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Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / Re: ADARQ's journal
« on: December 18, 2017, 01:43:44 pm »Some things (quotes/mantras etc) i've been thinking lately.
If someone were to ask me why I approach races the way I do: "I don't care about losing, only about winning"
- ie, take risks & don't worry about failure. losing is overrated.
- so I take a huge risk, achieve it or not, burn out and perform worse overall than expected .. who cares?
- so I take a huge risk, achieve it, maintain a respectable level of performance, and perform better than expected -> break mental and physical barriers, set new limits, gain more confidence .. boom.
- so i plan on taking a huge risk, wimp out, fail miserably .. worse case.
Running is actually easy. All you have to do is slowly conquer fear & doubt head on. The only way to do that is to not back down.
I'm trying to focus more on the skill of racing, than the physiology of running. The former is more about rising to the occasion, no matter who shows up. Not limiting yourself to numbers/predictions based on workouts, past races, or what you think you are capable of, but more about finding out on race day -> it's more of a fight/combat approach than it is a strict formula. For fighters, this is an easy analogy: no matter who you are in there with, you try to win, survive, etc - no matter how much more accomplished/skilled/experienced your opponent is. For dunkers, this is analogous to throwing a high lob, going up and trying to get it. It's not precise, even if you want it to be. Sometimes the ball bounces higher than expected, and somehow you still get up there and get it, even if it's just a hard miss.
Finally the idea of inhibition: I tend to already think of myself as someone who could run some insane times/do some sick performances. I think you have to believe that if the mindset above is to be executed properly. I feel like i'm trying to remove inhibition, rather than gaining fitness. By simply removing inhibition, i'll go faster, because i'm already capable of maintaining faster speeds physiologically. So by stripping away layers of inhibition, i'll be able to utilize higher levels of my current fitness, and at the same time, create a stronger stimulus for improving fitness. The circle of PR life.
This prefontaine quote is perhaps the best quote i've ever read, because i've actually used it recently in a few training sessions & in my last few races: “Something inside of me just said ‘Hey, wait a minute, I want to beat him,’ and I just took off."
I've actually thought about it, and then gone faster. I think it resonates with me so much because, I can imagine myself being that guy that someone took off on, and not fighting for it. So, that quote is the only one i've ever used in competition of any kind, as far as I can remember.
Obviously there's a legit physiological component to all of this, but I find the mental components to be most challenging (evidenced by this & many of my previous posts).
There's probably some more but i'm forgetting them right now.
First and foremost though: need to stay healthy, not do anything stupid!
pc!
Brilliant! So many runners I know have that fear of not finishing a race, or finishing in such a fatigued state that they don't even race and run completely within themselves.
Most everyone I know, race within themselves. Even people who have been racing for years. I mean, they usually look like they are in pain at the end of the race, so they definitely are pushing it .. but, there's a difference between steadily pacing, trying to achieve negative splits, and pushing it hard from the beginning. The scariest thing to me, in my experience, is the last one: pushing it hard from the beginning. That's because it's not a gradual battle, or a battle in the second half, it's a battle right from the beginning. And, to get your mind to "give you more" when it knows you most likely can't hold such a pace, is a battle before the horn/gun goes off. Your mind will try to protect you from yourself, slow you down to conserve energy because it knows exactly how far you are about to go. To defeat that mindset, you have to really "let go" of any potential outcome, other than the one single focal point: pushing it hard from the start, for as long as possible. Your brain continues to try and get you to get the foot off of the gas. But you have to fight it. Then, eventually you just can't hold the pace anymore and it's time to transition into survival.. but if you can push yourself into survival by hanging with faster people, while in a race/competitive environment, i personally feel that's a huge stimulus for future adaptations. Stuff like that is easier in a 1 mile, harder for a 5k but still manageable, probably alot harder for 10k+.
It doesn't have to be done every race either.
And the final thing about it: elites do it.
Elites go there to win. They don't go there to pace themselves and PR (usually). I think that alone validates quite a bit of the mindset.. Elites/Pros are there to win, if they can't hold the pace, they finish the race but they try to keep themselves in a position to win for as long as possible.
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We all know that it's 90% above the shoulders and I would think that by removing those barriers to performance you will by proxy remove some physiological barriers at the same time.
yup exactly. The only way to remove the psychological barriers is to cause them to manifest, and then try to break them down. And the only way to cause them to occur, is to put ourselves in situations or push ourselves in some way which causes them to become a significant factor in the effort.
so they both feed off of each other for sure.
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I actually watched the Prefontaine movie last week with Jared Leto. Ashamed to say it's the first time I've actually heard of him too. Absolutely incredible story.
I've still never seen it. I need to watch it. Leto is a great actor and from the clips i've seen, looks like he nailed it. I've only ever researched Pre online, race videos/interviews/some articles etc. He's someone you just know of in the US, even if you don't know much about running.. When you hear "Pre", you think "guts". Somehow he's just part of our culture maybe.. kind of like that movie "Rudy" or "Rocky" maybe.
I need to check it out!$!@
pc!!
