Stressing Over Long Runs and Tough Workouts

Audio Transcript

Stephanie: Hello! My name is Stephanie. I have a question about mental strength. I’m training for a health marathon and I have to run seven miles tomorrow.

I’ve ran upto 10 miles before, but it’s been a couple of months now and I’ve found myself stressing out about my long run tomorrow.

I’ve been thinking about it for three days, stressing out about how fast I’m going to run. I’m afraid I’m going to have to stop and I wonder if I’m going to feel energized enough or if I’m going to have to drag my feet the whole time.

I was wondering if you have any advice about this so I can basically stop the craziness.

Thank you.

Claire: Thanks Stephanie. I can definitely relate to your issue. I think a lot of runners have the same issue about stressing out way too much before a long run or an important workout.

Running should be stress relieving, not stress inducing, but yet the snowball effect of worrying about the distance, the speed, the effort, whether you’re going to stop or not it can absolutely drive you crazy. You’re definitely not alone.

The first thing to recognize is the nerves that you have are important because it means that you care. You really care about what you’re doing and you want to do well.

If you can try to shift the nervous feeling and transform it into excitement and gratitude that you can actually be out there running, that’s the first step of re-shifting your focus on that.

Another thing that is important is to visualize yourself doing well. Whether it is a longer distance than you’re used to or faster paces than you think you can handle, if you go into it with an open mind thinking, “Ï might just be able to do this,” you will have abetter chance of being able to do it, than if you spend days upon end worrying about how bad it’s going to be.

All you can do is ask the very best of yourself everyday, every run and that is something that you can control. You can’t control the weather, or whether you’re going to get sick. You can’t control a lot of things in a run. You can control whether or not you’re giving the best that you can.

Your best is always going to be good enough. Sometimes it’s a bad day, sometimes it’s a bad run and that’s okay, but if you can get to the end of the run saying, “Yes, you know what, maybe the results aren’t exactly what I was looking for, but I truly gave it my best,” then that’s all that we can ask for ourselves.

One thing you might want to think about is staying in the present when you run.

I know that kind of sounds a little new agey but it’s really important to look at the run as little bits and pieces. Sometimes it’s hard to focus on the entire long run or take a look at the whole marathon training process. It’s seems overwhelming when you look at the big picture.

If you’re just running to the next mailbox, or to the next telephone pole, or if you’re thinking about one more mile or one more step, it makes it a lot more manageable. If you can somehow break down the actual process of the run into bite size bits and pieces, there are a lot more manageable than the entire long run.

The other thing is to allow yourself to fail. You know what, it’s just a run. One run, even if it’s a long run, even if it’s a hard workout, is not going to make or break your entire training.

It’s one run. It’s a step in the right direction if you do great at a long run or a workout, but it’s just one run and it’s okay to fail or not finish, or not hit your paces.

Failure is an opportunity to see how you can improve, and to see what worked and what didn’t. We all have bad runs, every single person out there – every elite runner, or recreational runner.

If we didn’t have bad runs, everything would be way too easy. You’re going to have bad days and that’s okay. Forgive yourself, be a little lighter on yourself and say, “You know what, yes, maybe this is a longer distance than I’m used to,” or ,”Maybe these are faster paces than I’m used to, but I’m going to do my best and I’m going to try. If I don’t make it, it’s okay. I’ll try again tomorrow. It’s just a workout.”

If none of that happens, good old distraction can help a lot. Bring the headphones with you, listen to some music that’s upbeat, and that makes you happy, listen to a good podcast, or try to wrangle a friend to go with you.

Anything that you can do to get your mind off a big daunting task will really help, especially if it’s just a long run. You can take your mind off the enormity of the big run and give yourself a little bit of a break. Eventually it will be over before you know it.

My last idea for helping you to not stress out about your run, is kind of counterintuitive.

What you can do is allow yourself to stress out about the run, but only allow yourself a certain amount of time. Instead of taking three days to stress out about your Saturday long run, say, “I’m not going to think about it until an hour ahead of time,” and then go ahead, stress out as much as you want.

Think about what you’re going to do, make your plan, think about everything that would be a part of the run, and visualize yourself doing well.

Only allow yourself that small window of time for your freak out session, and that way you can leave the rest of the time to focus on other areas of your life, and not spend every second of your life worrying or thinking or strategizing about running. Hopefully that will help.

Then when you get up and go for your long run, you’ve got a plan, and you’re not quite as hard on yourself and you’re setup for success.

Thanks so much for your question Stephanie.

For those of you who are listening who would like to have your question answered by one of RunnersConnect coaches, head on over to runnersconnect.net/daily and hit the record button to send your question on over.

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