Want to train hard? But how do you keep going when your legs are dying, your lungs are burning and the little voice inside your head is screaming at you to stop?
If you want to be the best you can, then at some point you have to train hard and be able to push yourself to your limits. That means practising how to do this in training. Not every session. (As a coach to reiterate – most definitely do not train hard every session). But enough to know that in those critical moments mid-race you can do it. It’s something that as an athlete I have always been quite good.
However, until I started coaching, I hadn’t reflected much on it. Now as a coach I would say it’s both a talent and a skill developed over years of training and racing. So how do you develop this skill?
What is hard?
A good place to start is by understanding what do we mean by train hard? Hard things make us feel uncomfortable. They challenge us. And they are often associated with something painful. Which begs the question – what is pain?
Pain is an unpleasant sensory experience associated with tissue damage. We feel pain when a signal is transmitted along neural pathways to the brain. When you feel this type of pain it is definitely time to stop! Stop right now and see your physio.
But pain isn’t only physical. It’s also an emotional state. In essence, pain is literally all in your head. This doesn’t make it hurt any less but it can help you to develop some good mental strategies for when things get hard in races.
However, what makes it trickier when it comes to endurance running is that there is a lot of time to think about a lot of things, including how much it hurts. The key to success is to train yourself to think the right things when it starts to get hard. Or perhaps more accurately, don’t think the wrong things (such as how much you would like to stop right now!)
5k to Marathon are all on the same continuum of pain
Club training sessions helped develop good mental resilience to keep going when it gets hard
Runners like to debate and compare. Is one event harder than another? Does the 5k hurt more than the marathon? Do you need to train hard for the 5k more than the marathon?
As someone who progressed from winning national medals as a young athlete in the 800ms up to representing Great Britain and competing in the Elite Women’s London marathon I have a lot of experience across the range of endurance events. So I can confirm they are all hard. They are just hard in different ways.
There’s the short-lived but intense, lung-searing agony of oxygen debt over 800ms. At the other extreme is the prolonged suffering and attrition in the marathon. With everything else in between. The nature and duration of the pain may differ. But they all require the same key ability to push yourself when it gets tough.
Train Hard and Train for Pain (But not every day or even every week!)
Just like the physical attributes required for running such as VO2 Max or lactate threshold, you can train yourself to develop more effective mental strategies. There’s a lot of sports psychology support available to help.
As a coach let me reiterate again. This not to advocate that you should ignore easy days and recovery. Hard training should always be a carefully planned part of your training. Not random masochistic mega-sessions just for the kudos. But it does mean SOMETIMES in training you need to train hard to practice pushing yourself.
As an elite athlete training for 5k and 10k, the relentless track sessions we ran at Bedford & County AC were critical to my later success. They were long and hard and you hung on even if you thought you were literally dying. We used to “joke” that if you could survive those sessions, then the race would be easy. But all joking aside, those sessions enabled us to develop essential mental resilience.
Some runners don’t always appreciate just what it means to push yourself hard. It’s much easier and more comfortable and, quite frankly, much nicer, to sit in your comfort zone and not really push yourself. But I was fortunate to watch Paula Radcliffe (and numerous other top international athletes) train over the years. It was eye opening to see how hard those athletes really push themselves. Closer to home, those Bedford sessions also set an example to others of how to train hard. I remember being collapsed on the inside of the track at the feet of another coach and his group. He gestured towards me and said to the group “THIS is how I want you to be at the end of this session!”
Develop a range of helpful strategies
The best runners develop a range of strategies to help them in different scenarios. Over many years I have perfected my ongoing internal dialogue. It consists of a mix of bribery, corruption, threat and deceit. Promising treats. Telling myself it’s not that bad. It won’t last forever. One more lap of the track. You’ll be pleased when it’s over. If you give up now, you will never forgive myself and all your pain and suffering will have been for nothing.
Distraction such as singing in my head or chanting mantras works well. Even now I always count down the last 60 seconds of every rep. It helps me to focus on the numbers and the here and now. What’s more, it stops the bad habit looking at your watch every five seconds too willing it to be over.
If masochism fails, try sadism
Focus on the suffering of your competitors to help you in races and distract you from your own suffering!
I have always said the best competitive athletes have the perfect balance between masochism and sadism. In the heat of competition (and during those track sessions at Bedford) one of my personal coping strategies was to switch focus to the suffering of my fellow competitors. Tell myself they hurt just as much as me. Or even more. This helped me to hang on just a bit longer. And even squeeze out a little bit more effort to make sure I finished them off. (I did say I was competitive!)
But whatever times you may run. If you want to compete against other people or just yourself. The truth is that if you want to achieve your best you have to develop the skills to be able to train hard when it’s required. That means how to cope with the pain of searing lungs, lactate build up in your legs and sheer exhaustion and fatigue. Along with the prolonged suffering of the marathon. (I admit none of that sounds much fun).
But the good news is being able to push yourself to do hard things is a skill you can improve. And when you do the highs of achieving a new personal best time can make it all feel worthwhile. The bad news is it takes a lot of practice. And does mean at times you are going to have to go there in training too. So next time your lungs are burning and your legs are screaming, tell yourself “this is all in my head”, “it will be worth it when it’s over” and push that little bit harder.
Jo is a former GB marathon runner and now fully qualified British Athletics coach. To find out more about her coaching visit her Running Jo website or to see the latest updates on her running and coaching follow her on Instagram or Facebook.