Mental preparation: race day is won in the mind too

To perform in a race, or even get through a tough workout, blazing legs and an off-the-charts VO2 max are not enough. Your mind also needs to be razor-sharp, helping you push your limits, handle the pressure of competition and manage physical pain. Too often overlooked, mental preparation is a powerful tool.

Whether you’re a champion or a weekend runner, you run not only with your body, but with your mind too. Just like physical abilities, mental resources are unevenly distributed: some people have an exceptionally strong mindset that helps them overcome almost any difficulty, while others reach their limits sooner, are more easily discouraged and tend to be overwhelmed by their emotions. Still, mental preparation is a tool that helps everyone keep improving. Whatever your profile or goal, you are bound to benefit from working on your mental game.

‘1 –– What is mental preparation?

When it comes to psychology, prejudice and fear are just as hard to shake as the feet of a relentlessly driven runner. No, you don’t see a psychologist only when you need antidepressants or are burned out! Mental preparation for athletes is not about lying on a couch and recounting the traumas of a frustrated runner. It is about developing mental and cognitive skills to optimise performance, independence and enjoyment during sport. It covers a broad range of techniques: neurolinguistic programming (NLP), visualisation, hypnosis, autosuggestion, sophrology and more.

‘2 –– Why use mental preparation?

✓ To enjoy your sport in a healthy way

Training for a race demands daily organisation, personal commitment and sometimes real sacrifices. Still, preparing for a marathon, half marathon or 10K does not mean destroying your family life, social life or career. You need to find the right balance between the different parts of your life: work, family, friends and sport. It is also important to remember that problems in one area will inevitably affect another. If you are dealing with trouble at work, for example, your sporting performance is likely to suffer.

✓ To reach your goals

Setting the right goal, adopting a positive mindset, staying focused, overcoming stress… Mental preparation methods offer a range of tools to help you manage the different factors that shape performance more effectively.

✓ To manage stress

When stress helps you rise to the occasion, it is known as “good stress”. When it paralyses you and makes you lose all your ability, it becomes “bad stress”, and you need to learn how to manage it. Mental preparation offers effective ways to arrive at the start of a race feeling calmer or to get through a difficult session.

✓ To manage fluctuations in your form

No, you cannot be at your best every day, or every minute. Your form can dip from one day to the next, or from one kilometre to the next. And when it does, your morale has a nasty habit of dropping too… unless you have a few tricks up your sleeve to deal with changes in physical form! Learning to listen to your body, look after a niggle, take rest without feeling guilty, lie low until a bad patch passes, or even cope with a forced break because of injury: mental preparation is a powerful ally.

✓ To run for the right reasons

“Why am I putting myself through this? What am I doing here?” If you sometimes find yourself asking these questions, working on your mental game could help. With mental preparation, you understand why you run, and those doubts are likely to fade.

‘3 –– How do you practise mental preparation?

There are countless books about mental preparation for athletes, as well as plenty of coaches offering support in person or remotely. Since the roles of “mental preparation coach” and “mental coach” are not regulated, anyone can claim to be one. Before buying a book or paying for sessions, look into the coach’s actual skills and training. There are university qualifications in the field, including STAPS master’s degrees specialising in mental and psychological preparation and university diplomas focused on mental preparation. But many organisations also offer qualifications of varying quality. Use your critical judgement and perhaps start by buying one or two books: the financial risk will be lower.

Example: using mental preparation to get through a bad patch

You are racing and everything is going well when, suddenly, you hit a low. Your pace drops, the clock starts to look ugly and your morale sinks to the bottom of your socks. A vicious cycle takes hold: you slow down, so you lose confidence, and as your confidence drops, you slow down even more.
To shut down the negative thoughts (“I’m useless, I won’t make it, I won’t finish in my target time, I’m going to drop out, I’m exhausted…”), you need to recenter and refocus. One mental preparation technique is to repeat the mantra “here and now” while focusing on what you are doing: running. Pay attention to your next 20 strides, counting them, to the swing of your arms, the smells around you and the sound of your feet hitting the ground. Breathe deeply, noticing the air moving in and out of your lungs and visualising its path through your body.
Focusing on the action and your sensory perceptions allows the dark thoughts to recede and your emotions to settle. The result: you will get through the bad patch more calmly and more quickly… and you may even be able to pick up the pace again!

Mental preparation is one of the tools every runner should have in their training toolbox. It helps build mental strength and, beyond sport, can simply help you live better.