Body Acting on Mind Not Thought

School Track and Field Meet
1500m
May 29, 2008

Opening
Mind: What your brain makes your body do
Thought: Simply what you are thinking

I don’t usually write a race report for school races, but at my most recent track meet I learned a couple of different things about myself. Things I think other athletes can learn from. It is something a lot of athletes have difficulties with. So by writing this I hope some of you athletes will understand it and can learn from it.

Pre-race
A normal pre-race routine, I had set my goal and was reviewing the times I wanted to have for each lap (1500m track). I was running a light jog with a few short intervals to get my legs going. I was ready to run and planned on starting fast instead of my usual coming from behind. I was nervous, but not sick to my stomach. This was good for me because I’m usual visiting the bathroom often. I knew I was ready and there was no reason I couldn’t win.

The Race
The gun shot off and I started out fast as planned, but was surprised no one else really did. I came off the start in 2nd. It was a fairly windy day so I knew I needed to draft off of someone for most of the race. For the first three laps I was positioned second in a pack of four. I finished the third lap and only had ¾ of a lap left. This is where things became confusing to me. One of the racers started to leave me at the end of the curve with only 300m to go. We had a straight 100m with the wind behind our backs. He was slowly gaining distance on me. I thought, “He’s going to beat me, he’s losing me, I don’t have a chance, I don’t have enough left to beat him.” I didn’t understand what was happening in my head. We started in to the last curve with 200m to go. After the curve the final 100m straight away was against the wind. Out of no where my legs turned it on as I was half way around the curve. I passed him on the outside and left him. My legs just kept going. Finally there were positive thoughts flowing through my head; I knew I had him. I beat him, but I was confused, not really happy with my race. I had a negative feeling and I was confused as to what made my legs go.

My Understanding of What Happened During the Last 300m
It took quite a while for me to really understand what was going on in the last 300m of my 1500m race. It was my 800m race that same day that made me understand what happened. Even though my thoughts were weak and negative my mind knew exactly what it was doing. Unconsciously I was racing very smart. When I started falling behind him with 300m to go I was taking away all of his wind, and saving my breath. I gave him the false sense of security that he had me beat. He could only hear me faintly, but turning the last curve he faced the crowd and therefore could no longer hear me. That’s when my legs went and unknowingly I told them to. He didn’t know I was there until I passed him. For the last stretch I stayed in lane two, I didn’t cut into lane one. I left him without a windbreak so he couldn’t catch me.

My mind and my thoughts did not work well together in this race, and I think that’s why I felt unsatisfied afterwards. To have the most success in a race you need both your thoughts and mind working together. You need your mind moving your legs and your thoughts encouraging them, making you a stronger and more efficient runner. I have trained my mind well and can control it, but what I need to work on now is training my thoughts to work in sync with my mind. This will not happen in just one run. This is something an athlete will always need to work on. This could be one of your problems too. I hope by sharing my experience it will help a few other athletes learn from it like I did.