Coach’s Corner | Plan vs Strategy and Racing With A Broken Watch (Video)
What a broken watch taught me about mental toughness and why having a good strategy is just as important as having a good plan.
When I ran the Chicago Marathon in 2023 my watch did not track my splits right for the first ~7 miles. I was way off my pace and ended up having to kick in the middle of the race and how old until the end. This is a painful way to race. When I ran the Chicago Marathon in 2019 my hamstring hurt the first few miles (it soon disappeared) and I came through the half-way point 5 minutes off the pace of my goal time. I had to negative split (run the second half of the race substantially faster than the first). This is also a very painful way to race.
For both races I still hit my goal time. In 2023 it was to run a sub 2:55. In 2019 I ran sub 3 hours.
These times are ~good~ but they aren’t elite and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Additionally, most of us who are doing marathons really want to race against ourselves and hit a time goal. We have fully accepted at this point we are not Olympians, let alone sub-elites. I am more like you, than I am them. I don’t want you to think there’s anything special about me so my experience is easily learned from and can be applied to you.
With that out of the way the takeaway here really is twofold, one being preparation based to use in your race training and the other being mindset based to tap into during the actual race.
Things will often not go according to plan during your races. That is ok. This is why you should have a strategy and practice this during your training runs. I call this “doomsday” simulations for a few of your runs. Having a good plan means nothing if you don’t also practice on a good response (strategy) when things don’t go right.
Do not give up and throw the towel in before the race is over. Your body can handle more than you think. You just need (and can!) train your mind to overcome the hurdles that pop up during your race.
I speak about this a bit here. Hit the slide-through to learn more.
