The Brain Game

Training notes: This week has been almost entirely rest as I'm racewalking in the Portland to Coast this weekend. I managed to tweak my foot putting on my shoes, so I did not want to aggravate the tendons I pissed off because I didn't want to take 30 seconds to fully untie my shoe. I'll be walking just under 13 miles Friday/Saturday. Next week will be another light week and then my recovery summer is over. Finally!

"I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this." - Emo Phillips

Oh, my wonderful brain. Without it, I wouldn't be much, but there are times in this running journey that I have wished that I could simply remove it.

There has been some interesting research done on the brain and its effect on our bodies during exercise. Apparently the little bugger likes to protect us from injury, so to do so, it sends us signals of fatigue so that we slow down and protect our delicate systems. Our perception of how far we have left to go also factors in to those signals - if we know we are close, our brains allow us to perceive less fatigue - hence our super fast finishing kick the last quarter mile only minutes after we've been pretty sure we can't move another step.

Matt Fitzgerald, a fast dude and solid writer, actually put together an entire book that explains more of the brain's effects on our running as well as training plans designed to work with the brain to improve our performance. I have not followed one of his plans through its entirety to know if they work well. Perhaps that should be a fall project...

Interestingly, there is an ultrarunner, Diane Van Deren, who has accomplished some really tough races after having a partial lobotomy to control seizures. Because she has no concept of how long she's been running or how far she's gone, she is able to complete races that others struggle with. She does still feel fatigue, but there must be something to the belief systems we hold about how far we are going. Our brains are our running companions whether we like it or not.

This is the part for which I would like to remove my brain. I appreciate all that it does to keep me from frying my internal organs and pulling all the muscles in my legs. It's the doubt that I could do without. Somewhere along this journey, my brain has decided that I need to preserve myself against feeling any pain. Pushing hard, going far - these are things that I have begun to avoid, and if I want to run an ultra, I've got to move myself right on past that. That little voice that says "You can't" starts to tell the rest of the brain to fire the neurons that say "too much pain!", I think. I've started to believe that I am not capable of going fast over very long distances, and I'm even starting to wonder if I can go as far as a 50k. I know that this is all being played out in my head.

I have had a good summer of rest for my body, but I have neglected that big muscle up above. In the next few weeks, I need to start examining what I'm really believing about my running, and I need to find ways to start thinking positively about what I can do again. It's time to start training that brain to believe in what I can do again.

Where's your brain at? Do you think your thoughts about what you can do are helping you or hindering you? If you are doing well in this area, do you have any good suggestions about how to turn your thinking around?