Mental Strength

I tell our runners to divide the race into thirds. Run the first part with your head, the middle part with your personality, and the last part with your heart. ~ Mike Fanelli

Anyone who has run a marathon or a half-marathon in the past can attest to how your body changes physically and mentally from the start to the finish. At the beginning, you have everyone talking, laughing, joking around and for the most part enjoying the emotional high of starting one of the biggest challenges of their lives. The middle of the race brings about the realization that you still have a lot more running to do! As you near the end of the race, I find it almost eerily silent. All you hear is the constant and repetitive thumping of feet hitting the ground. Almost no one is talking and most of the laughter from the beginning of the race has subsided dramatically.

As we all know, distance running requires and unbelievable amount of physical strength and stamina. Without such stamina, most of us would not even be able to come close to actually running a marathon or half-marathon. This is the reason why those of us who choose to tackle these distances train as hard as we do. Putting in the miles day after day, week after week. There is however, one area of training that is incredibly hard to train for, especially for the novice marathoner or half-marathoner. Being mentally strong! Training your brain and your heart not for the physical beating, rather for the mental beating you will be taking on.

I have been lucky enough to have started and finished 11 full marathons and 7 half-marathons. In every single one of these races, I have dealt with both physical and mental struggles. This past Saturday for me was a perfect example of what not to do before running a marathon. I ran the Rocket City marathon in Alabama and I was not mentally ready. For the first time in my racing life, I did not feel like I even wanted to race. There were several times throughout the marathon that I wanted to quit and just give up. I came into the race with a slight ankle sprain to begin with so it would have been very easy to use that as an excuse and drop out. By mile 17 or 18 I was resigned to the fact that there was no way I was going to finish. My pace had slowed considerably, my ankle was in excruciating pain and my right hip started to hurt pretty bad due to my changing my gait to take some pressure off of my ankle. All of these things added up to many reasons to quit. But I didn't. I slowed down, I started some deep breathing and I went inside my head for the next 8 plus miles. I thought about all the people who have encouraged me. I started thinking about all the people that I love and that love me. Eventually the thoughts of not finishing the race disappeared and I was able to complete the race.

There are many things that I took away from this race. Some of them are physical issues that I must deal with, but the one thing that I am most proud of, is that no matter what, I know that I just won't quit!

Happy Running!