Sep 20, 2005 Mind Games By Laurel Park :: Views- 113

Earlier this summer I gave a talk to a local high school girls' cross-country team. At the end of the session, after I'd shared the few nuggets of wisdom that I've gained through my 25 years of competitive running, I asked whether there were any questions. One young lady raised her hand. How, she asked, do you keep your mental focus during a race?

She looked at me eagerly, obviously expecting to hear The Secret to It All. Instead, my back stiffened slightly and rather than offering an informed, intelligent response, my brain started screaming "ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!", which was both useless and served to reinforce the fact that I am by no means an expert on this topic. I took a moment to re-boot my brain (masquerading as deep thought) and smiled.

"That's a great question," I replied. "I wish I could give you a simple answer, but I can't. Mental focus is something that you develop over time, and honestly, I'm still doing that." Had the truth been known, I was pretty tempted to ask the rest of the girls for their advice in the hopes that I might learn something. While I've had a few races where I've managed to stay "on task" through the entire event, most of the time I end up thinking about what to eat for breakfast, my plans for the rest of the day, or the fact that my right shoe is tied just a bit tighter than my left. Useful stuff, that.

Few runners will dispute the value of mental toughness. It can be the difference between a great race and a mediocre one, or - when it's one of those days when everything seems to be going straight to you-know-where - even making it to the darn finish line. Despite my own less-than-stellar abilities, there have been a few times when I've somehow managed to make chicken salad out of chicken excrement, as my husband would say. In those cases the race was usually one I'd been training for or looking forward to for quite a while, so perhaps my "success" had less to do with mental focus than with getting really, really mad at myself to the point that the final few miles were an exercise in self-flagellation. Whatever works, I guess.

I think the ability to maintain mental focus is essential for marathoners. You can have all the physical talent in the world but if the mental aspect is missing - forget it. I have yet to meet a marathoner who didn't need to call upon mental skills at some point in the race. Sometimes it's at the gun, when the thought of the 26.2 miles to come can be paralyzing. Sometimes it's at the halfway point, when so much has already been covered yet there is still so much to go. Sometimes it's at 20 miles, where, as so many marathoners can attest, "the race really begins". Sometimes it's every step of the race when you have to stay in control and stick to your race plan. One of my husband's greatest assets as a marathoner was his ability to take the race one step at a time and focus on the present without getting wound up about the future.

When I think back on those races where my brain has been an asset, the thing they have in common is that everything felt great right from the gun, and I used this great feeling to start a "positive feedback loop" in my brain. Even later in the race, when the effort started to hurt, I could draw upon these positive thoughts to carry me through to the end. This hasn't worked every time, and there have been a few races that started great and ended in disaster, but the ones that stick in my mind felt smooth as silk, just like I was flying, and my brain was along for the ride. Funny thing is, in at least one of those races, my warm-up had felt terrible and as I approached the line I wondered whether I'd make it through the halfway point. But once the gun went off - magic. I'm still not sure exactly how the transformation occurred, but if I had the secret formula I'd be a very wealthy lady.

I continue to practice my mental skills while on the treadmill or during long runs, but way too often my brain manages to slip into "are we there yet?" mode. As I glance down at the display panel of my treadmill and watch the hundredths of a mile crawl by, I think about a friend of mine, a former elite marathoner who spent several years living in the Midwest and once told me that she had "absolutely no problem" doing 20 milers on the treadmill. On a great day I'm good for about eight miles tops, so I still regard her with a mix of amazement and envy. And I figure that if she can do 20, I can certainly ought to be able to handle six.

I expect I'll be working on my mental skills for as long as I continue to race. They are useful not only for athletics, but for life in general. The ability to focus and to take things as they come without getting too frustrated by the past or too concerned about the future is a useful talent regardless of the challenge at hand. And it's also somewhat comforting to know that after a quarter-century in this sport, I still have a few things to learn.