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October 3, 2019October 1, 2019

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.

September 26, 2019October 8, 2019

Three lessons from my difficult summer

Last week, I mentioned that I had a difficult summer where I made some mistakes. The difficulties were self-inflicted and I wanted to take a few moments this week to discuss my mistakes, with the hope that some of you can hopefully learn from my mistakes and maybe avoid making similar ones yourselves.

September 19, 2019September 18, 2019

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.

September 12, 2019September 11, 2019

Goodhart’s Law and the runner

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to become a good measure.” – Goodhart’s Law

This concept, largely discussed in the world of economics, applies quite well to running and fitness in general.

September 5, 2019September 4, 2019

To get better: run faster or longer?

The age old question: to become a better/faster runner, do you need to run faster or run longer?

Alex Hutchinson looked into a debate that was held on this.

August 15, 2019August 14, 2019

Don’t be afraid of failure

This COULD happen, if you’re willing to take some risks

You’re at mile 5 of a 10K. You’re close to PR pace but a little short. You could go for it and try to get the PR but you’re not sure if you can maintain the effort needed.

What do you do?

August 1, 2019July 31, 2019

“See God” workouts and why I (mostly) don’t like them

I was recently asked why the workouts I assign are so easy. While most runners who have been with me for some time know that not all workouts I assign are easy, there’s a very important reason why I prefer workouts to be easier than some others do.

July 18, 2019July 19, 2019

Looking for a shortcut?

You picked the wrong sport.

July 4, 2019July 1, 2019

What to do after a breakthrough?

Because there was no last Thursday of the month blog post last month, there will be none this month, and I’m incredibly busy at the moment, I’m going to slip a recap in here. There’s a lot I’ve been reading. Here’s some of it.

One note: I mentioned I’m going to slip more than just sports science links into these posts going forward. I’m going to feature something that is not sports science this month.

June 20, 2019June 19, 2019

What are you running for?

Figure out what you’re running for, then plan your running around that

No, this isn’t a “Why do you run?” post. I know as well as you how difficult it is to answer that question. What I would like to ask is how you prioritize your running goals.

Why do I want to ask this question? Because I got myself in trouble recently when I tried to have it all. I hurt myself simply because I was unwilling to give in on anything.