Running A Marathon: Mind Over Purpose

Practicing a sport is both a physical and a psychological discipline. When facing an opponent, running a marathon, or joining a sports team, effort, training and consideration are required.

In order to achieve your goals, whether they are professional or personal, it is therefore important to assess your state of mind. Concentrating and preparing your mind for a marathon is important.

Psychological training

Marathon is the mother of all obstacle tests. When you train for one, you have to run for many miles and feel pain everywhere.

In fact, good marathon runners, those who really train for them, say that the toughest part is the training and not the marathon itself.

Thus, physical exercise must always be accompanied by resistance training. What many people forget is how important it is to put minds above purpose. There will be moments when the temptation to end the race is overwhelming, and this is when the willpower must kick in.

There are certain moments when the runner begins to ask questions such as: “What do I do here when I could have sat on my own sofa and read a book?” These questions may cause them to seriously consider giving up.

Another important psychological factor, apart from confronting pain and exhaustion, is confronting anxiety, the feeling you get a few days before the race.

The challenge of running a marathon

Finally, it is important to understand that you should not decide to participate in a marathon easily. Marathons represent a long and difficult preparation process for both body and mind.

Doing this incredible challenge involves a lot of effort. A person should not run a marathon if they do not train for it and do not run shorter runs to train.

In other words, it is important to build a physical and mental resistance for 3 to 4 months before the race. This is because running a marathon requires incredible physical resistance, as well as putting one’s mind above purpose.

According to psychologist Rocío Parrado, when you are in a marathon, the runner goes through various emotional states. The body has both a physical and a mental limit. Therefore, even after extensive training, this type of activity can not be taken lightly. Understanding how to put your mind above purpose is quite important in a marathon.

The 6 mental stages of a marathon

Tomás Vich Rodríguez assures in his book, What Happens in the Mind of a Marathon Runner, that marathons have six stages:

Euphoria : This stage starts before a marathon and ends after the first kilometers. It includes nerves before the race. It is a mixture of happy thoughts and doubts.
Talkative : Happens between 6 and 15 km. Most runners start talking to the other runners around them. There is a tendency to increase the pace, driven by the cheers of the audience, which can lead to premature exhaustion.
Transition : Occurs between 16 and 23 km. This is a psychologically neutral stage. Most runners work as they should, focused on their own pace and speed.

Sleep : Starts between 24 and 31 km. This is where the marathon really begins. Physical and mental illness starts. Anxiety begins to set in and all the runner wants to do is complete the race. Their desire to run is diminished.
Disorder : Begins between 32 to 42 km. This is where the famous “runner’s wall” appears. It is one of the most difficult parts of a marathon. Specialists say that this is the moment when the runner begins to use fat as the muscles’ most important source of energy.
The joy of completing the race : This stage represents the last few meters. That is when the runner is finally sure that they will complete the marathon and are close to the finish line.

Putting the mind above purpose at every stage

If the runner controls their emotions during the marathon, they can complete it.

Euphoria : Fatigue comes after the first adrenaline rush. Thus, those who run marathons should remember to use strategies to ensure that they pass this adrenaline in order to cross the finish line.
Talkative : We need to identify the situations that increase the pace. For example, when the audience cheers. We should not let emotions take over.
Transition : We feel comfortable during this stage. The important thing to do here is to stay calm and maintain a good pace.

Sleep : This is one of the worst stages of a marathon. Negative thoughts arise, and we must try to make them positive. It is helpful to think of things like “I expected to feel this way”, “There is just another stage in the race”, or “This feeling will pass”.
Disorder : The goal of avoiding thinking about the finish line because it is so far away may seem unattainable. Thus, we just have to think about the next meter.
Joy of completing the race : This triggers the adrenaline, makes us feel as happy as we did at the beginning of the marathon, and makes us forget the exhaustion for a little while.

Predict the consequences

Exercising your mind is necessary to ensure that your emotions do not negatively affect you during a marathon. This psychological training before the race is based on expectation.

During training, despite not running the total distance for the marathon itself, the runner should train enough. One way to do this is with accumulative exercise.

This can help the runner to estimate the pace needed during the race. This is precisely the anchoring frequency that the runner follows during the first kilometers, and will help them to avoid fatigue during the last.

Finally, it is important to emphasize the need for a good internal dialogue. Many athletes reinforce their mistakes with self-destructive phrases such as “This is not for you”. You should avoid these phrases if you want to be focused during the race.