One of the things I have always tried to figure out was the connection between mind and body and how it impacts performance. Meaning, how do we push our bodies to go further when we are hurting? How do we push through the pain (think lactic acid buildup, not broken leg pain) and elevate performance? For some people this seems to come more naturally, but I think we all struggle with it at some point. There is a point in every race where our mind is says, “slow down, I’m hurting and I don’t think I can sustain this pace.”

I started to think about this a long time ago, probably my freshmen year in high school. In high school I started rowing and quickly learned it can be one of the toughest sports both physically and mentally. It is one of the few endurance sports that is truly a team sport. Yes, there are team endurance sports but in most of those sports you can still have individual success even if your team is not good. In rowing that is not the case, either the boat you are in wins or loses and that result is dependent on all 8 rowers. If one of those rowers has a bad race or eases off the chances of success plummet.

The fact that it is a team sport taught me a lot about mental toughness that I don’t think I appreciated at the time. When we run a race there are no other people dependent on us, it is just us and our minds and I would argue it is a bit easier to give into that voice. When we are in a rowing race, the idea that other people are dependent on us helps us ignore that voice. There are numerous studies that have shown we are more likely to deliver on our promise when there are people depending on us.

So how do we apply that to individual sports? That is a tough question and the one that I have been trying to solve for a long time. I don’t have an answer but I have ideas and strategies that I try to apply when I hear that voice in a race telling me to ease up. The first thing I do is recognize that our bodies are capable of more than we believe and I typically always think about how I was able to summon a finishing kick in a previous race regardless of how tired I was. Where did that speed and energy come from? I also think about other races or workouts where I did not think I was having a good day and wanted to quit but told myself just to complete the workout and not worry about splits and ended up hitting the workout paces. How was I able to hit my paces in a workout when I was dead tired? I also ask myself how I will feel after a race if I know I left something on the table. In a sense I am trying to make myself accountable to my future self if that makes sense.

Mental toughness is a hard thing to master, very few people actually ever do master it, but that is what makes it so compelling to me. Mental toughness comes in different forms as well, the voice we hear during a 5k is much different then what we hear during a 50 miler. The only real way to overcome the voice is to continually challenge ourselves and push yourself until that voice starts talking to you at which point you can either listen to it and give up or ignore it and push on. Chances are you will never ignore it 100% of the time, but every time you do you ignore it you will have an experience to harken back to when the voice comes back the next time. Perhaps that won’t prevent you from listening to it the next time but maybe it will allow you to go just a bit longer or harder then you normally would. The goal is to keep delaying the moment at which point that voice starts creeping into your mind.