Running Mindset & Body Awareness
How you can make sure your training is effective and safe, leading to sustainable, healthy performance
We wanted to discuss the above topic because of the importance of a healthy and safe approach to running and our responsibility as a coaching team to support you all in that way.
So what do we mean by running mindset? For me, it is the intent behind your training and then, importantly, the application of that intent. So an example might be “I want to train hard all the time and keep getting quicker” which means you push hard, never missing a chance to train and are constantly striving for a PB by entering races all the time. Does that sound familiar to anyone? Mindset is broad brush but naturally leads onto more specific goals (e.g. a sub 45 min 10k). In this way, though, different mindsets can still have the same goal – for example for the 45min 10k goal, a different mindset might be “I want to enjoy my running development, feeling good about myself when I see improvements”.
Why is this important? Well, I’m not sure we always dial in to what our mindset actually is and this simple act of awareness will lead to crucial insights and therefore decisions. Remember what I said about the application of your training intent? Certain mindsets can lead to decisions that have potentially bad outcomes. An obvious example of this is pushing through a niggle or illness (which might be a decision with the first mindset set I described), leading to a serious injury or even chronic ill health. Without naming anyone, I have seen many examples of both of these during my time at the club – and I include myself in that bracket too.
Now, we are trained to be athlete-led coaches, so I would never try to impose a mindset or attitude on anyone (& anyway, imposing mindsets never works, as any of us who have teenage children know all too well!). Our job is to raise awareness of the impact and implications and to suggest strategies to help with adopting a healthy mindset.
That leads onto the second part of the title of this segment which is body awareness. This is what is says on the tin – understanding and listening to your body, but crucially responding to those signals. Some of this is intuitive (we all know when something hurts) and some of this comes from experience and learning from mistakes. For me, though, dialling into your running mindset can significantly improve your response to those signals. But the relationship also goes the other way too – applying a bit of discipline with body awareness will inform our mindset, forming a virtuous circle.
Sometimes it is as simple as giving ourselves permission to listen to those signals from our body. For example, it is not a sign of weakness to miss a day or two of training because we are feeling run-down and tired. You only need to enact that once and then feel the benefits, to feel much more confident in doing so again.
But what practical steps can we take to improve our body awareness and to dial into our mindset?
First is coming along to events like this, so congratulations on taking your first steps to a beautiful mindset! But, seriously, talking to others and sharing experience is crucial and what is so beneficial about being part of a club where you can access coaches and runners with a wealth of experience. So ask those questions and have those discussions.
Second is increasing your awareness around goals and planning well for them. In another coaching clinic I will go into this in more detail, but for now let’s circle back to that 45min 10k goal. Your first point of awareness is where you are now. If your PB is 46:30, you are quite new to running and have been making consistent recent progress, then this goal looks like it could be attainable over a relatively short time with sound training. If your PB is 50mins and you have been running a while and have not improved your pace recently, then a different approach is needed – maybe a 12 month plan which addresses more fundamental aspects of your running. As I said, we’ll go into more detail about how understanding how your goal translates to planning over the long, mid and short term in another clinic, but the key thing about this approach which I want you to take away now and consider is trying to be aware of what each run or other training session you do is for – what’s its purpose? This can be very specific – do 4 mile reps at a hard but consistent pace, or very general – enjoy a chilled run on a lovely route with friends – but keeping that purpose in mind immediately impacts mindset and body awareness and heightens your responsiveness.
That leads onto another point around goals. Most of us will, at one time or another, have race goals which are often time specific. This is great and provides motivation and focus which we all need to get out training. My advice though, is always to have other goals which are less narrow and specific. This might be “I am going to run four times a week” or “I am going to do two S&C sessions a week” or, even more generally “I am going to enjoy running with friends” or “I am going to feel liberated when I run”. In fact, having at least one openly phrased goal like that which you keep referring to will, I believe, significantly aid your mindset (in fact, goals like this sound a lot like my definition of mindset!) and body awareness making you a happier, healthier runner and will also therefore increase the chances of success in your more specific goals.
All of this can be hard to monitor, so my final tip is to write a training log. There are loads of ways to do this – a notebook, spreadsheet or using the private notes box on Strava – but however you do it, taking just a moment to reflect on your run (& then being able to refer back) ups that awareness and helps you check in on how you are feeling and what, if anything, you might want to change.
That’s enough from me – I wanted to open up now to anyone else to share experiences and thoughts, or ask questions.