Give your running a boost with a mantra.
I can already hear the keyboards typing into google.. ‘what is a mantra??’ - A mantra is a personal affirmation that helps you focus and stay mentally tough. Best thing is they are free, easy, and they work!
With runners - lots of love and affection usually goes only to the body parts that demand our attention with a niggle or ache. Eg, legs or feet. It seems that many of us may miss caring for the most important organ in a runners body - the brain.
Our brain directly decides how successful we are each day, such as:
Deciding to wake up with your alarm, rather than snoozing.
Staying mentally tough during a hard workout, helping a strong finish.
Maintaining high levels of motivation. eg constant training cycles.
Giving you drive to complete strength training, or rehab correctly.
Building your confidence to register for runs and races.
In reality, almost all success that you might have with your running journey has more to do with your thought patterns, mental fitness, and psychology than your physical skills alone.
So why do I need a mantra?
Running is a unique kind of sport. Most sports that are undertaken as individuals (eg, golf, rock climbing, surfing, water-skiing) are completed with a desire to avoid pain. There is no purpose of pain in these types of sports, so it’s to be avoided to be successful.
But along comes running (and other endurance sports). In these sports you’re rewarded for actively seeking out more and more discomfort! The more ‘race-related’ pain you can endure, the better you will perform.
This is the differentiating factor that makes our mental fitness so important as a runner. Without preparing our psychology for the demands of increasing running-related pain and discomfort, we’ll never reach our potential and always ‘stop at the next street corner’.
Mantras must be personal and something that you can repeat to yourself over and over when things get challenging. Sometimes they relate to all of the hard work you completed to get where you are, or have an important back story. As long as they mean something to YOU.
Here are some basic examples that might inspire you:
I CAN. I WILL.
JUST KEEP RUNNING
BREATHE
QUICK FEET
THIS RACE IS MY B$%CH
RIGHT LEFT, RIGHT LEFT
They can be super simple one liners, just as long as they spark that right motivation when you start screaming them in your mind.
A great place to start is to make a list of personal mantras to use in practice (on a hard training day etc) and if it doesn’t light you up or help you push harder - ditch that particular mantra and find a better one.
Some runners recommend making a list of mantras for particular activities. eg, one for hills, one for races, one for distance - so they are never left mantra-less when one is needed.
It might take a little bit of planning to nail a good mantra, but after a bit of practice your mind will be battle-hardened for that next challenge.