PSYOPs - Part II: Mantras & Magic Marathon Words

What's your mantra?
(Courtesy zenobia_joy @ Flickr)

If you're doing a task that demands a lot from you, do have thoughts of quitting, giving up? I know the timelapserunner does. He experienced this just recently in trying to prepare for the fall semester's teaching assignment. Much to do, some of it tedious, not much of it falling in the category of 'fun to do.' At one point I dreaded starting this daunting task and feared I'd not complete it on time. But then I talked to myself, in my head, saying little motivational phrases, like "... just get started," and "... this won't be difficult," and "... one down, two to go." I didn't write these little phrases down or have them molded into a wristband. But I know they helped me overcome fear and dread - well, OK, maybe just a bad case of reluctance and procrastination - on the way to accomplishing my goal. Might this same psychological tool work to help us conquer the marathon?


Many running coaches and writers of running books seem to think so. Certainly our own Jeff Galloway does. Chapters 7 through 13 of his best-selling book - Marathon: You can do it! - cover the motivational waterfront, so-to-speak. He discusses the battle between logic and intuition (Chapter 7), screenplays for bad days (Chapter 8), matras to stay motivated (Chapter 9), the motivational benefits of running in groups (Chapter 10), virtual walkthroughs of the race (Chapter 11), distracting yourself from the discomfort using magic marathon words (Chapter 12), and even more devious dirty tricks (i.e., PSYOPs) against our left brains (Chapter 13). We'll focus on mantras and magic marathon words in this post.

Mantras

Wiki defines mantra as "a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation." The essence here is on the transformation part. Something changes in you. That something could be that you become encouraged, or distracted from negative thoughts, or see in your mind's eye a motivating vision. Galloway includes a whole host of such motivation mantras in Chapter 9. Here's a sampling:

My legs are strong. (encouraging)

One more step, one more step ... (distraction from negatives)

I can feel the pull of the finish line. (imparting a vision)

Mantra bracelets are popular
(Courtesy GoneForaRun)

Besides the idea of transformation, notice the pithiness of each of these mantras. They are short and to the point. Something that can be remembered easily and repeated in the heat of battle when the brain is struggling to keep everything going. Even remembering these simple little phrases could be a chore during the latter stages of a tiring run, but there's a solution to that: wear a bracelet with your mantra(s) on it (see inset pic at left). Perhaps "I can do it" will actually "do it" for you. Or maybe the words "goal, believe, attitude, focus" can selectively be used at different spots in the run to help bring about the desired transformation.

Grace bands
(Courtesy Races2Remember)

You can even create your own mile-by-mile slogan bracelet (see inset pic at right), with a key word or short phrase carefully selected to trigger that transformation at each mile marker.

One doesn't have to limit the inspirational words to a running theme either. Customizing allows you to put the names of loved ones on your grace band, as Races2Remember calls them (see right inset). Or perhaps a brief scriptural reference like "on eagle's wings."

Magic Marathon Words

Jeff Galloway offers this idea up for us: find words that relate to real running experiences that we've had. For example, if we drift into negative thinking on our long runs, we might adopt the word 'positive' or 'proud' to use when we experience such negative thinking again. When thinking this word, if it helps us overcome our negative thinking at that moment, then the word has become magic, special magic, our magic marathon word. We can build up a set of these magic marathon words and call their magic to appear when the problems that they're associated with confront us again. If we find a word doesn't do anything for us - isn't magic - then drop it from our list.

We can extend the metaphor a bit more and consider magic marathon thoughts, as Jeff explains. Here's one that might be up my alley:

Muscles, listen to me!

Accompany this with the following additional thoughts: a) I'm shortening stride and shuffling, b) movement pulls out the cramp, and c) the muscle is loosening up. Given some of the hamstring tweaks I've suffered in the last months, this might be worth considering, yes?

I don't know. Being an engineer and all, I'm not a great believer in magic. However, I'm guessing that my part of my brain might be. And if it hears a magic marathon word that has solved a running problem before, it just might respond to it. Hey, I'll resort to magic - if it works.

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TODAY'S WORKOUT: Four-miler around the lakes, preceded by stretching. Planned pace: 11:53; actual pace 11:58, with 2:02 / 1:00 intervals and nominal run pace of 10:33. No adverse messages from the body, to speak of.