Positive Self Talk
How important is positive self talk? Most people would agree that it is super important and that you should do it everyday and I am one of those people. I look around at the world and see the beauty in all. I look at a long to do list or difficult challenge and say I've got this. I have an A type personality so I get everything done i set out to do.
However, I had a few recent experiences that left me dumbfounded. I would go to a race pumped up an excited. I had trained hard, rested, ate right and then something happens during the race every single time. I could never figure out what happened and would come in home in tears. I would often miss my goal time or I would be out there and all the sudden here this voice screaming in my head "why are you doing this?" or "is this ever going to end?" I would always think what the heck? I have all these amazing training runs one right after another with outstanding times, huge hills and no crazy voices in my head or sluggish tired legs.
I finally had to sit down and really examine what was going on. Fortunately one of my favorite sites here in So Cal called Race Grader had posted an article on positive self talk while running. It occurred to me after I read it that I had been SEVERELY negative self-talking at races. An example would by " Geez how do they call that a rolling hill?" or " This sucks I can't believe how bottle necked this path is" one negative thought after another. I was just one giant running negative Nancy on the course. I feel embarrassed to tell anyone I let this happen to me and didn't even realize it but I have seen some things lately and started listening to others and I don't thinks it is that uncommon.
I think we as runners can psych ourselves out when we head out to race. Most runners are already questioning the taper week and if it is going to hurt them or help them. When I stand in my starting corral I often see people just completely overwhelmed with emotion. It's one thing to read about a course and view it online and it is totally different to be out there on it. There are many reasons runners get psyched out and it is easy to get into to the negative self talk. The tricky part is learning to get over it.
Here is what I did... basically I just found some phrases and whenever something negative would pop into my head during a run I would chase it out with all these positive phrases. I memorized these so I had some on hand for I needed them quickly.
I use these when I am feeling drained on a run or when I start making deals with myself to cut it short.
- You are strong
- Hills make me strong
- Running up this hills makes me a warrior
- This is my joy
- This is the part that counts so keep going
- No this isn't easy if it was everyone would do it
- This is my happy place
- I love this run
- I don't have to do I want to do this and this is a privilege
- Pain is temporary pride is forever
- Suck it up buttercup
- This might be tough but I am tougher
The real test came on a recent 5k. I have been trying to sub 30 since November 2012. I have come close but never gotten close enough and each time I improved only by 1 or 2 seconds. The night before my 5k I just sat down and wrote all kinds of positive sayings in my training journal. I also went onto pace predictor and looked at what pace I needed to keep in order to achieve my goal . Once I saw it I knew that was top speed for me so I just said to myself who cares if I pass out at the finish line it happens all the time.
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