Mind of a Champion

Wouldn’t we all like to be number one? Not everyone has it in them, whether it be because their bodies can handle the amount of stress that a race involves and also maybe they don’t have the amount of mental toughness In her article, How to Push Past the Pain, as the Champions Do, Gina Kolata describes the different methods that elite athletes employ in order to get to the finish line the quickest.

One of the aspects that first struck me about this article was from Mary Wittenberg, president and chief executive of the New York Road Runners, who stated that, “Mental Tenacity – and the ability to manage and even thrive on and push through pain – is a key segregator [...] in running.” This sentiment was echoed by sport medicine physician Dr. Jeroen Swart, “It never gets any easier. You hurt just as much.”

Some days I know that I’m going to have a good workout and can therefore push myself. I think of myself as a very mental runner. I have some physical ability, but much of it comes from dedication and not from mental intensity. Do I just want it to get easier or go away?

I’ve also tried to make it go away by just pretending that I’m anywhere else but running. According to the article, this disassociation isn’t practiced by those who are at the top:

In studies of college runners, he found that less accomplished athletes tended to dissociate, to think of something other than their running to distract themselves.

“Sometimes dissociation allows runners to speed up, because they are not attending to their pain and effort,” he said. “But what often happens is they hit a sort of physiological wall that forces them to slow down, so they end up racing inefficiently in a sort of oscillating pace.” But association, Dr. Raglin says, is difficult, which may be why most don’t do it.

This most recent race I embraced the fact that I was there, and I was running it when I felt like I was starting to fade. It actually helped me for a while. I wonder what would have happened if I would’ve used that throughout.