There Are Tried-and-True Methods You Can Use to Finish Well.

ut there in the distance, somewhere far, far away, is the line of achievement,

the line of accomplishment, the finish line. In between here and there lie obstacle courses composed of hallucinations, blister patches, pits of fatigue, and chronic muscle pain. But none of these may be as challenging as the self-inflicted obstacles your mind creates for you. That’s the briar patch, so to speak.

There is a reason the 20-mile mark in a marathon is called The Wall. There is a reason runners of all distances have their version of hitting that Wall. But if the physical training is there, it shouldn’t be an issue, right? Not always.

When that negative voice of “I can’t,” or “I’m too tired,” or “I didn’t train enough,” or “I’m not going to get a good time” permeates everything else, you’ve reached the point of mental failure; your brain wasn’t adequately prepared to go the distance.

“A lot of running is mental,” says Chicago ultrarunner Scott Jacaway. “You need the physical part, but when you go long distance, it becomes a mental thing.” Jacaway started running ultras about five years ago. In that time, he has completed more than 40 races ranging from 50 kilometers to 100 miles. And he has the right attitude to do it. “I’m not one of the top runners out there,” he says matter-of-factly. “But you don’t have to finish first; you just have to finish. That’s my philosophy.”

And finishing ultraruns or any endurance sport means training your mind as well as your body.

“You know it’s going to be very difficult,” says Vashon, Washington, ultrarunner Alex Swenson, who scored as the number two man for the U.S. team at the 2006 World 24-Hour Run Championship in Grapevine, Texas. Long races are always tough, Swenson says, “but the most difficult mental obstacle to overcome is when I feel physically worn out in the first half of a race.”

THE FIRST 50 MILES ARE ALL PHYSICAL; THE SECOND 50 MILES ARE ALL MENTAL

Feeling tired, or physically worn out, in the first half of a race opens the door for negative self-talk, say many distance runners and their coaches. When the body is tired, the mind often acquiesces and creates plausible excuses to slow down, stop, or drop out.

So how do you get beyond that tired feeling early in the race?

Dave Mackey runs 15 to 20 long-distance races a year. He says the first thing he concerns himself with during a race is not speed, pacing, or even the competition. “First, I feel out my system,” he says. “I make sure I am always eating and drinking, especially early in a race.” Not only is he giving himself plenty of energy to make it through the first, physical half of the race, he is preparing his body for the second half when he has to focus more on what his mind is doing. “Tf I take care of myself really well in the first half of a race, the second half goes much better, as I have banked fuel and hydration.”

Now, before I go on, it is important to note that many coaches say it’s important to understand that a DNF, or “did not finish,” is not a sign of failure. Knowing your body and knowing when to stop in order to prevent injury—or worse—is a sign of success; you cannot run with a bad hip or a cartilage-free knee. You cannot run when your kidneys shut down because of dehydration. Instead, you can, quite literally, run yourself into the ground. So, it is just as important to train your mind to understand when you’ ve reached your physical limit. That, too, can lead to reward and success, says Jacaway, because you live to run another day. “In the ultra world, DNF also stands for ‘did nothing foolish.’”

Swenson says he has dropped out of a few races. “Usually it’s not a case of injury,” he says. “Mostly you’re mentally not together and not able to push your body to keep going.”

Stuart Schulman organizes two ultraraces a year: the Chicago Lakefront 50K in the spring and the Chicago Lakefront 5OK/50M in the fall. He says of the people who register and show up for the races, about 80 percent complete them. Though he has never done any studies to determine whether they dropped out for physical or for mental reasons, many distance runners say that when ultraracers repeatedly drop out, it’s because their minds got in the way.

Beth Onines tries to make it to four to five ultraruns a year, including the Chicago Lakefront 50K. To date, she has notched her belt with more than 30 ultramarathons and 90 marathons. But she is coming off an injury and isn’t clocking the speed or the distance she once was able to do on a regular basis. Still, “I ran the other day, and it didn’t hurt,” she says with pride. “I haven’t felt like this in years, so I’m hoping to run for as far as I can for as long as I want, whenever I want.”

MIND OVER MATTER

When asked how she manages to run hour after hour without mental fatigue sabotaging her races, Beth says she plays games on the course. “Once I get to a certain point, I say, ‘OK, after this point, I’m going to step it into gear,’ and I pretend it’s a 10K and run it in.”

For Swenson, it’s not so much playing games as it is shortening his goals. “The way I deal with that is I just hunker down and focus on five-minute blocks—something really small. Sometimes I don’t even do five minutes. Sometimes I’m just in the moment. You know, just get through this moment, and then get through the next moment.”

To combat boredom or fatigue, many endurance runners switch on their brains and use their mental training to focus on getting themselves closer to the finish line.

Scott Fliegelman, distance runner, triathlete, and head coach of Fast Forward Sports, who races triathlons and Ironmans, breaks down the marathon stage this way: “I consider it to be 26 consecutive one-mile repeats from aid station to aid station,” he says. “It’s at the end of everything else, so you can’t expect to run nearly as swiftly as you could if it was at the start of the day.” And when he breaks it down into mile segments, it makes it mentally easier. “I know I can run a mile,” he says.

Whether at the end of an Ironman or an ultrarace, refueling the body should be a no-brainer. You may have stored up food and water in the beginning, enough to sustain you physically, but now is when the brain could use a little boost. In order to function properly, the brain needs glucose, which is derived from carbohydrates. And if you are going to survive the mental challenge of the second half of your race, your brain needs to be working as best as it can. “So the goal,” says Scott, “is to make as much headway as you can between aid stations.” Then, he says, when you get to the aid stations, get down as much as you can.

Whether your body is fueled or not, getting through the brain blocks that can cripple an otherwise great run or race can be as challenging as breaking through a wall—but it’s not impossible, says sports psychologist and Olympic running coach Bobby McGee. You just have to train for cognitive as well as physical endurance.

“Most people underperform in races,” says McGee. In fact, he says, only 9 percent of athletes perform up to their potential. Why? Because they haven’t completed the mental component of race training. Not only are they fearful of being too uncomfortable during the race, they’re fearful of falling short of their race goal. As a result, they psych themselves out of a good performance, says McGee. “There’s a weight of expectation. People become attached to a certain outcome in a race. They run with a brick in their back pocket and end up putting

too much stress on themselves.” It’s like carrying around a piece of that wall with you, instead of leaving it crumbled on the side of the road.

And McGee ought to know. He has coached some of the country’s top runners, including Carrie Messner (USA steeplechase athlete), Barb Lindquist (ranked first in the world in 2003 and 2004 in the Olympic-distance triathlon), and Colleen De Reuck (four-time Olympian), plus scores of other distance runners and triathletes. Over the course of McGee’s coaching career, he has seen a trend: “People who have been ill or injured and miss training might get to a race maybe 85 to 90 percent prepared to perform up to their potential. They don’t expect to do well.” But guess what? McGee says that in most cases they do exceptionally well. And then, “They go away, train hard, have expectations for the next race, and don’t do well.” Again, he says, it’s the weight of expectation without complementary training for the brain that undermines many athletes along the way.

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH…

“Most people don’t realize they’re tougher than they think they are,” Jacaway says, recalling his personal accomplishments and stories told by his group of ultrarunning buddies. “Just like you need the muscles to perform a physical task, you need the brain to tell yourself to keep going.”

Fliegelman has a motto that is the cornerstone of his training program: “When you’re prerecorded for success, just press play.” In other words, when you have trained your body and your mind for a race, you have prerecorded all the elements you will need to succeed on race day. “In my three months up to the race, I record the necessary ‘music’ I need for race day, and it lessens the anxiety because I don’t have to do anything magical or miraculous on that day.”

That music can include positive self-talk, a well-defined goal, visualization, and acceptance of reasonable pain.

Dave Mackey’s prerecording is based on past success, which can have an enormous impact on mind-set going into a race: you’ve done it before; you can do it again. “Being ready to go in the head isn’t a problem for me,” he says. “I try not to be affected by the competitors around me.” Instead, Mackey says, he focuses on getting into the groove and feeling of the run.

Conversely, if you have participated in races before and reached a point where you’ve dropped out before, or if you start comparing a current run to a previous run, your mind tends to focus on the negative aspects of past and present behaviors, creating a platform for failure.

CREATE MENTAL MAGIC

That’s when you might need a little extra mental motivation and to let your body be your guide. In other words, learn how to take physical cues and turn them into mental magic. “Find comfort in discomfort,” offers Fliegelman. “During a race, if we’re pushing ourselves, we’re going to feel a level of discomfort.” It might be in the legs; it might be in the lungs. Either way, when athletes accept the discomfort (not to be confused with real physical pain) and even embrace it, Fliegelman says, they will run to the best of their abilities. “The less experienced runners are with discomfort, the more likely they will find a moderately comfortable pace on race day and just hope that it’s the right pace. And, as often as not, they get to the finish line and say, ‘I could have gone faster.’”

By checking in with your body and realizing you are not in pain, just uncomfortable, you can adapt your thinking and tell yourself, “I am not injured or tired. [am feeling what I should be feeling at this point in my race, so let’s get moving!”

McGee says the first thing he does with his athletes is address the negative voice. “I have them look at the internal dialogue prerace and pretraining.” McGee has his runners take note of their thoughts during training to gauge their preparedness for a hard, speedy workout. Then he has them reflect on their thoughts just before a race. “And if there’s a distinct disparity there, then we need to recognize that the way they’re thinking of races is disempowering, and we need to replace those thoughts with something positive so it becomes second nature.” In other words, you gotta fake it ’til you make it. And believe it or not, it works.

Quick Tips for Mental Training

MIND OVER MATTER » Take time each day for positive self-talk. » When doubts enter your mind, acknowledge them and alter them. » Practice mental focus on training runs. » Create and review your race-day goals. + Visualize success. + Find comfort in discomfort.

» Accept what you cannot control.

ENERGIZE THE BRAIN » Fuel and refuel during training and racing. » Be aware of your physical limitations. » Take a mantra with you.

Accepting discomfort and boredom during endurance runs is imperative for ultrarunner Peter Bakwin to finish a race. Pain and boredom, he says, are usually accompanied by doubt. “I doubt I can finish the run, much less perform well in the race. It seems a chore to put one foot in front of the other. When I get in my head and fuss about the miles and how I feel, then things can be very difficult.” Once he converts the negative self-talk into performance affirmations, the run and the race take on a new meaning and experience for him.

Onines says she often runs with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. “When I’m out there running and feeling miserable and the bad devil is saying, ‘You can’t do this,’ the good angel is saying, ‘You trained for this.’ That’s when I tell my body it will be over soon. It’s a mental game that I play.”

Jacaway says that when he starts a race he doesn’t keep the 100-mile finish line in sight. “I just concentrate on getting to that aid station. If you make your goal somewhat shorter, it doesn’t seem as daunting.” And then, almost magically, he says, you find yourself with just one aid station to go before the finish line.

When he was racing, Schulman’s way of combating the distance doubts was to get himself to never-never land, “so you don’t concentrate on your misery. Instead, you wake up five miles later, which is five miles closer to the finish line.” Some runners transport their minds somewhere else by focusing on the scenery. Others count out a rhythm like a form of self-hypnosis, synching their footfalls