474: The Story You Tell Yourself Before the Run

The Story You Tell Yourself Before a Run Matters

Have you ever spent the days before a race convincing yourself that something is going to go wrong?

What if it's too hot? What if I can't hold my pace? What if everyone passes me? What if I have a terrible race?

I've been there, and I've seen it with runners over and over again. The interesting thing is that those thoughts can actually influence how we experience what actually happens — both psychologically and physically.

A recent study showed that a runner’s mood and anxiety leading up to a race can actually lead to physiological changes in the body, and even increase the likelihood of getting sick. 

The study looked at 406 marathon runners in the UK and measured pre-race total mood disturbance and anxiety and also tested their saliva before and after the run. They found that runners with higher levels of anxiety and mood disturbance before the race were significantly more likely to get sick with a respiratory infection in the 2 weeks after the race. 

Actual physiological changes to demonstrate the power of the mind-body connection.

So why might this be happening? 

One reason this matters is something we talk about often with our runners: the stress bucket.

Your body doesn't separate work stress from family stress, emotional stress, and physical training stress. It all goes into one stress bucket, and your nervous system is dealing with all of it through the same biological pathways.

So if you arrive at a race already anxious, your bucket is partially full before the race even begins. Then you add the physical stress of running, along with any additional stress that comes from worrying about your pace, the weather, or how the race is going.

That doesn't mean anxiety causes illness, and it certainly doesn't mean you need to eliminate every nervous thought before racing. The study was observational, and plenty of factors can influence recovery and illness.

But it does give us another reason to pay attention to the mental stress we're carrying into our training and racing.

You Don't Have to "Think Positive" All the Time

Here's where I think a lot of runners get it wrong. 

They hear that negative thoughts can negatively impact performance, so they try to completely shift to full-on positive thinking, which often doesn’t work. 

If your brain is offering a lot of negative thoughts, it’s going to feel like you’re lying to yourself if you try to make them overly positive. 

So you don't have to convince yourself:

"This race is going to be amazing!"

when you're actually nervous.

Instead, try something neutral and realistic:

"I'm ready."

Or:

"These are the conditions, and I've trained for this."

Your brain will be more likely to accept those things as true, and that will help calm the nerves and lead to better performance.

Your Interpretation Matters

What happens in your body when you feel nervous? 

Many people can experience butterflies in their stomach, a racing heart, or faster breathing. When you feel those things, you might have the tendency to interpret them as being nervous. 

What happens in your body when you feel excited? 

Same things, right? 

Turns out, the actual physical sensations of nervousness and excitement are very similar because the same messenger is being released in the body: adrenaline. 

The only difference between the two is the way that you interpret them. The story you tell yourself about what those physical sensations mean. 

If you’re standing on the starting line of a race, you might think you’re nervous. 

The cool thing here is that you can shift that interpretation to feeling excited. 

Same feelings, two different stories. 

And feeling excited actually leads to better performance than feeling nervous.

Pretty cool, right? 

Create Your Story Before Race Day

Instead of waiting until you're struggling to figure out what you're going to tell yourself, decide ahead of time.

Ask yourself:

• What am I worried might happen?
• What is actually within my control?
• If something goes wrong, how will I respond
• What do I want to remember when the race gets hard?

Maybe your story is:

"One difficult mile doesn't define my race."

Or:

"I can adjust without panicking."

Or simply:

"I can handle hard things."

You're not creating a perfect race script. You're giving yourself something to come back to when your brain starts creating a worst-case scenario.

You don't have to wait for race day to work on this.

Every training session is an opportunity to practice your mindset. If you consistently approach hard runs with anxiety and negativity, that's what your brain becomes familiar with. But if you practice noticing your thoughts, staying grounded, and responding instead of spiraling, you're building a skill you'll have available when you need it most.

One of my favorite questions to use is:

What is true right now?

Not what might happen.

Not what if this gets worse.

What is true right now?

Maybe your legs are tired. Maybe you're running slower than planned. Maybe the weather is difficult.

Okay.

You can work with what's actually happening instead of fighting a future that hasn't happened yet.

You are still going to feel nervous sometimes.

You're still going to have negative thoughts.

You're still going to have runs that don't go according to plan.

That's not failure.

The goal isn't to eliminate those experiences. It's to become better at responding to them.

So before your next hard run, take a minute and ask yourself:

What story am I telling myself?

Then ask:

What is actually true right now?

You don't need to change everything at once. Just start practicing the skill of noticing the story and choosing what you want to do next.

That's how we build sustainable confidence, one run at a time.