It’s a fickle thing - some races you’re fully engaged and riding that line and living just outside that zone. You’re locked in and competing and you’re taking runners down one after another, gaining ground, and floating over the course. However, when you’re not in that place - you can find yourself falling back into your comfort zone and struggling to make any ground on your competition let alone getting out of the comfort zone. It’s the worst when you start out pushing hard thinking you’ve achieved escape velocity and you’re going to murder the competition only to get handed a piano that launches you back into comfort. It happens! My best advice - assess the why (pacing, heat, etc.) and move on - you have more ahead of you!

Discover the "Refocus and Reset Drill," a mental performance exercise designed for cross-country runners to enhance mental resilience during tough races. Learn how to visualize challenges, break your runs into manageable chunks, and shift your goals mid-race. This guide offers practical steps to help you maintain focus, control your mindset, and push through fatigue, ultimately transforming your race experience. Build your mental strength and conquer race day with confidence!

Prepare to launch

The Toughest Words
The toughest words to say are often “I’m sorry” or a blended and hopefully non-sarcastic, “I’m sorry I made you feel that way”. This is what my early high school and college years taught me how to say. Whether it was friends, teammates, or partners over the years - learning to recognize a mistake that you’ve made and owning it is tough. I learned quickly that if I took ownership and I did it quickly when I felt it - I felt uncomfortable for a far shorter time. When we let fear of confrontation enter the picture, the process of healing is delayed and in it that space grows resentment, frustration, and anger.

In the competitive world of high school cross-country and track, mental habits often play a crucial role in an athlete's performance. Developing a framework for discussing these mental habits is essential for both runners and their coaches. By understanding and articulating mental habits, high school runners can create a supportive environment that fosters growth, resilience, and a winning mindset. This framework involves identifying key mental habits, assessing their impact on running performance, and devising strategies to cultivate positive thinking while minimizing negative self-talk.

Here is a quick breakdown for this episode:

• You should be testing your iron quarterly (both men and women!)

• You are looking for a number between 50 and 80. Non-athletes may be fine at 25 but runners, especially distance athletes need much higher numbers!

• Increasing your dietary iron is a great first course of action (heme-iron from red meat or chicken or legumes, nuts, and seeds for vegetarians)

• Oral Supplements like Thorne - bisglycinate is highly recommended

• You can take iron before bed - it is slightly better absorbed after breakfast without caffeine!

The best race is the one where you collect as many "Excellent present moments". Shannon Thompson joins us for this weeks episode of Jog Your Mind!

Athletes who fall in love with the sport have a turning point in their training and racing career - they decide to “Turn Pro” in the sense of Stephen Pressfield. His idea of Turning Pro means that you think, act, and respond as a professional would. You stop taking the point of view of an amateur who steps back, resists the tough moments, dodges ownership, and shifts blame and shortcomings onto anything but themselves.

Megan Manderfiled joins us from Skratch HQ to talk about the 2 big questions we get from athletes. - What should I eat before morning races? - What should I eat before afternoon races? Head over to Instagram to get in on a chance to be a part of a free raffle. The raffle ends August 30th. Here are some resources we mentioned in this episode  - Instagram Dietitians: ⁠Stephanie- High School Athlete Nutrition⁠ https://www.instagram.com/highschool.athlete.nutrition/?hl=en - ⁠Skratch Blogs⁠ https://www.skratchlabs.com/pages/blog -⁠Athletes Plate⁠ https://swell.uccs.edu/theathletesplate Questions? E-mail: andrew@peakperformrun.com

I figured that with Cross Country starting up again - I’d give you guys a run down of what I encourage my athletes to do when it comes to racing and developing good habits. Here are 3 key areas to focus on as the season gets off the ground:

1) Pre-Race Nutrition

2) Pre-Race Warm Up

3) Progressing your effort in a race

S.W.E.A.T

Embracing a Racing Mindset: A Guide to Success On and Off the Track

In the world of racing, every practice session, every race, is not just an event but an opportunity—an opportunity to push boundaries, to learn, and to excel. It's a mindset encapsulated in the belief that every moment is a chance to better oneself. Whether you're on the track or tackling life's challenges, seizing these opportunities and making the best of them is essential.

Each race distance presents its unique challenges and opportunities for strategic planning, with coaches offering nuanced advice to help athletes optimize their performance. From pacing considerations to mental strategies for overcoming obstacles during the race, the guidance provided aims to equip runners with the tools they need to succeed. Whether it's adhering to a strict plan, embracing flexibility, or finding the right balance between aggression and restraint, the ultimate goal is to empower athletes to race confidently and effectively, maximizing their potential on the track.

The College Talk

The college talk is much longer than a 15:00 episode, it's an individual conversation about where you want to go, what you see yourself pursuing, and if that includes running. If you've read this far - running in college is something that you want to pursue and that's AWESOME.

How we talk to ourselves has an enormous affect on the outcome of our races. As they say, attitude is everything. So how do we change the narrative in our mind. What are some things we can do to build ourselves up and get our internal dialogue in line with our race day ambitions?

S2|E3 - Pressure is a privilege, not a problem.

Athletes will experience intense pressure in their performance as long as they perceive athletic contests as an impending disaster rather than a great opportunity. Furthermore, these athletes also have a tendency to interpret normal bodily sensations, such as an increased heart rate prior to performing, as catastrophic. Importantly, this type of "bad" pressure can be clobbered by developing the right mind-set.

Jog Your Mind - S2 E2: Loose Plan + Early Season Priorities

This episode helps define a loose race plan strategy as well as digging into a few early season priorities.

Track is here which means that it’s time to spike up, run fast, and finish every session in what my friend Jon Dalby calls “Floppy Fish”. That’s just not what you need right now and for the first half of the season - most runners don’t need to be dying in every session push themselves to the absolute limit. I will add the disclaimer that this blog and pod is focused on distance runners so while 800m runners need to be doing some sprint work - I’m going to focus this on what we call an aerobic-based 800m runner who runs down to the 800m from a priority even of 1600m. Yes, you can run a good 400m and a quality 3200m race as someone who is good at the 800/1600 but there are certain types of athletes who do best at the break over between the 1600 and 800.

The Season’s Best Mindset

“Trying to be certain about something that is inherently uncertain creates tension Instead, approach this season with curiosity. Open and present emotions are performance enhancing.”

If you’re a fan of the sport and watch any of the indoor competitions, go look at the results, watch a few races and you’ll quickly notice that while a few races are extremely fast and records get broken. Very few athletes PR and it’s not because they aren’t fit or capable. It’s just simply not the goal for the majority of the field. When a professional runner toes the line, everyone toeing that line shares the belief that there purpose on that day is to try and win and outsmart, outkick, and outplay their competitors. Even then, especially then you shouldn’t expect athletes to PR because the PR and fast time isn’t the goal - the goal is to win.

When it comes to racing at the junior level, there are a handful of races in a year that you would expect to see everyone on the line with that mentality. The majority of the races that you will run are about refining your craft and becoming masterful in your pacing, reading the race, catching on to a lead out, and timing your kick. Figuring out these factors AND running fast rarely line up until the tail end of the season when you have had a chance to get reps under your belt.

Step 1: Drop the ego, run faster

Setting your zones is the first step of ownership as an athlete. Many people avoid it because it often involves confronting reality. New athletes often take pride in running certain paces and further pride in saying that it's "easy". If 7:00 pace isn't actually for your everyday runs, stop gaslighting yourself into thinking it is - you're doing more harm than good.

Whether it's the perception of "looking good" on Strava or upholding some artifice that you did all your aerobic work this week at "x:xx" pace is wild. You are all still developing as athletes - give yourself a pace range to run in based on your current performances. This is what will allow you to sustainably reach your goals.

Rest, Recognize, Refocus, Review

Watching athletes close the season, they often just move on to the next thing - the next sport or set some loose goals for track. I have athletes contact me every January asking how they can get ready for track and I often start by asking them to look back on cross country and define what they did well and what they wanted to improve on. On one particular call, I had an athlete ask me “What does my cross-country season have to do with track season?”. It was at that moment I realized that they had taken a myopic view of the carry-over principle of training. It was clear they were sensitive about the seasons and once we broke it down - they were upset with how they raced at state. On paper, this athlete had a great season but they were stuck on the one performance they wanted to go well - STATE.

Let me be the first to tell you, just as I did to them: One race does not define your season!

Season’s Best Mindset

I’ve spent hundreds of hours at coaching clinics but the most significant gold nuggets I’ve ever learned are often in passing. I spoke with John Poag at a coffee shop about his upcoming season and he said we like to think of the season as a black whiteboard at the start of the season. From there, I could easily see that there are often 2 mindsets they adopt, quite often they transcend from one into another. Most athletes spend the first 2 years developing their running performances and are constantly seeking out time as the biggest validator for their success or failure. At some point, they move away from a PR-centric mindset and become more competitive with themselves and others. They appreciate a PR when they get it but it’s not the sole reason they line up. At their best - they are making an effort to be competitive in the field they’re racing and if they’re lucky - they are racing to win and play “the game” of racing and winning races.Mindset #1 is often a messy whiteboard with their season’s old or most recent PR directly in the center at 100 font. It is the dominant thought in their mind.

Mindset #2 has the PR in size 10 font in the upper corner and the whiteboard shows the progression of the season with each race having places of progress and places for improvement.

Key Points

Don’t get caught looking backwards

Treat your season like a whiteboard

Getting caught in “getting it right”

Not everything is a test

You need mistakes

Learn how to control your thoughts

Facts don’t have feelings

When keying up for a big performance, there is a pressure you feel to have a perfect day and the reality is that you don’t need everything to go 100% perfect. Even and “A” effort gets you a 93-96%. As a student athlete, you are given a clear understanding of what you need to do to get an “A” in school. To get an A in school - you have to follow the rubric, get the assignments in on time, and put forth a reasonable effort to study and master your understanding of the subject. The rubric tells you what’s coming your way, and you can plan ahead and prepare your personal and social schedule accordingly.

Running and Life don’t follow a Rubric

Races with crappy conditions bring out 2 people - those who see the conditions as an equalizer and help them displace athletes who are fitter and have poor attitudes. Then there are those with poor attitudes. The first hurdle many athletes have to understand is that you will constantly chase a “perfect” race and your best races may not and often will not line up on the days when others have great races. The more you race, the more you understand that you’ll be most proud of the days you adapted your strategy, remained flexible, and succeeded despite the conditions/ competition/ stomach ache/ drama in your life.

Distance runners are often profiled as frail, weak, and even unathletic and at PEAK, we’re doing what we can to change that outlook. Since 2017, we’ve been integrating strength and conditioning into our programs from Middle School on up. When it comes to lifelong sports you can practice - running and strength training are 2 sports that increase your longevity, decrease cardiovascular disease, and relieve daily stress. Our athletes that leave to pursue running in college seek out programs that prioritize strength training because it becomes more than another thing on their plate, it becomes a central function of their fitness and performance. We’ve shown again and again that we build strong and capable athletes through proven workouts as well as proven progressions in the weight room that compliment what we do on the track. The weight room is where we pattern great mechanics, reduce injury, and uncover our inner athlete.

Can you solve the mystery of Mile 2? Why is it so hard? Why does it always end up the slowest of the race? Who’s done it? Was it Colonel Mustard in the Foyer? Was it you in your last XC race?

In Segment 6 we learned that we’re constantly fighting off the fears of judgment and failure. This is especially present in the time leading into a race and most present at the start line. The athletes that perform the best have created a space of psychological safety at the start line. They have learned how to slowly up their presence on the start line and control the thoughts that are helpful by letting them in and recognizing the unhelpful thoughts kindly showing them the door and kicking them out.

All of the athletes I talked to last week were dealing with and working through some form of disassociation, pressure to perform, and getting caught in their blind spots. A big part of the reason why I’ve encouraged you to document and self-reflect so much in the past 6 weeks is that you need to understand what you are feeling before you can start to work on how to fix it. I wish there was a simple cheat code you could unlock in a video game by doing a specific pre-race sequence but it’s simply not that easy. Where your focus goes, energy flows.

Know the game you’re playing

The mindset of a champion is not just a privilege of fast people, it’s a mindset they’ve earned through hard work, exploration, and coming up short. Champions know pain and aren’t afraid to experience it but don’t think a champion hurts any less than you do on race day. Champions are everywhere - they are the people who go to The Edge and are fueled by a purpose and purpose inspires toughness!

Athletics, especially running is all about chasing small improvements, day in and day out. If you were in the shoes of your coach, you’d want the vital details of every athlete you worked with so you could understand how they felt, how their body responded, and how well they recovered from the previous day. As a coach - you would digest this information and make a decision on how to train that day -do I push them, do I rest them, do we go easy? Without this information, it’s a guessing game - an inexact science and run-on hope that what works for one person works for the whole lot.

Jog Your Mind | Segment 4: Not seeing PR's this season?

Remember that a PR is a best-ever performance, early in the season - chasing a PR vs. sharpening your racing skills is a dangerous prospect. You’re rusty and it’s been 3+ months since you’ve taken on any serious racing, points on the line, expectations, and a team atmosphere where you’re fighting for every place add in the heat, racing after school, stress from tests, homework, and keeping up with friends. These demands all come into play on race day.