The returning runner
Act 22 – Visualizing victory over your injuries and the competition
Before diving in, it’s been a crazy last two weeks. December 28th I won the 60+ division (actually best over 50) for the 800 meters on Reno’s brand new and super-cool indoor track. Then, traveled to San Diego for a visit and won overall a couple of very small races – the New Year’s Eve Day 5k and the Sri Chinmoy 2-mile on January 4th. Then back to San Diego and over to Folsom for the IPA 5k trail run where I finished 2nd overall and was first over 45. So sorry for the late blog but been busy!
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I’ve had plenty of injuries over the years but, aside from crashing and burning on a steeplechase barrier at 18, I can’t think of a time when an injury has occurred during a race. That got me to thinking…This seems counterintuitive. Shouldn’t the times when you are pushing the hardest be when you are most likely to get injured? Hmmm… I do things differently when I race. For one thing, I’m more disciplined about doing a proper warm-up. For workouts, I’m sometimes crunched for time and just bail out of the car and start going (definitely not the right way to do it). Hmmm…When I race my form is much better. It has to be to go fast. I’m lazy. When I train, I flop, trot, hunch, weave, and vary my form all over the place. I’ve changed that. I’ve been watching great runners race and then visualizing their form during my workouts. Obviously, it’s not going to match, especially if you have had a hard race the day before, but I seem to be able to smooth out my form, land more gently, and run faster without really trying. So, next time you head out for a training run plop a “reel” of a runner you admire in your brain and see if that smooths things out for you.
I’ve also used visualization in my races a lot. As a high-schooler, I was a gangling spaz with no speed at all. I had a string of 2-mile races where I hung on with the leader until the last lap and then got out-kicked every time. I had to change something. Problem was, I didn’t feel like I was cruising up until the last lap either – I was just hanging on. Whatever I changed, it had to both demoralize the competition as well as energize me. Slightly increasing the pace was just going to encourage the competition to speed up. I came up with a strategy of drastically changing my pace with 3 laps to go, switching to an all-out kick. To do this, I had to pretend in my mind’s eye that things were quite different:
· 3 laps to go – I visualized that I was running an all-out fresh quarter-mile;
· 2 laps to go – I visualized that our star sprinters (Kipper Bell and David Russell) were each running an all out 220 and then handing off to the other;
· 1 lap to go – I visualized that I was the members of the Patrick Henry High School 440 relay team each handing off in turn.
Ok, to be clear, I’m pretty sure that onlookers wouldn’t have had the impression that I had suddenly become a lightning-fast sprinter but I did achieve subtle changes in form and a distinct change in pace that totally demoralize competitors while boosting my confidence. For the 1-mile, I just the did the last 2 laps of my “hypnosis”. Try stepping up your last 3/4 to 1/2 mile of your next race by visualizing speedsters that you have seen. Don’t go half-way, you’ve got to believe ;O)
Photo: 1977 David Russell and Kipper Bell owning the sprints!