Run-Down Forums

[Shaun Fox]

how important do you think mental preperation is to a race, ive heard some people say being prepared mentally is as or even more important than being prepared physically.

[Dan]

I'd say mental and physical are both 90% of the picture.

Dan

[Shaun Fox]

whats the other 10%? i guess natural ability?

[Dan]

What I meant is that mental is 90% and physical is 90%. In other words, each one on its own is the majority of the game plan, but neither is more important to the other.

Since you mentioned ability... I like to look at it from the stanpoint of what I call the 3 T's: talent, toughness, and tenacity.

Talent: Talent pretty much speaks for itself. Although some would argue that talent is not intrinsic, but realized through proper training, I separate that training element into the other T's and leave talent as something that is pretty much unchangeable. You work with what you've got.

Toughness: This is largely mental, whereas talent is largely physical. Toughness is how hard you can make yourself work, how well you can ignore pain, etc. Although some people clearly are tougher than others, I believe toughness can be improved fairly proportionately with conditioning.

Tenacity: This one is my favorite, because it is completely up to the individual and, unlike the others, the sky is the limit. No matter how difficult the obstacle or intimidating the goal, you have to be tenacious to overcome it and proceed. Same goes for recovering from injury. Tenacity measures your ability to bounce back from something, regardless of whether or not you were tough enough to avoid it in the first place.

Dan

[graeme]

A big part of running is mental... but I don't think it's the mental "preparation" that makes up most of that 90%. I think it's more about the person who really wants it more and is willing to push themself to the limits.

[Dan]

It seems to me you've defined precisely what mental preparation is! How else would you define it?

Dan

[graeme]

I think of mental preparation as the things that you think about right before a race, like your pace, strides or breathing. Some people may psyche themselves up before a race but I think the will to win is something that just depends on how hard you've worked and other things that occur over time.

[Dan]

[graeme]

What I'm saying is that I think of mental preparation as how you get ready RIGHT BEFORE the race. The will to win is usually something you've developed over time.... but that's just my opinion. Kind of hard to explain what I'm saying though.

[Dan]

Ok, so what would you call the mental determination that goes into training? It sounds to me as if you're looking at mental aspects as something you either have or don't, not something that gets developed and leads toward training results. Consider that first hard interval workout of the year, where you are about to puke half way through and feel like quitting, to the same one late season that feels like a walk in the park. Would you agree that you feel mentally tougher during the latter workout?

Dan

[graeme]

I agree that you could feel mentally tougher during a workout later in the season. I'm not saying it's something you have or you don't. I just mean that part of the mental aspect is determination that you've had over a long time. Most people wouldn't decide they want to win a race 5 minutes before hand. They have wanted to win it for a long time usually, so I don't think of that part as preperation.

[Dan]

I understand what you're saying, but I don't see how determination can be differentiated from the mental aspects, of which preparation is inseparably intertwined.

Dan

[graeme]

I didn't say that determination isn't mental. I just don't think that it's 100% pre-race preperation.

[Dan]

Of course not. What I'm saying is that pre-race and during the race are largely the same mental preparation. There's no meaningful way to assign a percentage to it, just like there's no way to separate it into two items.

Dan

[graeme]

There, now we agree