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Marathon head games - what kept you running without stopping?
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they are bloody boring - no, thats not quite true- they are if u let them be
the key is to enjoy mental stamina - but then thats the key to marathon running full stop
Peter
thought you'd just had a good VLM, no ???
typical. dumped for football- again.*sulks*
I thought all those people had come to London to watch ME. Nobody else, no "elites", ME.
Also looked at a few of the collapsee's and thought a finish is better than a dnf...
did my "missing" miles first..... then did the bit I'd trained for.
from 20 to 26.3 was "only a 10k" and that helped.
didn't want to be caught by a Rhino. ( carrots okay, dog suit okay, just no bloomin Rhino )
tried to avoid all those crowds "offering" deadly dieseases, and if I stopped next to the wrong one....
2 biggest draws were the knowledge the St Johns can fix my feet AFTER I finish, and not before
and, in a "harry potter / virtual" way, all my friends+familly "running" allongside me in the final stages.
The thing that kept me going during my first (and last) marathon was experience .
A couple of years ago I did the Liverpool half. Stupidly, I set off way too fast and decided to 'walk a bit' at the 11th mile. When I stopped running, my knees siezed (sp?) up and the last two miles were agony. It would have been much easier to have run the last two miles very slowly.
lardarse - not quite true in my opinion.
I had to drop to a limp/jog or ragged limp/run at VLM, due to injuries picked up before mile marker 1 and also mile marker 3. Entirely due to the lady who cut me up, and the pothole that the council should be embarased about. ( didn't see the hole, too many runners in front of me )
I had to slow down to be able to finish, had it not been for the mind games, and my club/UKA place, I'd have pulled out around mile 6. I was aiming for 3hrs45, and had trained for that. Limping home in 4hrs30+ was all I could do on the day. Mind games again at mile 20, "It's only 10k to go" really helped.
Racing, no matter what you race, where you race, or how you race, is a cruel sport. Life ain't fair. It's the mind that helps out in those situations, if it's strong, it can make good choices, and help achieve the impossible by having the mental strength to make choices, and find motavation in the smallest things
I think 90% of running is mental, the remaining 10% is physical ability.