We all struggle with the moment in a race when the wheels come off and the pain and suffering seem unbearable. This also happens to be when your performance is really on the line. Do you have a strategy for getting yourself to push on or do you find yourself easing up?
It’s also worth noting that you have a lot of say in how you react to the pain and suffering you’ll be inflicting upon yourself during training. As the anonymous saying goes, “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” I don’t really buy that suffering is optional in the sense that you can escape it altogether, but how well you manage the suffering and your reaction to it are certainly things that you have control over.
A great place to start with managing the pain that comes from running hard is to see it for what it really is. We feel pain or fatigue and immediately interpret it as a bad sign. We think something is wrong and tell ourselves, “I shouldn’t be hurting. I didn’t train well enough.” In fact, feeling the pain, strain and fatigue when you’re exerting yourself is entirely natural. You feel that way because you’re giving it your best effort and striving to reach a goal. If you didn’t feel that way, chances are you’re likely underperforming or setting goals that don’t reflect your true potential.
Realizing that the pain and strain you feel is normal and natural is important because it helps you avoid the negative route, which is to be overcome by fear and self-doubt. “If I feel this badly now, how much worse am I going to feel later? I can just barely maintain this pace. How can I possibly keep this up for the rest of the race?” Thinking like this can quickly lead to giving up.
On the other hand, when you interpret pain as a natural consequence of giving your best effort, you are in a position to keep the thinking positive and employ mental strategies that will help you cope rather than give in. You want to be able to accept the pain, move beyond it and get the focus back on what you need to be doing to maintain your effort. There are several strategies that include focusing on a positive mantra, breaking the race down into shorter, manageable segments or focusing on the trail and landscape ahead of you. All of these actions pull the mind back away from the negative self-talk and help you stay positive and engaged.
Of course, all that sounds great in theory. It’s easy to imagine that you can just sidestep the negative thinking, not get discouraged and soldier on as if you didn’t feel like death warmed over. The reality is, though, that when you are in the thick of it, it’s extremely difficult to not falter. Training helps. You get better at dealing with the pain and fatigue the more often you face difficult situations and have to cope with them. That is why pushing yourself hard from time to time during your workouts is a good idea. You get the physical benefits of training hard, but you also are giving yourself invaluable practice at dealing with the mental aspects of being at your outer limits. The upside of this dynamic is that if you succeed in not faltering, you have earned the self-satisfaction and pride that you feel from triumphing over a difficult situation.