Hey Everyone,

I want to talk a bit about the imortance of training your mind for a marathon and how much of an advantage you can give yourself if you have the right mind set when running a marathon.

You can do all the work physically but it is your mental preparation that puts the physical side into action. I can not think of a sporting event that would require more mental preparation than a marathon. I have heard time and time again people tell me they feel physically fit to complete 5 or 6 marathons a year, they just mentally couldn’t do it.

So how can you prepare mentally for a marathon? Well it is pretty easy really, you have to train your mind to deal with the situations of a marathon. It is best to find a nice quiet place by yourself, somewhere you will not be disturbed and go through the race in your mind. Actually visualize yourself running the whole marathon, every mile and see yourself doing it successfully and feeling great at the finish line. You should visualise your perfect race, just imagine everything going right for you , imagine making great time, breaking new records just visualise your dream run.

Being mentally prepared is a huge factor in marathon running especially if you are completing your first marathon. I would be interested to hear how other people mentally train for a marathon.

Tristan

I think the visualization techniques you describe work well for sports like golf or baseball. But with marathons I don't think those techniques work very well because the mental aspect is not so much about visualizing yourself running great, as it is about overcoming fatigue, pain or that little voice that says "oh no, 8 miles to go and I feel like crap how can I do this?" To prepare mentally, the only way I know is to do long runs and push yourself into the depletion zone and then fight your way mentally through it.

No doubt you have to physically train, but I think when you run a marathon you need to have control over the little voice in your head. So instead of thinking "oh no I have I have 8 miles left and feel like crap" you will be thinking "geez ive only got 8 miles left, I feel like I could run another 20"

I know where your coming from, but a strong mental game will help you push through the entire matathon.