Visualize Your Race During Your Hard Workouts

I have been told that visualization is a good practice of successful people. When there is a goal you are trying to reach, visualizing yourself reaching that goal can help you while preparing to reach that goal.

I like to visualize myself in a race when I am out on a run.

But most times I use visualization wrong.

Often, when I am at the end of an easy run I think about hitting mile 20 of the marathon. I’m feeling good with only 10k to go and I really turn on the gas. I run through the finish line sprinting faster than I have ever sprinted before while people all around me cheer me to a huge personal best.

But that is never how I am going to feel at mile 20 of the marathon.

And the end of an easy run does nothing to mimic the experience of the marathon.

A few days ago I went out for a pretty hard work out. Mile repeats.

I only needed to do six of them, but I was already on tired legs and I was aiming for the faster end of my pace spectrum.

After a 2 mile warm up I did my first mile. It felt hard but good.

I recovered for 4 minutes and then went off on my second mile.

They all went well. Each mile was getting harder, but I was hitting my paces. And then, when it came time to run the sixth mile it did not feel good.

My watch showed about thirty seconds left in my recovery. I started to speed up so I could be on pace as soon as the watch beeped to signal the final interval.

Well, I tried to speed up.

My legs were heavy and I suddenly felt like I couldn’t do it. I looked at my pace and it was more than a half minute slower than I needed to be running. Had I run the previous miles too hard? Why am I suddenly feeling like I can’t run?

I assessed myself and quickly realized it was just my body telling me to quit. I still had it in me to keep going just as I had been going for the last five miles.

So I pushed a little harder.

And then it dawned on me. I realized something that I already knew, but needed to be reminded of.

This is a taste of what I will be feeling at the end of the marathon.

When I get to mile 20, or maybe even sooner than that, I will be tired and my legs will be heavy and I will think that I can’t keep going even though I know I can.

So I channeled that.

I watched my pace speed up and I pushed when I wanted to slow down.

Suddenly the stretch of road I was on became the final mile of the marathon. The park up ahead was the finish line.

I had a conversation with myself.

I told myself to hold that pace.

I told myself to keep pushing.

I explained to my body that this is what I will be feeling like when I am trying to run a personal best marathon in November. I will be feeling like this for a lot longer than I am feeling right now and my body needs to know that it can keep going. It can hold steady. It does not need to ask my mind to quit.

I visualized running through the finish line with the best time of my life on the clock.

And then as I slowed into my cool down I went over everything again in my head.

I focused on the pain and discomfort. I acknowledged it. I invited it.

If I can simulate the torture that I will be going through at the end of the marathon, I can use that to visualize myself pushing through and finishing no matter how much it hurts or how much I want to quit.

If we combine the visualization process with the training process, and be honest with what we are trying to visualize, then we can be better prepared for the hurt that will come during race day.

I document my daily progress on Instagram as I attempt to become a faster marathoner. Follow me there to share the experience.