PUBLISHED 12/11/2007
Use Your Imagination
Tuffey also recommends the use of images. "Imagine yourself as a leopard, with its relaxed, loping stride," she says. Never mind that you're feeling like a hungover tree sloth. Yogi Berra said about his sport, "Baseball is 90 percent mental, and the other half is physical." The same is true of running.
George Parrott, Ph.D. a California State University-Sacramento psychology professor and veteran ultramarathoner, takes the African animal imagery a few steps farther. "Imagine yourself a predator-lion, cheetah, whatever-and those runners in your sight are prey to run down. As you pass each, look ahead for your next dessert."
Another imagery option: When the racing gets hard, picture anything positive, such as a favorite person, place, or experience. Karla Mortara of Eastchester, N.Y., sees herself cruising through a pleasant weekday run. "Mentally I put myself on my favorite training route," she says, "and the energy sweeps me up and carries me along."
This same strategy helps Jane Welzel of Fort Collins, one of America's top female masters marathoners. "If no one is around me in a race, I pretend I'm on a training run. I visualize my training course, knowing that I can get through it. If runners are near me, I pretend they're my training partners and I know that I can hang with them."
Seize the Day
Or regret it tomorrow. Tell yourself this the next time your pace is headed south. Take it from Lorinda Brandon of Pepperell, Mass., who avoided late-race slacking in her first half-marathon.
"I knew I'd ease up by mile 11 unless I could come up with a way to talk myself out of it," she says. "So when that point came, I firmly reminded myself that all my hill repeats while training in the rain would be wasted if I didn't push myself now. I also reminded myself how many people would be asking me about the race the next day. Did I want to answer with pride or disappointment?" Brandon's internal pep talk worked. She beat her goal time by 8 minutes.
Or take it from St. Louis marathoner Tracey Grzegorczyk: "I tell myself that just because I'm tired and whiny, that doesn't mean the race will stop. Tomorrow I'll have to wake up and face the results of my decisions. Will I be satisfied, or angry at myself for wimping out due to temporary discomfort? Do I really want to dwell on this for weeks or months, just because I wasn't willing to carry it through today? The answer is always no."
Of course it is.
And that's the lesson here. If you're the competitive type, or even a recreational runner, you'll eventually find a racing strategy that works for you. It may be one of the methods we've suggested, or it may be one you develop on your own. When it proves successful, and when you reach that finish line having accomplished your goal, you'll
know at that moment that there's no better feeling in running.
