Mental Training (part 1)

(I'm splitting this into two pieces, as the post was getting quite lengthy, look for part II tomorrow)

At this point almost everyone has probably read the CNN article about training your brain written by Chrissie Wellington. (if you haven't, check it out here.  There's some great advice in the article)

None of the things she mentioned in the article are incredibly groundbreaking.  In fact, they are the same things I've been told by coaches over the years, and the same things I tell people I'm working with.  Even if not groundbreaking, the advice is still solid, and if it takes a professional athlete of Chrissie's caliber to get people to listen, then so be it.

I'm sure you've heard the saying "running is 90% mental" a thousand times, and that's essentially what Chrissie is saying.  However, mental preparation is one of the most often overlooked parts of training by both athletes and coaches.  It won't guarantee success, but the mental aspect goes a long way to capturing success.  An athlete toeing the line with doubt in his mind will likely slow or fail at the first signs of trouble or fatigue, whereas an athlete who is mentally prepared is much more apt to fight through and persevere.

I tell athletes two things all the time:

• "You can only train your body so much.  After that, it's all about your head."  I say that more to people entering the ultra world, but I think its really applicable anywhere in endurance sports.  Once your body is trained physically, race day comes down to your mental state.
• "Your body is dumb.  It will do what your brain tells it to do." Again, I use this as advice for ultra athletes, but its applicable for most distances and disciplines.  The human body is capable of amazing things, but it is your brain that has to power those feats.

Steve Prefontaine claimed that he was successful because he was able to endure more pain than his opponents.  That's a classic example of mental preparation.  When he began to hurt, he knew his opponents were hurting as well, which only drove to him to make them hurt more.  He turned a negative (his pain) into a positive (making his opponents suffer).  His strategy wasn't always successful, but I think his running legacy speaks for itself.

Mental preparation is more than just race strategy and having a positive attitude.  Recently, my sister ran her first half marathon.  When she was recapping the race for me, she mentioned that during training she visualized crossing the finish line.  Spending time visualizing crossing the finish line or conquering the biggest hill on the course can go a long way to helping accomplish your goal, especially if you are unable to train on the course you will be competing on.  Google pictures of the course, look at course maps, and visualize yourself at those points on the course.  It's not the same as training on the course, but it prepares you for what you will encounter on race day.

When mental preparation is mentioned, I immediately think of Christopher Bergland.  He told me while training for Ironman World Championship, he would not only put on the same clothes he was going to wear on race day, but he would even put on the same sunscreen, even when training on a treadmill indoors.  The idea was that he was forming positive neural pathways during his training sessions.  He talks about this and a lot more in his book The Athlete's Way.

To sum it up succinctly:  Give me two equal runners who physically trained equally, however, only one went through mental preparation.  My money will be on the runner who mentally prepared every time.

In Part II, I will break down my experience and plan going into my first Ironman and relate it to the points that Chrissie made in her article.