"It's All in Your Head"

"It's all in your head." It's the typical, cliche mantra of many coaches, athletes and analysts.

It can be used as part of a pep talk after poor practices, lousy games, and halfhearted workouts, or it can be used as a basic reason to rationalize an individual or teams seemingly inexplicable success.

It seems pretty obvious, but there's really no better way to say it. Well, maybe a few creative ways, such as when Bobby Jones once said (in reference to golf)  "it's played on a 5 inch course - the distance between your ears." 

After almost 2 weeks of straightforward training, the psychological aspect of  running is becoming apparent. Not just in a "clear your head, block out distractions and run from within" sort of way, but something slightly more subtle.

It's a shifting of gears that seems to naturally allow my motivation to spike, dip and even out like clockwork in accordance to the distance of my upcoming run.  It's a carefully calculated amount of anticipation and motivation that varies, as opposed to a vague, overarching "running motivation" that comes over me each time I strap on my vibrams and hit the trail.

Struble Trail

For the shorter runs, it feels more like a simple task I need to complete. A quick, 20-30 minute item to check off my list. But before the longer runs, I tap into some sort of motivation reserve that only comes with having an 8+ mile run on the agenda for the day. The rest of the day doesn't seem to matter. All that matters is that run.

My first relatively long run was this week at the scenic Struble Trail on a beautiful Tuesday morning. As with all runs, it started off a bit slow, but after mile 5 and some intuitive timing from my mp3 player, I hit my stride. As I cruised through Downingtown with "Pompeii" by "Bastille" blasting from my headphones, knew I'd be able to cruise through the final 3 miles. It's runs like this that I need.

Runs that give my mental fortitude a slight nudge, wake it up a bit, and test it. I know much longer runs are in store, but I'm ready for it. Especially the increased amount of naps that will inevitably follow these long runs :)