There's a point in every runner's training regiment or race where we hit "the wall." What's this magical wall you may wonder and how do you overcome this obstacle?
I've experienced this every season in my running career for cross country and track in my training and in races a number of times and sometimes I'm able to handle it better than other times.
This is all mind over matter here, it's when you think you can't push any harder, or you can't go any further, or basically you tell yourself it's over and give up. Your mind is taking over which is the worse thing for a runner to do because once that happens it's hard to turn your mind off. Don't think when you're running, just run! Clear your mind and go go go.
When this happens to me and I feel myself in a race or training run say, "man I'm tired and nothing is working today," I immediately yell at myself and tell me to knock it off and begin singing a song in my head to counter me thinking on my run or race.
It takes some practice but trust me, do whatever it takes to keep your mind from getting in the way. For my half marathon coming up I'm going to have to really concentrate on not allowing my head to get in the way and thinking I hit this wall because in all reality I haven't.
Some ideas how to avoid this are the following:
- Think of a song and sing it over and over in your head until you get into your rhythm.
- Tell yourself you trained way too hard to give up now and buckle down and just push through it.
- Don't think, have fun with running like you always do. Think of a time when running was fun and go back to that moment in time.
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