Strategies for a successful mental preparation for a Marathon

A Marathon is a test in which you have to run for 42 km in a row, so it requires preparation physical, tactical, technical and mental high performance, appropriate to the effort that we are going to put our body and mind.

Although there are professional athletes who participate in these events, many of them are popular runners or people who show up for first time in a Marathon after a period of preparation and after completing other long-distance races (half marathon, ten thousand meters, etc.). To carry out the preparation for this test, you need a series of psychological coping strategies ideal for training for the Marathon, because the mental section will be key over many kilometers.

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Strategies to prepare

As explained by the sports psychologist, Jose María Buceta, runners usually use techniques such as thought stopping, self-instructions and attentional refocusing plans because it has been seen that what most influences marathon runners in the test are their thoughts.

In this way, through adequate psychological training, athletes use strategies such as coping to interrupt harmful mental activity and replace it with another that favors overcoming those critical moments and does not decrease performance in the test.

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Associative and dissociative strategies

The authors Morgan and Pollock suggested that the mental activity of Marathon Runners was defined by associative and dissociative strategies. The former are based on paying attention, having thoughts or self-dialogues regarding one's own bodily sensations or the activity involved in the race (attention to the circuit). The second ones imply a disconnection of attention from the previous factors in favor of stimuli unrelated to the activity, that is, paying attention to the landscape, the music, the public, etc. These strategies change depending on the type of broker.

Jose María Buceta saw that in the case of popular runners, both associative and dissociative activity may be relevant to their performance goals. However, when it comes to runners who want to make good times, it is preferable to use strategies associative strategies during most of the race, alternating them with dissociative strategies in less critics.

What are the emotional phases of a Marathon?

It can be observed that on a psychological level, fatigue, tiredness and exhaustion occur, since there are many kilometers included in this test. Vich establishes different stages or "emotional phases" through which one passes depending on the kilometers we are on.

Emotional phases of the Marathon (Vich, 2002):

concluding

To finish, emphasize again that the Marathon It is conditioned by both physical and psychological qualitiesSince it is such a prolonged physical effort, it requires a lot of mental toughness. For this reason, when facing it, we must also work and train the mental part in order to manage the feelings of tiredness and fatigue that are linked to the test.

It is essential to try to give the same importance to the physical section as to the psychological one if we want to obtain a good performance in the test.