Spectating at the heat-fest known as the 2012 Boston Marathon on Monday got me thinking a lot about my own mental toughness. As I stood on the streets of Newton, watching runners gut it out in 89 degrees under a scorching sun, I was so impressed by how deep these people had to dig to will themselves to keep moving. I wondered what strategies they had used to build their mental strength…what mental tricks were they using now to push through the tough conditions.

How do you prepare yourself mentally for a race? There is a natural level of mental training that comes from doing the physical training. Through the long runs, tempo runs, track work, etc., you are faced with times where you must push through a tough workout, convince yourself to not give up on that last 1600 interval or even just will yourself to get out of bed and hit the road in the first place! There is no doubt that making the commitment to months of training for a race requires you to push yourself mentally.

But how else do you up your mental ante? — Do you use visualization? Vision boards? Running journals? Mantras? Draw on certain past races/training runs? I find mantras to be really helpful – short, powerful affirmations that help me stay positive and remember how I want to feel in a particular moment. And, while I have just a few races under my belt, each one is a learning experience and gives me some experiences to draw on when a race turns ugly.  For my upcoming half marathon, I’ve also started visualizing the course (easy to to do since I’ve run it before) – mentally walking through every turn and hill will hopefully boost my confidence on race day.

Despite the perfect training cycle and having a well-planned race strategy, days like yesterday prove that things can happen on race day that are well out of our control. In those moments, having a deep mental well to draw from makes all the difference!