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Take some time off

This doesn’t look fun to me but, if it looks fun to you, do it for a while. If it doesn’t, is there something else you haven’t been doing as much of as you’d like?

Many of us have wrapped up our racing seasons some time in the last month or so. Those of us who haven’t likely will be in the next month or so.

So the logical question to ask at this point is – what next? What do we do between now and spring?

While I would strongly encourage that you take advantage of the winter to build a solid base in order to make your spring goals more attainable, that’s not what I would recommend immediately after your last race of the year.

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Know your danger zones

Stress in your life outside running will affect your running

We all have them. Certain times when stress is higher, the schedule is busier, maybe things are so hectic that even your sleep suffers.

Maybe you have a deadline you need to meet at work. Maybe something is going on at home or in your extended family. During the holidays, there are simply so many things going on that we can feel overwhelmed.

When these things happen, what do you do with your running? Do you back off or “just plow through”?

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Can you talk yourself into better performance?

An interesting question to think about: can changing your self-talk actually help you run better? I’m sure many of us just answered “yes”. If you have negative self-talk, that’s not going to help you run faster. Positive self-talk will, though.

What about more subtle differences? Can slight changes in how you think of things during races help you? As it turns out, they can.

When you refer to yourself in the second person (“You can do it” instead of “I can do it”) you actually do perform better.

Also of note is that more positive references were used in the study. “You/I have to do it” was replaced with “You/I can do it” for example. While it doesn’t seem like this was addressed as part of the test, I have a suspicion this would also make a difference.

This is just one small study but it’s worth trying.

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Learn from your mistakes

We all make mistakes at times, what we do with them is what matters

In May, I made a mistake in training. I knew better but thought the “rules” didn’t apply to me. I then made another mistake in June and repeated it in July.

These mistakes cost me but they also taught (or re-taught) me some important lessons.

What lessons did I learn? For now, they don’t matter. I’ll write about them next week. For now, the important lesson is something else.

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