Run Barbados weekend was a couple of weeks ago. I made the resolution last year, after doing the Run for Life 5K, that I would do the Run Barbados 10K this year, but then I psyched myself out and gave up on it.
And then I found myself in town when the 10K runners were coming through, and I wasn’t among them, and I felt like a loser for copping out and not making the effort, especially when a couple of people I know saw me on the sidelines and said “What, wha’ happen? You should be running, not watching.”
So I’ve started training again, and the challenge every time is to keep running even when my mind is telling me to stop, because my mind is stupid and doesn’t realise what my body is capable of.
Or as Gina Kolata of the New York Times puts it:
No matter how high you jump, how fast you run or swim, how powerfully you row, you can do better. But sometimes your mind gets in the way.
The Times article is about how dissociation strategies can improve athletic performance. I’ve been doing the dissociation thing without knowing what it was called, and it works for me (though not as well as it works for Paula Radcliffe).
ETA: this article argues that successful distance running depends on achieving the right balance between dissociation and association.