3. Fatigued Focus on the Run

New research shows lowest O2 usage (highest efficiency) when focusing on the running experience or sensation itself; simply competing or running. Staying in this less than fully conscious flow state can easily be interrupted by fatigue or any other loss of focus. When teaching runners to stay most efficient I have always advised them to focus on mood words in the beginning – words like strong, relaxed, fit, capable, ready, racer, smooth, relaxed, fun, racing, etc. Once fatigue sets in & they start to lose rhythm & their mechanics become disrupted & uncoordinated, (as they most often are right off the bike in triathlon), then flow & that type of ideal focus is lost & the runner must resort to a new tactic. That tactic is focusing on process. Focusing on fatigue or performance, especially outcome, is dissociative & has been shown to be the least efficient. Focusing on process can often return rhythm & flow. The skilled look for that beat of foot strike. A set of skills, like shortening the stride to return or maintain rhythm, can be taught/learned & can be ways back into the run.
So in summary: Focusing on anything other than that which can propel you forward faster during fatigued running can be called lost focus. Focusing on fatigue, or trying to think dissociatively, i.e. of something else to get your mind off the task at hand, when racing or running hard, leads to reduced access to fitness & ability. Focusing on how you are running (the mechanical movements) is also ineffectual, as this is a cognitive process that occurs so much slower (it is chemical), than the natural (electrical) flow of a reflex (unconscious) action. Thoughts on getting limbs & body into optimal position to gain maximum benefit from power application & elastic return are excellent ways to focus. Focusing on a feeling or image is also very powerful, especially when fresh. At the start of an endurance race, focus on mood words like, easy, smooth, powerful, relaxed, will help you to not interfere cognitively with your body’s natural ability to perform. In triathlon this would be relevant mostly in the swim & on the bike if a draft legal event. However, when fatigue sets in, it becomes useful to think objectively about what to do, especially if your form has deteriorated.

Bobby McGee – Bobby McGee Endurance Sports
http://www.bobbymcgee.com/

Just 2 HUGE requirements for Success

All you need to race exceptionally is just these 2 things
Performance in endurance sports is all about 2 critical factors:
1. How confident are you?
2. How much can you handle?
It’s kind of in your face isn’t it? I have recently written a sport psychology chapter for a training manual & just discussing what factors make up self confidence & the ability to deal with the extreme sensations that need to be managed to achieve your best possible performance took nearly 10 000 words! I guess that’s why sport psychologists will keep churning out studies & writing books, because while understanding the theory behind the psychology of endurance performance is doable & interesting, it is the application that is SO much more difficult. The very 1st review I received when I published Magical Running, my book on the mental approach to endurance events, (available at http://www.bobbymcgee.com/), was that it “is an easy book to read, a very hard book to do”. This fact points to the age old fact that while everybody knows sport psychology is the glue that turns training & potential into performance, it is largely paid nothing more than lip service. Often the excuse is that it takes too much time or that most feel they really don’t need to work on it, but the truth is:
THE ONE THING THAT FEW OF US EVER WANT TO FACE IS THE TRUTH BEHIND WHAT HOLDS US BACK
That’s why it’s called a blind spot – we simply cannot see why we fail to push through. It is a somewhat universal truth that we are all afraid of being exposed & therefore unwilling to be vulnerable. It is through ownership of our limitations that we can determine whether our beliefs are just skewed perception paradigms or hold some modicum of truth. The self statement “I am not good enough”, or the question, “Am I good enough?” needs to be answered 1000s of time during the course of a race. Our biggest breakthroughs come when we take on the process of tearing down the façade, which incidentally seems to us to be so well constructed, but is often so obvious to those that know us! A hint to involve others in this process of learning who we are as competitors & what we need to work on to become more fully whom we are capable of being.
Confidence is mostly sourced from effective training AND connecting that training & it’s implications with who we are being in competition. This requires insight , honesty & most of all a continuous passionate commitment to the execution of process actions in order to get it all out of ourselves on race day.
Some compelling current research seems to indicate that our point of failure is ALWAYS mental – no matter what the physical situation, the cessation of performance is always a decision to quit that is made at some level of consciousness!
Certain mental fatigue limits our performance capabilities & conversely, as the study seems to prove, it is possible to make considerable gains in performance through specific mental training.
The psychological lesson however has not changed – do what it takes to be as confident as possible – I’d define this as the belief that we can execute to our fitness & ability on race day & 2ndly, know in every fiber of our being that we are the toughest SOBs out there & that there is no circumstance that we cannot handle in such a way that it turns out to our advantage.
Come to think of it – that’s what I have been seeing out there on the world stage for 29 years – confidence & guts, deep grounding confidence & jaw dropping guts.
My wish for you all then: believe in yourself & know you have what the race asks.
Bobby McGee
http://www.bobbymcgee.com/