Race Day Thoughts
03 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
in Running
This is the moments just before the start of a road race at the starting line on a cool foggy morning in April. The other runners are all in their on little world of thoughts. Some are stretching; some are talking to the other runners. Me, I’m trying to not think about anything and just focus on the immediate task at hand. This always seems to work best for me.
Seems funny, now that I’ve run in over one hundred races I’ve come up with the “idea” I believe I will put my thought’s on paper! That thought alone makes me think about the guy waiting for the bus with his box of chocolates! Stupid is as stupid does!
What is on your mind? There are about two hundred runners here. All ages in this race, male, female, even some channel number 5! All doing their own little thing, the last minutes of preparation. They all believe their method is to work for them. For me it’s as if there is no sound! We wait for the gun to go off. And off we go, you can even smell the gun powder. I’m no more than twenty feet away! They even have more noise than normal with all the extra hands far more than needed around the starting line.
This is the whole purpose, to find focus. We will capture the mind of a runner. What is going on between the ears, in their twenty minutes of thought on the course? I try to recapture all the weeks of training period just for this particular race. Though we all are trained runners of a few years at least. You still will focus for a one particular race. Focus on only one at a time.
You know you are well capable of running the course not only the speed you have trained, but the pace as well. Another thing you know you are well capable of the distance because this is a 5K and your weekly long runs have been a good nine miles or more!
The problem we run into these races is, we hear these little voices telling you can’t hold the pace up at this distance. You have the voices telling you to stop that your legs are on fire! Their burning too much in the final stages of the race! All you have to do is to stop and the pain will go away. Focus is what you will train your mind to override the thoughts. You can do this. What one man can do so can another! It’s all about focus! Focus as a black belts signature roundhouse knockout kick!
Focus as the employer that squeezes those last few interest points out of the payroll. They love it! It’s their kill! Focus the surgeon’s last stitch of saving one more life! Focus as the pilot’s lock-on!
Focus as a marathoner’s pace is working from his formula of his track repeats. When he’s learned his diet and nutrition is certainly an equal part in the equation. Focus of complete brilliance when his banked long runs pay off at the finish line…for all to see!
