So here we are, less than six weeks until race day, and it starts…

I don’t know if I can do it.
I haven’t trained as much as I should have done by this stage.
I’ve been injured.
Maybe I should switch to a shorter distance.
I’ll never make that cut off time.

And on and on..

The same thing happened to me last year; the panic sets in and I start to give myself reasons and excuses why I will fail. I even do this self sabotage on training runs when there is a nice, sweet, kind voice in my head telling me that, “It’s ok, you’re tired, you can walk. You don’t have to run. You’re doing as well as you can. You know this is too far for you. Why don’t you cut this run short?”

Research shows that negative thinking like this can mean that you’ve defeated yourself before you’ve even started. Sports psychologists recommend training your brain like you train your body and studies have shown that positive self talk can increase endurance and lower the rate of perceived effort (RPE) meaning that the exercise feels easier.

I recently read a post on social media where runners were discussing mantras and as you would expect, these were all positive. This started me thinking what my little voice says when I am running and was surprised to realise that I am way too kind! I need to get tough with myself and create a strong and tough mindset.

My plan for this week is to focus more on positive self talk, visualise myself at the finish line with that sweet, shiny medal and come up with a mantra to help banish those damaging thoughts that creep in!

How do you get through the tough times? Do you have a mantra?