Mind Game

To say running isn't the most glamorous sport is an understatement.  I spent my high school cross country years being made fun of for my uniform "short shorts" and listening to others call running an activity rather than a sport.  I never gave their taunts much thought, because I love the sport, and despite what you classify it as, it is a very difficult sport.In previous posts, I have discussed the pain and difficulty in being motivated to run, which all have to do with the physical pain.  Yet the crux of running and the true difficulty is in the mental aspect.  Running is not the most physically punishing sport like football or rugby, but it is the most mentally demanding.  

In the world of 1980 Boston Marathon Champion Jacqueline Gareau in regards to running,  "The body does not want you to do this.  As you run, it tells you to stop but the mind must be strong.  You always go too far for your body.  You must handle the pain with strategy...It is not age; it is not diet.  It is the will to succeed"(running.about.com).  In my last post, I spoke about the ability to push through pain and the mental strength it takes.  Yet mental strength goes past simply pain.

While pain is a formidable obstacle mentally, other factors like distance, weather, stress, time constraints, nerves, or simply a bad day can play an even bigger part.  The difference is that while pain is imminent in running, the unknown that comes with the distance needs to be overcome.

For me the two biggest mental obstacles in both running and my daily life are the distance I have to cover that day, and overcoming a bad day.  When I run I obsess about the distance I have left to run which often demoralizes me.  It ruins my pace and effectively destroys the run.  In my daily life I spend so much time looking forward to the next assignment or the next day that the pressure eventually gets to be too much.  Quite simply I psych myself out.  Having a bad day of running is inevitable, but once I start running and I know I feel slow or tired, I once again feel downtrodden and demoralized.  And in my daily life, having a sluggish day puts me in a terrible mood that I struggle to overcome.

Running a race comes to one pivotal point.  The problems I have with bad days and focusing on the distance are inevitable.  Yet, the one moment will come when a runner must decide to either quit or push on and succeed.  This is what sets running apart from all other sports.  It is this one mental decision that has to be made that will determine the outcome.  We as students have that same moment to determine how we proceed.  This moment of mental decision is truly the core of running and mental strength.  It marks the true primal purity of the sport of running, and it is the reason I have fallen in love with the it's simplistic beauty.














http://running.about.com/od/runninghumor/a/Quotes-About-Mental-Aspects-Of-Running.htm