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5 ways I get mentally stronger for workouts

November 10, 2020 //  by OperationMove//  Leave a Comment

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Title image - mentally stronger for workouts

Getting mentally stronger for workouts, don’t we all want that?

Mentally stronger for workouts or just mentally stronger for life in general. The truth is, my approach to doing things that are hard or overwhelming is exactly the same regardless of whether it’s a project with a deadline, or a workout. It’s all about breaking it down into bite-size pieces. This helps to take me out of overwhelm and into a place where I feel like I can be useful and productive.

Have a plan

A plan calms down all manner of fears. It gives you a path to follow, it gives you options and by creating a little bit of structure you can keep that anxious brain distracted while you get down to work. This might mean talking with your coach about a pace guide for your session, or a certain heart rate range. It might also involve taking down the expectation for the workout. If the idea of running something at 6:30 min/km pace is a bit too intimidating. Take it down to 7:00 and then just see what happens. Nine times out of ten when you aren’t stressed about aiming for a certain pace, you’ll go faster than you think you will.

Do the easy part first

In our case, the easy part is the getting out the door and warming up. Sure, getting out the door might not always feel super easy but that’s usually because of what comes after – not the warm up. So focusing on the easy first steps that you can do helps to put you on auto-pilot.

Break down the hard parts into manageable pieces

I like to break workouts down in a variety of ways. So let’s say if I have 5 x 1km at tempo pace, that’s 5km of work at my 10km race pace. Which is 50% of my actual capacity. See how it sounds way easier? Or if I have 6 x 400m that’s only 2.4km of actual work with loads of recovery in between. Or if I’m doing a fartlek with the intervals at 5km pace and let’s say the intervals are 2:00. A great 5km would take me 24 minutes at the moment. I’m running 1/12th of that. Those types of things help because apprehension of failure is worse than anything that might happen during the session. It should feel good (for the most part!) If it doesn’t, it’s probably an over-reach.

Create milestones

In any workout, I will tick off 1/4 done, 1/3 done, 1/2 done, only 10% to go! It helps to keep mentally ticking off those segments as you work your way through and self-talk your way through some of the tough bits. In reality I’ve had plenty of workouts go really pear shaped, but I’ve always finished them, but in my mind I’m thinking doing 1/2 is good if that’s all I’m able to do, doing 2/3 is great, doing 3/4 is awesome and doing it all is outstanding. So I’m getting little pep talks about where I’m up to the whole way through.

Acknowledge what you just did.

While the temptation might be to downplay your efforts, or focus on the things that you would have liked to have gone better, you need to create the narrative for the next hard thing. If after every session, you focus on what didn’t go well – that’s what you are going to remember next time. So instead of thinking ‘gee that last interval was really slow’, I tend to go with ‘how cool is it that I didn’t have anything in the tank at the end, but I still finished’. Then next time you will remember that you are capable of leaving it all out there and having fun doing it too. Getting mentally stronger for workouts is a whole lot about practice, but it’s also about the story you tell yourself. So make it a good one.  

I’m writing a book about how to love running enough for it to change your life.

The book is going to focus on my journey so far, the when the why and the how of the workouts and of training, but also how it all connects to things that are far bigger than running. I’m taking up the challenge of writing a book in 30 days. Which is a lot of writing, but hopefully just enough pressure to keep the momentum going. You can sign up to read the daily words on patreon and get access to a whole range of bonus podcast episodes, and an ebook with 52 running workouts, so you’ll never be stuck for ideas ever again. Stay up to date on:
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Category: Inspiration

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Operation Move
I didn’t do my run yesterday because I had an An I didn’t do my run yesterday because I had an Anatomy exam and I figured my brain could use all the sleep it could get. I’m not sure if it helped! 

The thirds progression run is my favourite. This was 15km but I’ve done a lot of different distances where it’s first third comfortable, middle third steady state, final third tempo. 

I think you always have a little bit of resistance to runs you’ve pushed back even when they are your favourite. But once I was out there today I was reminded of all the things you love about it when you get out of your own way.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that wh One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that when I’m struggling in the mental health stakes you won’t see my face. It’s not purposeful, I just lose the ability to look myself in the eye. 

I think we are all in it at the moment, one way or another. So taking my wins. I did run 94.9km this week. I was the soft place for my kids to fall this week when they were struggling with pets dying and staring down the barrel of a neurodiverse diagnosis. And I just showed up. For them. For me. Did my best. And allowed peoples kindness. Was grateful for friends holding my hand in the lab at uni, was grateful for my brother who always listens and sees me, was grateful for people at the gym who let me know it was okay to be sad, grateful at parkrun for people who told me they paced off me. Grateful for all the people who gave me space for imperfection. 

Give yourself space. And compassion. You don’t have to earn it.
There is no secret, keep going. Photo thanks to There is no secret, keep going. 

Photo thanks to run club today where we got very lucky with the rain holding off until we made it to the car. Sometimes it’s worth taking a gamble on the weather, or yourself
Happy Mothers Day weekend (yes it’s a whole week Happy Mothers Day weekend (yes it’s a whole weekend). Here’s to all the women who smoothed our path and allowed us to stand on their shoulders even when we couldn’t see it.
I’m going to need a lot more coffee after that 😜

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“I do not know what I may appear to the world, b “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” - Isaac Newton

I came across this quote this week and it reminded me that what we don’t know is where the magic is
All business in front with a party out the back. J All business in front with a party out the back. Just kidding. We consider both running and chatting and fun all as equal partners in run club! 

It’s like that Study they did in rugby where they found all of their fancy recovery methodologies paled in comparison to people just hanging out with each other after the game. 

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Another addition to the pandemic PB files! I recko Another addition to the pandemic PB files! I reckon the 8 turns and running off a heavy bench press set is probably worth a few seconds too 😉
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My overwhelming thought on running in Melbourne: y My overwhelming thought on running in Melbourne: you spoiled bastards 🤣 Such a great running city 💜
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You can have a goal, but step one is the person who shows up.
Getting in a run club session on a Tuesday before Getting in a run club session on a Tuesday before I head down to Melbourne for a week. How good is not daylight saving?

Always my favourite hour of the week! 💜
The greatest thing about races is they show you th The greatest thing about races is they show you the gap between where you are and where you’d like to be. Running is very measurable. So I got the most out of myself on the weekend but I also got the benefit of knowing what I need to work towards. The nitty gritty is by the end of the year I’d like to find a couple of minutes on my 5k. And there’s like an easy way to do that and a hard way. But I’ll probably need to do both things. 

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