Introduction

Disaster.... Disaster ...... Disaster the words wouldn't stop ringing in my head as I collected my shirt after the race. This was not my best 10 Mile in fact it was officially my second worst 10 Mile Road Race since I began running competitively in 2012.

I finished the second race of the Dublin Marathon Race Series (Frank Duffy 10 Mile) Saturday (August 26th) morning in a chip time of 1:18:20. My worst time 1:18:56 was in the same race in 2012 when I was just dipping my toe into competitive running. Rather than post a sob story on the internet about how this part of my running life didn't go so well I'm going to write about how I dealt with this disappointment. I hope to show you that running isn't just a physical effort but a mental one as well.

The Race

My race was terrible. My preparation was almost non existent I had spent the last 10 days on holidays and I had only done one little trot around Edinburgh. I did two short runs in the days leading up to the 10 Mile Race but they weren't fast enough or frequent enough to effect the outcome of this race. I planned to complete this race using 4:25-4:35 per/km as my race pace. In the first four miles I stuck to that pace but I could feel something was off after the second kilometer. The effort was just a little too hard to sustain. I felt that I would not be able to sustain this pace over 10 miles. During your physical preparation for any 10 mile road race you should become familiar with this signal from your body, that point where you know you can't sustain this pace for another 20 minutes. You're objective in any race is to operate just below this point for about two-thirds of the race using pace, heart rate and intuition as guides to help you monitor yourself. Once you complete two-thirds of the race then you can empty the tank if you wish but be conservative as you want to be sure that you will finish. Most of this advice will be determined and refined with experience. Learn from the races where you finished strong. Feel the bad ones then let them go. You should focus on your strengths when you race and use them to leverage your way to personal best times. 

Supplemental  

In physiological terms I am referring to the LT or lactate threshold in the above paragraph. This is the point above which your body will produce more lactic acid than it can clear away effectively. Once you go above the LT your body soon begins to show signs of fatigue and/or pain. Runners use this point to set paces for themselves in training and races. Everyone has a unique pace wherein their LT point lies. This can be be determined either in the lab or by other field tests. Your LT point can be modified with specific training. Knowing where your lactate threshold is and how long you can hold yourself at this point or above is critical to how you approach each race. Your LT is not everything but it will inform a considerable part of your training and you should find it and manipulate it as part of your running journey. Pay particular attention to how it feels, learn to recognise it and react early if you are moving too fast in a race. 

The Race Part 2

Returning to the race I ignored my bodies feed back. You can see in the diagram below that at 6 km I try to force the issue and increase my pace. This is a strategy for the last 2 km, at that stage the race to the finish line is well and truly on. It is time to listen to Roger Bannister when he says 'The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win'. At 6 km with another 10.1 km to go I was doing the wrong thing, clutching at straws hoping my body could magically rediscover its form of two weeks in East Cork when I did a 97 min half marathon. At the time I was thinking that it was just holiday cobwebs and I will blow it off. It took me another 2 km plus a cup of lucozade sport to realise that my physical fitness would not allow me to sustain this pace. My fitness had not declined massively it just wasn't able to sustain a 4:25-4:35 per/km pace after 6 km. Now all I had to do was survive the last 10.1 km. Physically I was out of gas.  However, Mentally I had been training all year to face down this challenge.    

Mental Training

First and foremost mental training or how you develop your mind is critical in road running. Remember what you're goal is during a long distance road race. In theory 'You are going to run as fast you you can for as long as you can'. It is almost inevitable that you will need to persevere through pain and if your mind isn't ready for that then you need to invest some training time in mental preparation. If you choose not to develop your mind your journey as a runner will be forever missing the full benefits of Running.  Some questions you will face, How are you going to react to the onset of pain? Are you going to stop? Do you understand tolerable pain? Can you recognize when your body is struggling during a race how do you react to that? Do you have plans and strategies for these questions. They aren't necessarily going to come up all in one race and that list is far from complete. In my case I was trying to answer 'Can you recognize when your body is struggling during a race how do you react to that?' At 8 km I steadied myself, I had been studying Timothy Noakes book 'The Lore of Running' a couple of years ago and a particular piece of advice Noakes delivered with regard to racing sprang to mind. He advocated that as you race with experience you should know which one of these three things you are aiming for in a race. 

1. Aiming for a place/medal?

2. Aiming for a time?

3. Aiming to finish?  

It is important when reading any piece of advice on running in particular to realise that the advice is adaptable. You may if your personality and circumstances allow you, implement the advice to the exact specifications that it is written but you may also adapt it. From years of coaching I believe that a flexible strategy is necessary to reach any goal. I am nearly always far away from the medals so I leave objective 1 to one side quickly. I had gone into the race aiming for a time but that plan was now going up flames. Now I had to aim to finish.

In my mental preparation I always have plan A and plan B. Plan A generally revolves around a finishing time for me. I will always aim for a certain time plus or minus 2 minutes. Plan B is finish and that meant perseverance in this race. My legs were already heavy and in my mind I was cursing myself for not training more on holidays, not doing a better warm up, wearing different shoes, not packing an energy gel. To calm myself I took several deep breaths and concluded that tearing myself down wasn't helping me finish and I should look for a small win to get myself back on track. In work and in training once I set a goal I break it down into small actionable steps. As I complete one small step I regard that as a small win eventually with persistence all the small wins add up to a big win. The small win that came to mind for me was that I was still running and getting closer to the finish line with each step. The danger here for me in previous races was that I would have thought 'you're too slow' and continued to mentally battle both myself and the road until the finish line where I would then beat myself up for days. This is boring, solves nothing and gets you down. Any reasonably sane person knows that fighting a war on too many fronts is a bad idea. During the mental preparation for every race I specifically visualize myself running the route and thinking 'it's me versus the race and I will finish well'. I fell back on this visualization and my mind got on board quickly. The other piece of mental preparation I put into action came from Mind Gym by Gary Mack. Mack speaks extensively about how elite athletes view the competition and concludes that in their minds they believe that if they have to beat their opponent and the referee they will. I adopted a similar mindset I told myself ' If I have to finish a tough race on a bad day..... I will'.  

My next step was to get into a nice comfortable rhythm. I was going to give my body a chance to recover as I progressed and maybe I could squeeze out a fast 1 km out at the end for fun. I found myself running at 4:50 min/km pace 'not bad' I thought.  I didn't manage to pull out a fast 1 km finish but I achieved my revised goal of finish the race.  

Conclusion

I open this piece with Disaster.... Disaster ...... Disaster this was again part of my mental preparation for the next race. I had to feel the hurt after a disappointing race but then I had to learn from it and let it go. Physically I learned that I was not prepared well enough for this race. I know where to amend my training to up my game and I have rewritten the training plan in parts to take into account the reality check. Mentally I stuttered a little but quickly reacted to finish the race on a positive note. I must continue to refine my mental preparation as it was a huge asset when I was in a tight corner. Next time it will need to kick in earlier. In a Marathon I will not be able to afford the mistake of forcing the issue. The Marathon is too long and mistakes must be carried for the rest of the 26.2 miles.

Every runner has a bad race from time to time I had one in the Frank Duffy 10 Mile Road Race 2017 but I learned from my mistakes right in time for my PB attempt in the next race the Dublin Half Marathon on September 23rd.