that you're in, what advice would you give to that friend and then do that. So I promised you the running story you're limping out the door. You've got a high hamstring string. Every forward step down the stairs hurts, but you're getting this workout in cause you've already rested for two days and it's scheduled to be a tempo run and you've got a race in eight weeks and you just got to show up and do this workout. Now imagine that your friend is limping down their stairs clutching their hamstring, really anxious about the workout because they're like hurt so much and they've got to race in eight weeks, what advice would you give to that friend? So then you yourself have to do that. And I coached like olympic caliber athletes using this and it is the hardest thing for them to do.

And I'm convinced I've saved athletes seasons by having them give advice to a friend and then act on this advice as you've heard on this podcast many times before from some of the best runners coaches and scientists in the world, sleep is one of the most powerful factors to upgrading your overall health and running performance. And we all know it by now. But sometimes no matter how well intentioned we are getting good quality sleep doesn't come easy. Sometimes you can't get your mind to relax. Other times you toss and turn all night one way or another it all leads to poor quality sleep, luckily our trusted partners at by optimizers have finally launched a groundbreaking new sleep formula that doesn't rely on melatonin called sleep breakthrough. It contains magnesium, one of the most important minerals when it comes to sleep. P five P, an active form of vitamin B six that helps convert more magnesium into serotonin, which then helps us create more melatonin naturally potassium, which according to a 1991 study has a direct effect on the deepest phase of sleep plus a healthy in in glycerine, touring and Gabba which have all been shown in scientific literature to help calm the mind and get you to sleep faster.

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I hope you took away as much as I did when I listened back again up now is dr Jacob cooper, director of sports psychology at Appalachian State University. Dr Jacob shares with us his rise method for how to win the inner negative mental battle we all struggle with. I'll start broad but I'll try to make it as specific as possible and please jump in as you will. And the little toolbox that I've been putting together right now which has been really for dealing with quick changes, adversity and pain like kind of sudden changes give up a goal and whether it's a team match or there's just a sudden change or something unexpected. The acronym that I've kind of put together um is the acronym of Rise R. S. E. So if you remember anything it's just maybe that'll stick. Um And each letter stands for like a concept that looks a little bit different. So that are kind of stands for what This principle of radical acceptance which is a pretty well known concept in psychology at this point you can find it in DBT literature from Marsha Linehan and in reality therapy which is you know goes back to I think the sixties um The eyes stands for investigate yes stands for shift.

And both of those concepts have a mindfulness component to them which I can explain a little bit more in depth and then the E. Stands for engage which is a behavioral strategy. So we've got to mindfulness strategies. One strategy that's a little bit more cognitive involving radical acceptance and then a behavioral one with the E. S. O. R. I. S. E. And I can talk a little bit more about each if you'd like. Yeah summer. No, that's perfect. So radical acceptance. But is that basically just accept the boat that you're in and start paddling or what exactly is radical acceptance? I like that. I like that analogy. I think the way that I view it is some people say radical acceptance is accepting life on life's terms. The way that I often explain it is it's actually it's to view it through a lens of efficiency. So it's actually it feels good temporarily to kind of like shake our fists and be mad and scream why when things happen suddenly. But it's actually a pretty tremendous waste of energy. Um And so it's not exactly the most efficient way to go through competition.

Uh Sometimes I talk about the good analogy, a good example of this is an improv comedy, one of the first, one of the first rules of improv, if you ever watch whose line is it anyway? Or you take the classes you never deny. Always say yes. Always say yes. And so it's really is that's a big piece of mental resiliency. Is this this reality therapy or this radical acceptance? Is this ability to accept life on life's terms. And it usually manifests with a piece of our self talk a saying a mantra or some psychological flexibility in that. Um One of my favorite examples as I remember, I'm a football guy. I remember after the Seattle Seahawks lost the Super Bowl like on the last play of the game, Russell Wilson threw it, threw an interception like on the one yard line and I'll never forget the way he responded. I thought it was a great example of radical acceptance. He said that I threw that pass and that's on me, I'm gonna throw another one and that one is going to be on me. And it's so it's really this balance of truth and helpfulness.

It's like it's accepting what is in order to actually courageously say what's next. I love it. Alright, let's go into I and so the eyes investigate. And so this is a this is a this is something I'm sure you as a coach used this constantly. It's such a good strategy and that's basically could you investigate your surroundings internally and externally. So my one of my advisors and a deer and a mentor of mine, dr Amy Baltzell who is a phenomenal researcher on self compassion and mindfulness specifically applying it to high performance and athlete. She's a sports psychologist. Um She used to define mindfulness really quickly for athletes and it was just awareness plus attention and she would write it like an equation on the board and that always stuck with me and that was really helpful in my training because it's such a broad Phyllis off Sure. And so I'd like to make it more succinct. And so mindfulness is if we look at it that way, awareness plus attention investigation stands for the awareness component. So we want to be aware of our surroundings internally and externally that can help us right now.

So this is re sourcing. So if you're breathing you're breathing like a horse but your legs feel great. Focus on your legs if your legs feel like concrete but your breathing is smooth and focus on your breathing intimately. Like investigate that like a scientist that's never seen breathing before actually track the cool air coming in, the warm air coming out. Be curious about this sensation. If you're breathing like a horse and your legs feel like concrete, focus on your arms, you know, focus on something. I always say people say well what's a good resource? And I'm like anything that doesn't suck. Yes, yes, I tell my athletes focus on something that doesn't hurt, it might be your nose or your ear lobe, but just say my ear lobe feels great over and over and over again. Right? Absolutely. So so you want to investigate your surroundings and this can actually be pretty tactical. So like a really cool example of this is there's a really famous baseball player, place in new york Yankees, his name is Aaron Judge and if you watch him bat whenever he takes a bad swing or he feels like a ball gets away with him from him strike or something, he will pick up he will investigate, he'll pick up some dirt and he'll like squeeze it in his hand, kind of engage with it mindfully and then I'll throw it away and get ready for the next pitch.

And to me that's such a great example of mindfulness and investigation to like checking in tactically with our senses in order to kind of let go and then move on to the next thing and so sometimes we need to investigate a resource that's neutral and not causing us to stress in order to create some space before shifting which yeah, ok. The dirt example squeezing the dirt example is is definitely a little hard to wrap my head around it so it just it just kind of changes his focus. Is that what you see from that? It just says you know, hey I'm going to touch something neutral and not stress about the ball that I missed or Yeah, okay if you think about it, if sometimes it's hard to get our head right back in the game. This is an example of a team sport, like a more dynamic, a little bit more dynamic like baseball or soccer. Um And so what it does is it creates a middle space of present focus before we have to dial back into this high level of focus.

It's this space to ground ourselves tactically one of the like sometimes I'll use the example of the movie Gladiator, you know, Russell Crowe. He goes out into the arena and before he fights, he always picks up dirt and smells. It rubs it in his hands. He engages in a tactfully and it's really, really cool example of of in in a movie of the mindfulness. And so I think a lot of athletes do that they can do it with a drink of water or some dirt or whatever is around them to create that little pocket of engagement with their senses before dialing back in to this very highly intensive, concentrated state. Sometimes I'll use the example of the movie Gladiator, you know, Russell Crowe, he goes out into the arena and before he fights, he always picks up dirt and smells it and rubs it in his hands. He engaged in a tactfully and it's really a really cool example of of and and a movie of that mindfulness. And so I think a lot of athletes do that. They can do it with a drink of water or some dirt or whatever is around them to create that little pocket of engagement with their senses before dialing back in very highly intensive, concentrated state.

So a runner could take a drink of water or do something or maybe wear something on their kit that they could touch or something like that. Super interesting. Mm hmm. And I would say this is a big difference between just slurping a thing of water and engaging with a drink mindfully and one of the, one of the biggest quickest ways I treat runners to do this is you practice, especially if the water is cool. It's helpful. You track the sensation of drinking, you can actually track and if you pay attention mindfully, you can actually feel water go like all the way down into your belly, but you have to pay attention to it, right? Um, and so you there's a big difference between just guzzling down water and a mindful drink and the mindful drink can make all the difference, wow. And it and it distracts you from how hard you're running and how much pain you're in. Right? All right, let's move on to the S. Yeah. So s a shift. And so s is so if we go back to amy about cells kind of definition of that awareness plus attention, This gets to the attention part.

So your attention is a muscle, it's like a spotlight. Um, that allows you to shift shift to what matters most right now, I call these optimal performance Q. Zorro pcs for shorthand. Um, and what I mean by that is that if we're okay, so, I'm aware of the circumstances, I'm aware of how much I hurt right now. And I'm aware of all these things externally and internally when I run at my best. What has my attention? It's usually a very short list of external cues. So this might be hips forward, drive elbows. It might be the girl in front of me is ponytail and what color is that rap and I just need to stay right behind that right now and focus my attention like a metronome staying lockstep with this ponytail ahead of me. Like these are the things I've heard that when runners tell me that they, and it's like we got to get back to those attention cues, we can be aware of the pain and the circumstances.

That's okay. But we, we do have the ability to shift our attention to these OPC. So you want to know what they are, You want to know what years are. And so that when there is a time of stress, you know what to look for. Do you have any hints for people who don't know what they're, there's our yet like any any, you know, how do we find those? Absolutely. Um, b curious about running when you run well. So I think what we need to have a good run sometimes we'll chalk it up to happenstance or whether recovery and a lot of those things probably had something to do with it. I would say your attention had a lot to do with it too. Not necessarily your thinking. Not necessarily like I'm having all these thoughts or things like that, but what you attended to matters, it's like it's the ignition switch to the brain is your attention and then the emotions are the fuel and and so being curious about those things and be like, wow, when I run up my best, this is what I tend to focus on.

Okay, because you'll forget. Yeah, yeah, no, this this is so great. This is so great. I know like when I'm running well, like in a race or in a group setting, I definitely lock on the dude in front of me, I stare, I'm kind of short so I usually stare at their shoulder blades and I'm looking at that guy just laser focused and I pretend that I have a rope attached to him and I pretend that he's pulling me and I just, I just, I just link up to him like a train, you know, and I'm just like, I am not letting this person go, they have no idea or if they do, they're probably really annoyed. But it works for me. I'm the same way when I run, I try to count as many people as I can pass, particularly if it's a busy area and you kind of that's a fantastic, optimal performance, cute player. Is this is that whole imagery of like being connected and almost sometimes you might get, I could imagine you being slingshot and passed them, then you got a somebody I know, I know I've been afraid to leave them sometimes, you know, and then I got the my brain fighting inside saying, should I go, should I pass?

Should I stay? So that's that's another discussion. Alright, so after shift we moved to E what's that you stand for? Yeah. And as I mentioned he's a little bit more behavioral. So E stands for engaged and so this means you got to do something and this is the hard part and this is why it's usually at the the end um this isn't necessarily a formula. You have to follow an order. Sometimes it is sometimes you just cycle through these resources on a tough run and you just go through radical acceptance to you know what I mean? To to investigating to to shifting to engaging and and what I mean by engage is that what is the behavior comment something that I have to do that again aligns with my best performance. So sometimes in a team sport it's communicate when there's a quick change, we sometimes can turn inward and stop communicating because we feel some level of shame or anger or whatever that is. And so sometimes we have to remind ourselves to communicate with our team and be in concert with each other and running a lot of times have to communicate with ourselves.

So this is when we can dip into that pool and I'm sure you've had so many people on here. I would imagine a talk about self compassion and self talk and some of these things that this is when we use our tools like this is when it goes from just a night principal or podcasts you listen to to deploying a skill is like I need to engage with myself and I might need to say some things out loud or at the high level I've seen athletes say like three hard steps gain on the person in front of you now you're you're making your move. Like the pack is moving, it's that time in a race where I either have to hitch my wagon and go with the pack or I'm gonna stay safe and be in a holding pattern back here and turn into an island and like in order to do that I need to take three hard steps. That was a great breakdown of some important mental tools and techniques we should all implement. Our next guest is dr Michelle you for who will give his insights on how to apply mental training techniques such as visualization. Yeah, there's different definitions of mental training.

First of all, if you if you google mental training then you get I don't know how many billions of entries of mental training can be everything, nothing and everything. So I'm rather stuck or go with the scientific definitions and mental training originally comes from sports psychology meaning that instead of executing movement you just do it in your mind without executing it in real. So just imagine you run without really doing it and uh and it's very interesting because um the the internal image of a movement or if you imagine yourself swimming in the pool or cycling? A bicycle, activates this? The same muscles, the same nerves than the real movement? It's less, but still, it's measurable, so it has an impact. And and there's some some some nice examples.

For example, if you I don't know if you get to hospital because your leg is broken and you can't move your leg, then you really see within a couple of weeks the muscles disappear. So you have a very thin leg. But if you without being able to move in rio, you move in your in your mind or in front of your in your eyes, you're doing mental training, the muscles don't disappear that much that fast. So you can really shorten the recovery time afterwards, You can really use this and some in some sports which are really complex. Uh it's absolutely basic to to work with mental training to have an internal representation of the movement. For example, in in, I don't know, fighting sports or in gymnastics or whatever, which which are very complex. So, this is the original definition of mental training. Just imagine uh in action without doing little wider definition is not just imagining a certain movement, but the whole action sequence for example, race you are doing, you are doing from the very for the preparation until the end of the race.

How do you get to the start line? Maybe the night before? How do you prepare, What pre competition routines do you establish then going through the whole race? What are the key moments, where are certain challenges, challenges? How do you want to deal with them? Uh how does it feel look like when you reach the finish line? What are you doing afterwards? So really going through a whole process and this is very helpful and doesn't apply just in, in in running on sports, but also in other areas of life. For example, pilots, they train the whole action sequences in order to being able to perform then when, when it counts most like an autopilot without having to think about it. I always start from the end developing, I call it a memory of the future, really very vivid internal image of how the future will be.

And then from there it's like project management and then I go get back step by step and to see okay, what has to be done until then, until then, until then. And so what we have to start with right now right now and this this works quite well. And when I developed these, these images, there is one key element that I always tell people if if I don't know how to explain in english, if you're not falling in love with your goal, if you don't feel it, I don't know on your skin and your heart pumping or what ever, then it's not your goal then try to adapt the goal, change the goal until you feel kind of laugh for it and you're getting crazy about it. When I'm talking about the other come across immediately. I have some my my skin is tickling or I don't know if that's the right word, but probably you understand what I want to mean.

It's clearly a deep emotional attachment to this goal that you have and and as you said, exactly, I I can see that there's a there's a love there that that makes you want to find out how you can actually go from where you are right now to where you want to be. Yeah. And then there is one more thing which is quite important for me or helpful for me. It's the the ability or attitude that I can make mistakes there there, there maybe there is, there is some failure, failure is everywhere. It's it's it's not nice to to to make mistakes or to to fail, but it's part of life. Finally, to round out our speakers today, let's hear from our very own coach, Dylan bellis and this snippet. Dylan is going to talk about how to overcome mental blocks in your training and racing. Much of training is revolved around not just training the body to handle the volume and the intensity, but to train the mind to allow the body to do so, as athletes, we neglect this form of training without realizing that it can easily be the determining factor to whether or not we race to expectation or we fizzle out.

We've all been there before. You're not the only one to experience our minds leaving us without an ounce of energy. So this leads us to the obstacle itself and it provides us with an opportunity to become more well rounded and stronger runners over not just the 10K distance, but the half marathon and beyond. So how are we going to train the brain to perform up to expectation? We must first devise a long term plan that allows for progression of training and a progression of confidence to build up within ourselves included, here is everything from your goals to how you plan on executing race day, write this down and frequently revisit it to make adjustments or to refresh your mind of the goals at hand. We want to ingrain this within ourselves. Next we must understand that there will be obstacles along the way and it's best to understand these obstacles of not just failures, but ways in which we can improve a particular aspect of training. For example, at this moment in time it seems there is a mental barrier preventing you from reaching your goal.

Great. Now we're going to spend time every day working to overcome this obstacles can come on a macro or a micro level, but we must always be prepared to run with it. Races are going to hurt, it's a maximum performance, so we must go into races knowing that there will be moments where our mind says no, but to be our best, we have to stay strong enough to convince ourselves yes, Making this change isn't easy, it's work, it's practice, it's discipline. We must learn to fight the realm or the reaction of arousal upon leading up to race day. We must learn to control it and harness it. Many of us when we tow the line, our stress levels are through the roof, which can lead to a deviation in performance that results in a in a happy result. I personally find that mindful practice and bringing yourself to center during every run of every day is a way to bring yourself to realizing the true purpose of that run or that particular race.

After all, A race is just a test of your fitness. It should be fun, it should be exciting, It shouldn't be nerve wracking. I've seen the poor end of this flight or fight response too often to tell. But with more mindful practice and brain training, I've actually been able to teach myself to toe the line with confidence and have performance enhancing stress rather than the opposite. So, I have a few take home assignments for you to begin right away. I want you to write down your goals and with this, I want you to be very specific, right down the overarching goal. But then write down all the steps you're going to take leading up to it and how are you going to reach those steps, describe how you want it to feel and how what it's going to take you to feel once you reach it next. I want you to write down the obstacles that can come in your way and write down how you're going to approach these and how you're going to overcome these obstacles. Remember to ask yourself if the goal is realistic and ask yourself if it's attainable within the time frame that you have set it for once you're done here, Post is somewhere you will see it and be forced to revisit it from time to time.

You may have to adjust it from time to time, but that's okay. Last thing I want you to do is to become familiar with how you feel when your mind begins to slip and workouts or runs what leads up to this point? How does it feel? Take this feedback your mind gives you and break it down to understand what is causing the motivational loss. It could be as simple as training or as complex as developing self confidence. Whatever you find leads up to this point, we have to exploit it. Expected to come and win the battle with your mind, don't push past physical limitations but be intelligent and understand. Is it my mind at war or is it my body? This is your starting point. Now it's time to start building up on your foundation for overcoming the struggles of the past. Those experts included a lot of great information in their talks around how to improve your confidence, how to deal with bad things happening on race day, learning how and when to push through pain, and of course the mental techniques you can use in training to improve your toughness.

But what were your takeaways? Help us get the conversation started by leaving a question or comment on the facebook and instagram posts for this episode. Thanks for listening to the run to the top podcast. I'm your host, Finn Melanson, and as always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on instagram at Wasatch, Finn and the rest of our team at runners connect. Also consider supporting our chauffeur for with a rating on the Spotify and Apple podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content behind the scenes experiences with our guests and premier access to contests and giveaways. Then subscribe to our newsletter by going to runners connect dot net back slash podcast. Until next time. Happy training