Mental Toughness

When I ran the Dallas Marathon in December 2012, I hit a wall at mile 20 and I just stopped.  I did start walking again, but I was spent.  It was not so much a physical wall, although I was exhausted and dead on my feet.  I had been there before.  But mentally I was out of it.  My mental muscles were not strong enough to endure the 26.2 miles.  

After the race, I took a look back at my prep and realized I had not properly trained my mind.  I had not run some  training days when I did not feel like it.  On one of my long 20+ miles, I had taken a short cut.  The night before the race I did not eat properly, and did not get in bed early.  For some reason, I had not developed mental toughness during my 12 months of marathon training.

Starting in 2013, I knew my mental training had to keep up with the physical training.  I trained through the spring with a running group that was much faster than I.  Coming in last every time helped with my mental toughness.  I just kept on training, reminding myself no one else was running my -54 year old aiming for Boston- race.

 I am training myself not to quit early.  I run all the way through to the end- not even .1 mile short.  Mental toughness happens at the end.  Everyone can start.  Anyone can train on cool, fair weather  days.  But it is the mentally tough who get out of bed early, set out on the road with a plan, run through heat and humidity, and most importantly . . . finish.