It's all in the mind

Samuele Marcora

You see, I received a press release over the weekend about the launch of a new book, RUN by Matt Fitzgerald and I decided to try to track the author down for a little runbritain interview. That's not going to happen overnight though as he lives in Colorado but as I conducted a little research on him I was delighted to find that much of his book is based on research conducted by Samuele who is pretty much on my doorstep. He agreed to talk to me and so off I went with my notepad in hand! I've reported on the stuff I found out on little runbritain today.

The conversation was enlightening, baffling and much of it was hard work for me to understand. It was enlightening in that I could relate to so much of what he was saying:

As he explained the 'good day, bad day phenomena' I realised that I was having a bit of a bad day. To get to his office I had pulled myself up with the bannister because I felt fatigued after my much - slower - than - usual morning run. I don't always climb stairs like that, in fact I often practise running drills as I go up them. On a scale of 1 - 10 I'm willing to invest a 7 in order to bound up the stairs each time I go up them but in yesterday's state I rated the effort required at an 8 and so I wasn't willing to do it. Instead I dragged myself up using the bannister and if there had been a lift I probably would have used it. Looking back I know that I could have performed running drills up the stairs yesterday and that physiologically I was as capable as I always am but I chose not to. I began to wonder why I chose not to and why I ran so slowly on my morning run if, physiologically I was no different than I am on a 'good day'. Samuele said that we don't know why we have days like this but suggested that it is a safety mechanism as are sensations such as hunger or pain.

We also spoke about his next project that is to find a way for runners to learn how to over-ride the natural desire to give up or to slow down. I came away wondering whether we should learn to over-ride it, if indeed it is a safety mechanism but then everyone of us can probably think of a runner we know who is particularly strong, mentally and we may well have witnessed them pushing on past a point where others would have stopped. Has this done them any harm? Of that I'm not sure but it may have made the difference between them running their best time, winning a title or beating their closest rival.

Samuele spent two hours talking to me. With anyone else he may not need such a long time but I have to say there was a lot for me to get my head around and I still don't think I have. My perceived effort to concentrate and take it all in was pretty high, I can tell you, and I think my bad day was also evident in this exercise as the two hours 'took it out of me'!

But that was yesterday. Today was a good day. I ran the same route this morning as I did yesterday and it felt like a breeze...and look at me now...still tapping away on the key board and it's 2240hrs....I wonder what tomorrow will bring!