Mental Strength (Read 960 times)

I got chills.

That's an interesting article......Nice find Jeff

are they multiply'in?

or are they electrify'in?

I've thought about this some. I think that maybe what it means to break through the pain barrier is less a matter of masochistic seeking or enduring of intense pain and more a matter of learning through long practice that the intensity of effort and concentration that distance running takes is not painful at all. Maybe Tergat's analogy is bad. The arrow doesn't go through the wall, but instead goes elsewhere. In my experience, the painful races are the ones in which I have already begun to slow, because I went out too hard. The pain that I feel is the frustration of slowing, the realization of the distance between the body I have and the body I imagined. But does the well-run race hurt? I can't recall. My attention was elsewhere: on the runners around me. On keeping the rhythms working, on riding the thin line of absolute effort. These things constitute the mental strength of the runner: the power to concentrate on what is working and to ignore the rest. Just as the musician when practicing is often bored, so the runner when training is sometimes pained by his fatigue. But when it is time for the performance--if all goes well--there is no boredom, no pain. The best runners are not able to tolerate the most pain. They don't have to tolerate it; their attention is elsewhere. They do not notice the pain at all.

I bet Chuck Norris could run through the pain.

Chuck does all my stunts.

In my experience, the painful races are the ones in which I have already begun to slow, because I went out too hard. The pain that I feel is the frustration of slowing, the realization of the distance between the body I have and the body I imagined. But does the well-run race hurt? I can't recall. My attention was elsewhere: on the runners around me. On keeping the rhythms working, on riding the thin line of absolute effort. These things constitute the mental strength of the runner: the power to concentrate on what is working and to ignore the rest.

Yes. My most painful races were poor ones -- the result of starting too fast and/or lack of conditioning.