Mental Toughness (or how to keep going)

Picture the scene: It's the first interval session of the year. You've recently come back from a bad injury that has resulted in 6 weeks low workload. Prior to the injury, you were making huge progress, and going at speeds you had previously only dreamt of. You have been back in full training for about two weeks.

You set off on the first interval (c. 4mins- I'm going to keep this unspecific for now), having chosen a target pace based on where you were before the injury. It hurts, but the result was fairly good. You set off on the second. Slightly slower, and a little off pace, but still respectable. Very painful. At this point, you start wondering if there are any reasonable excuses for stopping. You begin the third, your legs are burning, you're body is screaming at you to stop (isnt this supposed to happen?!). Instead of easing back the pace slightly, you decide that you definitely should think about stopping. A small amount of (fairly transient) pain is felt at the injury site. Is it even there? hard to say. But its certainly a good enough reason to stop. So you do. And then spend the next three or four hours beating yourself up about it.

This is the situation I found myself in last night. A combination of over-stretching my goals (its the first interval session of the season, just back from injury and trying to go at flat out, pre-injury pace), very negative self-talk, and lack of emotional control found me failing to complete a simple interval session.

I believe that when mental toughness fails you, it is important to analyse what went wrong, and what must be improved next time. Once you decide it is acceptable to chuck in a session once, you will do it again and again. For me, the disgust I felt at myself is sufficient deterrent to do it again (I hope!). But I am determined to work on avoiding the situation that led to the failure in the meantime! The following strategy may help:

OVERSTRETCHING MY GOALS. Learn to be flexible. It should have been clear during the second interval that I had set my target pace too high. Rather than chasing the goal, I should have adjusted it, or introduced a new one.
NEGATIVE SELF TALK. Adjust the emphasis of the self talk. Develop scripts related to likely situations. For example, instead of "My legs are totally dead, I won't be able to finish", adjust the focus to "My legs or tired, I must work on my efficiency through my technque". Or one step further "My legs are burning- this is good, I am improving my power endurance and lactate tolerance, I must push through the pain".
LACK OF EMOTIONAL CONTROL. Begin each session in complete control. Mentally prepare for the session by evaluating your current mood and outlook, your goals for the session (which may be flexible), what the purpose and aim of the session is and how to get maximum benefit from the experience. Know the most important aspects of the session, and devise a strategy for approaching it for maximum benefit.

In future, I hope I will find the time to employ this strategy for every tough training session, and hopefully any event. In fact, I may make this one of my goals for the month...

	Author:	Fiona_Parry (Fiona_Parry's profile, Fiona_Parry's blog)
	Posted On:	Wednesday, 16th January '08, 10:56am
	Tags:	Interval Training and Psychology
	Comments:	0 comments, go to comments