Anyone actively practicing mental skills?
What do you do? Visualization? Relaxation exercises? Positive self-statements? I promised myself I would make these a more concrete part of my training and racing package this year, and I'm interested to hear how others are pacticing these and building them into their training and racing (Bonus points: how are you building them into your training and racing, EN-style?). Admittedly, I don't include these as regularly in my repitoire as I could or should, but this Pez article on 'Zone 6' was a recent reminder of the importance.
FWIW, I've been recently trying to 'see' good running form through a few minutes of visualization every day (close the office door, shut out distractions, close eyes, imagine Rinnie Carfrae), with a focus on certain cues like 'hips forward' or 'power arch' to make the exercise more biomechanical than just having a pretty picture of a smooth runner in my mind's eye. At other times, practicularly during race week, I take a few mental rehearsals of ... wait for it ... 4 keys principles in action: for example, visualizing getting passed by a stronger looking dude with a '40' AG stamp on his leg on the bike, and then practicing my immediate reaction of staying in the box has, in my view, been pretty helpful to make staying in the box a reality when the rubber has hit the road on race day. (of course, I visualize passing the same dude at mile 19 or 20 to keep it real).
What's in your Zone 6?
Comments
This is something that I've been wanting/meaning to do in a more formal way but just never seem to get it done. I really enjoyed this book that gives practical methods for visualization. One of these days!
www.amazon.com/Running-Within-Maste...0880118326
When I get tired, I work on bringing my heels higher, closer to my ass because for me, it lengthens the stride a bit and makes me pick up my knees more forcing me to move faster. I also think about keeping my eyes up, not down in front of me and trying to be a bit taller. Other than that, I just concentrate on my breathing and making sure it is at the rate that I think it should be for whatever part of the race/workout I am in. Good luck and don't think too hard, running is hard enough!
Dan
I do nothing formally, just here and there cues and reminders. I have found myself recently digging the long runs (never, ever happened before now, my 50th year) and I go with no music usually, to think about and practice run form, breathing etc. Also, I now find myself using the log runs as time to analyze and chop up emotional stuff as well as day to day business and family issues- really drill down on the what and why of things. I also try to meditate daily, but it's really just a nap.
This is an area of triathlon training that I find particularly fascinating. I think there are two separate "mental skills" which are of value to us. The first is the persistence needed to get through difficult workouts at the level demanded for improvement. E.g., how do you keep the effort level 35 minutes into a 2x20 FTP test on the bike, or keep the MP going 2:15 into a long run (to use immediate examples from my IM plan this week.) Second is the ability to "quiet the mind" during the actual race; this need is most apparent in an IM compared to shorter races, even an HIM. To some extent, these two skills are opposite of each other. One is supreme focus of all one's consciousness. The other is to let go of consciousness and let the body do its thing without excess meddling.
Can, or should, the skills be trained outside of the time one is actually swimming/biking/running? The acute focus skill is probably only honed during the workouts themselves, and also during shorter races or time trials. The skill can be reinforced through retrospection, reviewing how the workout went, whether it was successful or not, what might have gotten in the way of focus, etc. I've learned for myself that preparation and recovery are key. When I am too tired (mentally or physically) going into a workout, I give up more easily. If I don't take all the time I need to set up my trainer properly, or get appropriately dressed and hydrated for an outdoor workout. I risk failing to perform effectively.If I don't do a bit of mental preview of just what my goals are for the workout, I'm more likely to miss execution targets. So preparation and review are helpful for me to develop this mental focus skill.
Opportunities to actually practice letting go in an IM are few and far between. Long runs, rides, and open water swims might be times when it can happen, but the EN protocols don't lend themselves to it. In an RR, we're focused on nutrition, watching our power or HR numbers, and providing a lot of the admin support to riding that volunteers do in the race itself. The long runs in training are run at a higher intensity than in the race, and include a lot of variation in pace which must be attended to.
Some activities which are specifically designed to lead to "letting go", like yoga or some religious training. But I suspect that any activity which is not verbally oriented, which is done primarily alone (even if others are around) and which requires prolonged, intense attention to detail for performance is probably helpful. Like surgery, or musical performance, or detailed carpentry, or gardening, or cooking a complex meal for a lot of people.
I work all the time on creating my "ironmind"--for training, racing, and my real life. I use a process called scripting. If there is something negative going on, no matter how minor, I re-write it. For instance, an FTP test. I scribble out all the ways I'm feeling uptight about it, then re-write every one of them to reflect how I WANT it to read in my head. That's what I take out with me on the road. Works every time to put you in a very powerful place. So, yes, I work on my mental game all the time, every day, as best I can.
Like Linda, I practice reframing, and I usually draw upon very negative experiences to do so. For example, there was a time in my life where I was functionally disabled, so when I hear my inner voice gripe about "I HAVE to do this" I immediately reframe it as "I GET to do this." I just lost a family member to cancer and she eloquently blogged about her struggles with the disease and chemo side effects. Lately when I'm hearing my inner voice tick off all the little things that hurt during my workout, I remind myself that I am not truly suffering here - this twinge or that fatigue is a) not really that bad, and b) temporary. So that's horribly morbid and all, but it's my way of bringing things instantly into perspective.
I also practice connecting the training to the race. In the middle of mile repeats or a 2 hour run, I tell myself that this is a deposit in the bank account. I concentrate on how I feel then and say, "Okay, this is exactly what it's going to feel like at mile 6 in Race X." This way, I feel like my suffering has purpose. Then during Race X at mile 6, I think "Okay, this is exactly what it felt like in every training run." This way, I know that my suffering is survivable.
Mantras are helpful when I'm mentally fatigued or not in the game. "Mental Six-Pack!" is a really good one that I use a lot when I'm at my wits end to remind myself that I'm not just out here training my body.
My most common mental skill practice is goal setting for work-outs. At one point I tried to start a blog just to 'publish' my goals, but that proved to be too time consuming so now I just write out my goals especially for trainer rides (I use a computrainer and set up my rides in ERG+, those familiar with this will know the suffering it induces). I will write out my workout and say for instance- each 20' @ FTP I will write that "I will not stop pedaling".
Additionally I write out my season goals, FTP=XXX, Vdot=XXX at the start of each tseason plus a goal time for my A race.
R n P have also provided some of the mental tools I use, race planning is essentially visualization plus I typically do progressive relaxation and visualization in the days leading up to a race.
When a workout gets tough I think about a number of different things:
1. What my competition would do at that moment (keep going just to beat me).
2. What elite athletes would do (push harder), to coin a phrase 'What would Lance do"?
3. How lucky I am to be able to do this workout (I used to have a young girl living a few houses down that had something like MS and has never swam, run or rode a bike in her life and never will. Would she stop running because she was a little tired or sore? If she were given a chance should would probably run until she collapsed just because she could.)
Just need to gently point out that sometimes the mental toughness piece is not pushing harder, but backing down. All we read about is how the pros seemingly do nothing but ramp up, up, up, and push, push, push. They manage their recovery and efforts masterfully, which is why they're pros. But that's not sexy for the media to write about, however, so we nver have a complete picture of the up and downs in their training cycles. It's easy to push hard, it's knowing when to be tough by metering the effort that often proves more difficult.
For instance, when you are on your bike: what do you smell? what do you see? what are you feeling (both physically and mentally...how does your bike feel under your fingers, how tired are you?).
I've been trying to do this a few times in a week in the morning as well, taking my coffee out side and just listening to the birds, smelling the air, really noticing my surroundings.
Another thing I do is to write positive phrases on index cards. If I have time, I'll cut the words out of magazines and glue them on index cards. I carry them with me or post them in the bathroom so i see them a lot. Last year I did the EN 4 keys on cards. I also do things like "I am strong" "I can do this" "yes you can".
Cheers!
P