What do you think about when you're running?

This is undoubtedly the question I’m asked most often by those who don’t call themselves runners. It's a difficult question to answer, but perhaps even experienced runners should ask themselves it more often.

Let me start by trying to give a simple answer to the question. On an easy run of say 30 to 90 minutes, I could be thinking about anything. A typical run might start with, ‘ooh, my legs are sore’ and progress to, ‘ah, I need to send that email’. Once I hit the middle of the run and start flowing, the thoughts become more complex and interesting, and usually drift towards training and racing: ‘Maybe I should be incorporating more zone 2 flat running into my week. If I just did this run twice per day every day, I’d be running 100 mile weeks and improving my flat economy’. That same thought might run through my head in different forms for 10-20 minutes. It’s this kind of run-thinking which is so addictive, I think.

As things get harder, the scope of thought narrows. During steady state or lactate threshold intervals, I might only be thinking about how my body is moving or feeling: ‘use your arms’, ‘be light on your feet’, ‘hold this effort’, ‘stay relaxed’. Crank the effort up another notch and the thoughts become even more concise and repetitive: ‘come on, come on, come on’, ‘keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing’, ‘let’s go, let’s go, let’s go’. It’s not particularly interesting reading, but in the moment it’s exactly what the mind needs: repetitive encouragement.

3 hours into a 12 hour long run...where is my mind?

But the mind is not always onside. When you push over the edge, be that bonking on a long run or going out too hard in a VO2 max workout, the mind can turn against you. ‘You’re not as strong as you thought you were’ is a common refrain I do my best to avoid. Sometimes it’s just ‘this sucks’ or ‘Jesus’ or ‘fucking hell’. I expect similar thoughts are common for beginner runners on nearly every run, particularly if they’re reluctant to take walking breaks.

When I first started running ultras (circa 2012), I read a book called Relentless Forward Progress by the founding editor of iRunFar, Bryon Powell. In it, there was a section on mantras and overcoming negative self-talk. At the time, I’ll admit, I considered it useless—total bullshit in fact. ‘Tell me more about the workouts! What’s this woo-woo mantra stuff about?’ I thought. But the more time I’ve spent in the sport, the more I realise that the mental side is just as important as, if not more important than, the physical side of running (if the two can even be divided). 

So what should we be doing to ensure that our thinking benefits rather than hinders our running? We can approach this from two angles. To start, we can keep our effort in check by paying attention to our thoughts. Knowing what sort of thoughts we should expect at each stage of a workout or race can ensure that we don’t overdo things early. If I’m already saying, ‘come on’ or ‘keep pushing’ 15 miles into a 50 miler, I know things aren’t going to end well. Save that for the last 15 miles! Early in the race, I know I should be saying things like ‘light on your feet’, or ‘stay relaxed’. In this way, we should ensure that our thoughts guide our effort.

But from the other angle, we should also endeavour to direct our thoughts positively during hard work. For example, I ran a road half marathon last year in which the first three miles were some of the fastest miles I’d run all year. Of course, I’d done some kilometre repeats at faster paces, but I was slightly surprised to see such fast splits at the beginning of the race. Rather than panicking and either slowing massively or tightening up, I told myself ‘you feel relaxed, this is a race, just keep running’. I didn’t allow myself to become overwhelmed by the pace, when I would have if I’d done too much thinking. In racing, too much thinking often gets you into trouble. 

Trying not to overthink

Trying to assert control over our thoughts is energy-sapping and ultimately futile, as anyone who has meditated will know. But what we can do is be aware of negative thoughts and try to let them pass. If things are feeling hard, and we are feeling uncomfortable at an early stage in a race or workout, this can be a good cue to relax slightly (this may mean slowing the pace, though not necessarily) and repeat whichever positive mantra comes naturally. Try to embody this positivity in your stride, your posture, and even your face, thus connecting the mental and the physical sides of running.

Again, I can imagine reading this in 2012 and thinking, ‘Embody positivity? Really?’ But I genuinely think these are the quickest gains you can make in endurance sport. That’s not to say it’s easy—it’s not. Still, I often get to the latter stages of a race totally destroyed with no fight left. ‘I don’t give a shit if they pass me, I just want this finished’. I’m sure anyone who has run more than a few ultras will know this feeling. But we need to look back on this as something to improve. If we’re getting to this stage in a race, we’ve misjudged our effort somehow, and we ought to seek to correct it in future. I’d argue that going back and looking at what we were thinking as well as feeling during each stage of the race is a good place to start.

So the honest answer to 'what do you think about while running' is: it depends, and increasingly, it's something I try to influence.