Court Rules: Staying Strong Mentally Through a Long Season

I would say I approach staying strong through a long season and through a hard run with almost opposite mindsets so I'll answer the former this week and the latter next week.

To stay motivated through a long season, I try to always keep a long-term perspective.  This means having a sustainable mindset and never placing too much pressure or importance on any one run.

I think a sustainable attitude to have over the season is to enjoy the day in and day out process and not just do something for the result. I think it's important to make sure you enjoy what you are doing because you can only willpower yourself to do things you don't want to do for so long. That does not mean you should just take the easy way out of everything and only practice whenever you feel like it. We've all had days when the weather is awful and we feel tired and would rather put off starting our run, but usually when that happens and we run anyway, we are always happy we did. I would consider that still enjoying the process because you became happy you did it independent of a race result or performance. It is important to have this approach because most people don't burnout physically from a long season, they burnout mentally. This is because physical burnout comes from overtraining (or rather, under recovering from the training being done), not from the length of the season.

I think you can change how much you enjoy what you are doing each day by changing your perspective... You can be hoping to crush a workout on hard days or look forward to having fun and relaxing with friends on easy days, or look forward to that feeling of proud exhaustion after a long run. If you have the right mindset any scenario can be enjoyed.  Even days that you don't feel great and aren't running fast are exciting because they are making you stronger and a reflection that you have been training hard.  So the best way to stay motivated through the season is to have a mindset that lets you enjoy each day.  I think focusing on the positive instead of looking for things to dread or "get over with" is a good life lesson too and this way of thinking can spill over to how you approach the rest of your life.

Another helpful reminder during a long season is there's no day that is going to make or break your ability to achieve your goals.  I think people often fall into trouble when they place too much emphasis on performing well every single day, especially early on in the season. It's important to trust the process and not worry too much about your performance on every single run. It's easier said than done, but there is a balance between caring about how you do throughout the entire season and not stressing too much about every workout and race from the start.  

If you are not enjoying practices or meets because you are too nervous for the pain or outcome, then you need to take a step back and again remember why you run. Improvement in running is not a straight line, there will be some days or weeks or even months when you aren't doing as well as you have in the past. When this happens it's important to consider what could be contributing to this (tiredness, stress, low iron etc) while also not beating yourself up about it and not stressing trying to make each day way better than the next.  You can always be looking for ways to improve while still being secure and confident that what you are doing is good even as you work to do things better.

A long-term perspective can also help you make better decisions to reduce the risk of major injuries. For example, I've been guilty of thinking that I absolutely have to run the entire run exactly as I planned even if something is hurting me because it's "not that bad" and I really want to and there's technically no reason that I couldn't do it especially if I distract myself and don't think about the pain and then is it really there and... But that line of thinking often leads to injuries that could have been easily avoided.  If you're unsure whether to run on a given day think of the possible scenarios of not running: if you don't run and you could have, then all you missed is one day.  However, if you don't run and it would have made things worse if you had, then it was the best decision.  Neither sounds that bad and both avoids the potential issue of making the injury worse or hurting something else because your form is off.

That being said when things aren't going well or aren't very enjoyable, a good way to deal with it is to appreciate all the things that are going well and remember why you love running in the first place. Remembering all the memories, friends, and life lessons that you've gathered over time can help you stay motivated and make any adversity seem more worth it.  Also, thinking about why you love to run can help put the long season in perspective by reminding you that this is something you want to be doing and not something you are counting down the days to be over.