How to Leave It All At The Starting Line

People say that a major factor in your race day performance is based on your mentality and overall mental strength. I would agree with them and go further to say that it’s a very close 50-50 on mental strength and physical strength. Being able to block out your mind and all the negative thoughts that it produces during a race will greatly improve your performance. Some different things that I have tried throughout the years and worked really well are training hard (both physically and mentally), positive self talk, and goal setting. 

Training hard has really helped me and is probably what will produce the best effect out of all of these. Being able to practice hard and get through it without succumbing to your mind is something that will really benefit you. By being able to finish a hard workout, not only do you train your body better but your mind now knows that it can complete something that was hard and felt impossible to complete. Being able to do that over and over will reinforce that thought in your mind so that on race day when it feels impossible, your mind will remember that it has done what has felt impossible before and succeeded. 

The second thing that works really well is positive self talk and feeling confident. Getting to the starting line can be an anxious experience and can bring a lot of negative self talk with it. Thoughts of “I can’t do this” or “This is gonna suck” will make it so much harder to complete the race successfully than if you think “I can do this” or “This is no harder than what I’ve already done”. I always tell myself when I get into the blocks for the 400 hurdles “Win to the first, win to the 200, win the race”. That statement helps me get into a positive and confident mindset and focuses me on my goals not on the pain of the race. 

That brings us into our last piece of advice. Set goals for yourself to focus on in the race. By having a goal, once you meet it you have a positive feeling because you accomplished something. The goal can be as simple as mentally checking off all 4 100s in the 400 or reaching the halfway point of a half marathon. I always break my races down so that I can have small victories to fuel me when I am hurting. 

Try some of these strategies in your next race or training session and experiment to see what works with you and what doesn’t. There are also other mental training exercises that you can do. It’s not limited to just these 3 tactics.