474: The Story You Tell Yourself Before the Run

What story are you telling yourself before you even get to the starting line?

In this episode, Angie and Kevin talk about pre-race anxiety, the stories we create around hard runs, and how those stories can influence both our experience and our physiology. They explore how negativity and confirmation bias can cause us to look for evidence that a run is going badly before it even starts.

They also dive into research connecting pre-race anxiety and mood disturbance with changes in immune response after a marathon. Most importantly, this conversation isn't about pretending everything will be perfect. It's about creating a realistic, intentional story, understanding your stress bucket, and learning how to respond when things don't go according to plan.

Read the main study referenced in the episode here.

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04:24 – The Stories We Tell Ourselves 

09:38 – How Your Brain Predicts What Will Happen 

13:45 – Anxiety, Mood & Immune Response 

17:28 – Understanding the Stress Bucket 

25:14 – Training Your Mindset 

30:45 – Anxiety Is Not the Problem 

34:17 – Challenge vs. Threat 

37:30 – Reality vs. Toxic Positivity 

42:42 – Create Your Race Story 

45:37 – “What Is True Right Now?” 

50:51 – Building a Pre-Run Routine 

56:05 – How Your Story Shapes Performance

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Don't forget: The information on this website is not intended to treat or diagnose any medical condition or to provide medical advice. It is intended for general education in the areas of health and wellness. All information contained in this site is intended to be educational in nature. Nothing should be considered medical advice for your specific situation.

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

So I read a recent study that was super interesting talking about how your mood and anxiety level before a race significantly affected how, not only how you performed during the race, but what happened after the race, especially if you were more likely or less likely to get sick after a race. So we're gonna be s- talking about that study and, um, some of the very interesting findings there, and also relating it to real life because our daughter just started high school, and that is like a whole new chapter for us and for her. So t- today we're talking all about the stories that we tell ourselves and how those stories can affect our experiences, both negatively and positively. So stay tuned. What's up, runners? Welcome back to the show. Hi, Kev. Welcome back.

Speaker 2 1:13

Hey. Hey, how's

Speaker 1:15

it going? It's school time.

Speaker 2 1:17

Oh, it

Speaker 1:18

is- School is started-

Speaker 2 1:19

Yeah, and I'm-

Speaker 1:20

officially

Speaker 2 1:21

I'm enjoying a nice cup of tea as we record this- Yeah so that my voice will last through the whole episode.

Speaker 1:27

Well, and it's funny 'cause we're, uh, we're already behind because normally we record our podcast episodes on Monday, and today is Wednesday, and we normally release these sh- on Thursday. So, shout out to our podcast editor, Bliss, for getting this up with a very short turnaround time. You are awesome, um, and we are very appreciative of you. So, you actually have started school. Like, you had your preschool days for, not preschool, but pre-school, um, as a teacher.

Speaker 2 2:00

That is always so awkward to say. Yeah. My teacher school days.

Speaker 2:02

Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:02

As

Speaker 2:04

a teacher-

Speaker 2 2:05

We used a

Speaker 2:05

lot of crayons.

Speaker 2 2:06

Huh? We used a lot of crayons and

Speaker 2:08

paste. A lot of crayons and some watercolors. Wouldn't that be nice? Um, but yeah, so I came across this very interesting study, and that's kind of what we're building this episode around. But I'm gonna, we're gonna talk about that a little bit later in the episode, because as I was reading this study, it was really about how your mood and anxiety level going into a race or even just before a harder run can affect your, the biological response in your body. What's actually happening physiologically in your body. So, it's more than just having a negative experience, um, emotionally or mentally or subjectively is the word I'm looking for. Having a negative subjective experience of the race. There's actually objective things that they were measuring that show that there was a physiological response in the body that was different based on your mood and anxiety levels before the race. And I found that to be very apropos for starting a new school year. Because our mood, our anxiety levels, our stress levels, our kind of take on everything and the story that we're telling ourselves about these experiences before we go into them, has a huge effect on how we experience those things.

Speaker 2 3:25

Yeah, 100%. Like, this study's super fascinating, but it, it connects to what was happening this week at the start- Yeah of school. Mm-hmm. Because all the kids are coming back to school, and the, the kids who are moving into their senior year have talked to the seniors who were there before. Yeah. And so they've got this idea of what senior year's gonna be. Mm-hmm. The juniors have been told for years, "Junior year of high school, it's insane." Yeah. "You're never gonna sleep." And so before school has started, before they've met their teacher and said hi to them, anybody know who their teachers are, before they said hi to their teacher, they're already like, "This is gonna be the most stressful year of my life."

Speaker 4:00

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then- And that's our oldest daughter. Our oldest daughter- That's how it is is starting junior year, and she's been talking about this all summer, if not, like, last year too when she was a sophomore, knowing that this was coming. Because this is the narrative, is like junior year is the hardest year, so get ready, be prepared.

Speaker 2 4:19

Yeah. And the sophomores have their own issues, but we don't personally have a sophomore this year, so we're gonna skip over that. But then there's the freshmen-

Speaker 4:25

Yeah

Speaker 2 4:26

who have the most unknown. Mm-hmm. Because they're moving from eighth graders, where they were king of the mountain, to high school freshmen, where they are now low man on the totem pole, and it's like, "Ooh, now what do I got?" Yeah. And they maybe know people who are in high school, so they're getting- Mm like secondhand stories.

Speaker 4:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2 4:44

They've got no experience in this at all, and so there could be possibly a lot of fear, because what there is is a lot of questions.

Speaker 4:54

Right.

Speaker 2 4:54

Yeah. And

Speaker 4:55

questions

Speaker 2 4:55

mark- And with

Speaker 4:55

the, the unknown often comes a lot of fear.

Speaker 2 4:58

Yes. And I think that's really where this study and, and the whole episode are really going, is when you don't have a hard, hard evidence, when you don't have clear facts- Yeah we just make up whatever story we want. Mm-hmm. And that's not necessarily gonna work in our favor, unless we, we know that we're in charge of the story.

Speaker 5:18

Yeah. And I think that's the number one thing that we all want all of you to gain from this episode, is that you are in charge of the story that you're telling yourself, and if you don't like the story, you can tell yourself a different one. And we're gonna be talking about kind of how to do that, uh, in the episode. But I think that's really the important starting point, is that we all carry stories into events. And so our daughter that's starting high school had these stories. Maybe they're from what people have told her. Maybe they're from movies that she's seen about high school experiences. Maybe it's about kind of her past experience of starting a school, which is kind of, you know- And both of our girls stayed in the same school from kindergarten, well, the littlest one from pre-K all the way through eighth grade, so she didn't have to start a new school. So this is her first time that she's started a new school as someone with more memories, I guess. And, like, really, like, you know, she started a new school when she was four, so... Or barely four, and now she's 14, and so that's a long time ago, and she's been through a lot of things, and she cares a lot more about what other people think about her and what this is all going to be like, and there's a lot more going on. And so I think it's im- important for us to understand that we all do come into these new things with these stories, and sometimes they're good stories, and sometimes they're bad stories, but like Kevin mentioned, it's a lot of unknown. And so when there's unknown, then your brain just makes stuff up.

Speaker 2 6:53

Right, because the, the story, the thoughts we've got going in our head are not actually about what's happening.

Speaker 6:59

Yeah.

Speaker 2 7:00

Because we get them going before we're there. We're not even observing what's happening around us. This is the, the story that we're going like the week into the event. Yeah. The night before the event. Mm-hmm. If, if we're heading into a race, let's flip this over to the running environment. Yeah. If we're heading to a race and we know in the past we had a race and it was hot, and it didn't go well for us. Yeah. And we've been ch- checking the weather app, and we're like, "Ooh, it's gonna be hot tomorrow. This is not gonna go well."

Speaker 7:29

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 7:30

Says who? Right. Like, maybe you made some adjustments since the last one, but you're not sure. Yeah. Even if you've made adjustments, you're not sure how they're gonna play out in the race environment, and so that's a question mark. Mm-hmm. But the thing is that they're all just anticipatory stories that we're creating-

Speaker 7:48

Yeah

Speaker 2 7:48

that we then say, "This is exactly how it's gonna play out."

Speaker 7:52

Mm-hmm,

Speaker 2 7:53

yeah. And that's the catch, is we're making up a story and then saying, "That's the outcome that's going to happen," whereas we're totally making stuff up.

Speaker 8:02

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 8:03

And so then when stuff starts happening, we look for the things happening around us that match the story that we've been telling ourselves for the last 24 hours, the last seven days. Mm-hmm. Like, however long we've had this story going on repeat, and if you get really anxious about something, that story could've been building for a while. Like, our junior, man, she's been building that story since she got to high school- Yeah that junior year is gonna be rough. So this is a story, like, two years in the making. Mm-hmm. That junior year is super impossible. I'm never gonna sleep. My head's gonna explode.

Speaker 8:35

Yeah. But- It's a good thing they don't come from y- an overthinker or a couple overthinkers.

Speaker 2 8:41

Yeah, exactly. But I mean, I saw her the night before. She was, like, getting ready for bed, and she was, like, just about ready. She washed her face and toweled off, and then she just paused and took, like, this big, deep breath and goes, "Junior year is here." Ugh.

Speaker 8:59

Aw. It's just

Speaker 2 9:00

like, uh, like the weight of all this is now here.

Speaker 9:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2 9:04

And the same thing happens with races, especially if we get like, we've been putting six months of training into it. How many times during those training runs, during the hard workouts, during the long run, are you thinking about the race coming up?

Speaker 9:16

Yeah.

Speaker 2 9:17

And that's what's getting you through the training And so then when it's finally time for the race, you're like, "Man, I better perform because I've been putting in all of this work."

Speaker 9:26

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 9:27

And now suddenly you're thinking about the performance, and as soon as how you perform matters, all the nerves kick in about, "Oh, but what if this goes wrong? What if that goes wrong?" And we start freaking out.

Speaker 9:37

Yeah. Well, because when we come into a situation with these stories, then that story automatically becomes the way that we filter all the information that's coming in. So your brain is a prediction machine. That's what our brains are meant to do. Your brain is wired to look at the situation around you or look at situations in the future that you are likely going to be a part of and try to predict what is going to happen, because that's the way we stay safe. Because the more the brain can predict and the more the brain feels like it knows, then the more we can prepare for, the more likely we are that we are going to be safe and not die. And that's what our, that's how our brains are wired. And so we come into these things with these stories, and when there is an unknown, your brain just fills it in. And since your brain has a negativity bias, our brains are more wired to be more negative than they are positive, oftentimes your brain will fill that in with something negative. And so unless... The, the good news is we can change that, right? The good news is we can consciously decide what kind of story that we want to write. The bad news is, if we're not aware of it, it's going to m- most likely be negative. And then once you actually are in that situation, everything that kind of, all the information and the experiences that are happening then get sent through this filter, and oftentimes if you're not sure what that thing is, then it often gets read as negative. Or if you start having early difficulty, like in a race, then that is more confirmation that that negative outcome that you are fearing is going to come true. Like, "Oh, no, here, here it comes, th- this is, this is what's happening now." Like, you s- you get the side stitch or you start to, you know, feel that your legs aren't as fresh as you like them to be, and all of a sudden, here's more proof and here's more evidence that that story that I have is correct. And so we're constantly looking for this evidence that we are right, and if we're looking for it, we are most likely going to find it.

Speaker 2 11:40

And I think the negativity bias is super important here-

Speaker 11:43

Yeah

Speaker 2 11:43

because that's the lens that we view it through. So if you've got this thought that they're gonna shoot off the gun at the beginning of the race and everybody's gonna run away from me. Like, as soon as they fire the gun, people are just gonna get so far in front of me.

Speaker 11:56

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 11:57

And they fire the gun, and you've got some guy who's never raced before, has no clue how to pace, and he literally just sprints off the line. Your brain's gonna be like, "Exactly what I thought was gonna happen."

Speaker 12:11

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 12:11

"Everybody is running away from me." You're not noticing the other 50 people. You're noticing that guy, and you're not interpreting it as, "He is doing the complete wrong thing. I'm gonna catch up to him in a quarter mile." You're viewing it through the negative lens of, "Oh, no, everyone's pulling away from me." Instead of being able to have this objective view of, "Well, that's not how you should start a race." Like, this is a marathon. Why is he sprinting? That- that was

Speaker 12:37

dumb.

Speaker 2 12:39

Like, but your brain had told you the story, "Oh no, they're gonna fire the gun and everybody runs away." And so your eyes just see that. It's like when you start thinking about, you know, y- you're looking for cars, and suddenly the only cars you can see on the road are the other ones that you're thinking about. Mm-hmm. If

Speaker 12:53

you

Speaker 2 12:53

think everyone's pulling away, you're only gonna see people pulling away from you. Yeah. And you're literally just gonna miss people that you're running next to, that you're even going past. Yeah. You're cueing the other things that your brain wants to see.

Speaker 13:05

Yeah. And so I think we've all experienced this confirmation bias, right? Like, I think that if we, if we really kind of take a step back and, and think about our lives, we've experienced this in some way. Maybe it's in running, maybe it's in looking for new cars on the road. Like, we all have experienced this type of confirmation bias. So that's really where this research study f- became, becomes very interesting because mentally, we can see that this happens, and this is something that we do, and we can all experience that. But what the story that you carry actually changes what is physically happening in your body, and this is the really cool part. So there was this study done in 2025, and it was an article that was published in the European Journal of Sport Science, and they studied 406 marathon runners. And they gave them a survey before the race, and they also tested their saliva, uh, before the race, after the race, and then I think, like, two weeks later. I forget the exact study design. But they, they did some, like, s- saliva testing. They also did some subjective measures. And what they found was that high trait anxiety and total mood disturbance before the race, okay, so if you have a mood disturbance or high anxiety before the race- Those people were significantly more likely to get a respiratory infection two weeks after the race, or within, i- during the two weeks after, not necessarily two weeks on the dot later, but within two weeks after that race. So they also showed when they did the saliva testing that there was a greater reduction in what's called mucosal immunity. So they l- looked at the antibodies and the immunoglobulin responses post-race, and so they actually found immune suppression. So this wasn't just the subjective, "Oh, I had a bad race," a subjective experience. They found actual immune suppression that was significantly different in the people that had higher anxiety and mood disturbances before the race versus those that did not.

Speaker 2 15:11

Yeah, I think this study is super fascinating. Right. I'd love to dive more into, like, were they all out at the same race? Were they- Yeah like, like, what was their marathon experience that, that led to different levels of anxiety? But there's so many thoughts that we can pull out on this one- Mm-hmm that it's, it's super interesting. Th- there's, like, the post-marathon flu that people like to talk about.

Speaker 15:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2 15:34

Um, but is it actually, a- and I've heard people debate this thing because it seems to happen regularly. People run a marathon, they run a, a race, and then they get sick in the couple of weeks after What if it's not, because I've heard this hypothesized- Yeah it's not that the race put you in the hole and you got sick, it's that you ran a race with 10,000 other people in a close proximity and everybody's breathing heavy. Mm-hmm. So if anybody was sick, they're literally just breathing all over you. Yeah. And that's why you get sick. What if it's not just that? Yeah. What if there's so many people that are so stressed out about this marathon they're gonna run-

Speaker 16:10

Mm-hmm

Speaker 2 16:11

that the slightest thing that comes into them, because their immune systems have been suppressed- Yeah they're more likely to get sick. Mm-hmm. It's not the fatigue of the exhaustion of running a marathon, it's, it's the setup beforehand. It was the week heading in where you're driving yourself mentally nuts-

Speaker 16:28

Mm-hmm

Speaker 2 16:29

that actually put you in the hole before you hit the starting line.

Speaker 16:31

Yeah. It's probably a combination of all of the things, right? I think that it's... But when they, in this study, and it's, it's important to mention that this was a prospective study, so this was not, like, a double blind randomized control trial. This was a prospective study, meaning they had these marathon runners and they tested them. They didn't try to, like, separate them into control groups or anything like that. But it's just in- interesting information that will warrant further investigation, right? Because the, in this study, they did show that those with those higher levels of anxiety and mood disturbances were more likely, in a significant way, right, statistically significant, um, would, were more likely to get sick after the race. And so I do think that it's, it's always gonna be a combination of things. But then all of those runners in the whole race were exposed to all of those things, right? Uh, exposed to the 10,000 people or however many people were in this race. I'm not sure exactly how many were, um, were in this race of, of this exact study, but- The big thing that we need to take away from this, I think, is, you know, one of the big concepts that we talk to our clients about, and we've talked about this concept on the podcast before as well, is our stress bucket. And if you go into... The concept of the stress bucket is that all stress in your life, no matter what kind, if it's physical stress, psychological stress, mental stress, financial stress, like all stress goes into the same bucket, and that bucket is your nervous system. Your- It's your nervous system's job to collect all the stress and also try to offload that stress and figure out what to do with it and how to deal with it. And so psychological stress and physical stress to the nervous system are just stress. They run through the same biological pathways. And so the body does not distinguish between emotional stress and physical stress. So if you arrive to a race anxious, your bucket, that stress bucket, is already partially full before the gun even goes off. And so then you're adding the stress of a marathon on top of it, physical stress of a marathon, plus the emotional stress, especially if your run's not going the way that you want to, all these other things. And so that physical stress of the run is now compounding the psychological stress that you brought with you at the, to the starting line.

Speaker 2 18:52

Yeah. And I know this is not in the study, but y- like you said, and I want to pull on that one, the emotional stress that adds on mid-race.

Speaker 19:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2 19:00

If the race starts going poorly that's extra stress to it. Mm-hmm. And the extra stress you have from thinking about the race going poorly is going to then make it physically harder to keep going.

Speaker 19:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2 19:14

And then you're going to think, "Oh, no, I'm slowing down even more," and you just keep doubling down on your own, like, challenge. Yeah. Like, thinking that this is going poorly is going to make it harder, and therefore it's going to go even worse. Mm-hmm. So, like, you've gotta be so open. That's what I love, like, before races, pre-race expos and stuff, you can walk around and you can see people that just visually look nervous. I try and be as laughing and joking as possible. I mean, I, I didn't make it to the finish line on this one, but I remember when I ran Keys 100, at, like, packet pickup, the number of people that were, like, hanging out at the pool having a drink the day before, there were so many people. I got up to the front and people were like, "Oh, is this is your first one?" I was like, "Yeah." They're like, "How are you feeling?" I was like, "I feel great." They're like, "It's a little hot." I'm like, "Oh, it's fine." And, like, joking about it. It was, like, 95 degrees. Like, it was- Yeah so hot.

Speaker 20:10

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 20:11

And so many people were talking about how hot it was. But if you paid attention to who was saying it, there was a lot of race crew that was talking about how hot it was, and there were a lot of runners that were like, "No, this is great. We're gonna be fine." Mm-hmm. They've already said the story needs to be, "The conditions are perfect for me."

Speaker 20:28

Yeah. Yeah, because what's the benefit of having a different story? Like, the conditions are what they are. So if the story that you go into it with, uh, is, "The conditions are perfect for me. This is exactly what should be happening right now." Yeah. That's gonna be a much better mental place to be and psychological place to be versus, "Oh, God, everything is awful. Now what's gonna happen?"

Speaker 2 20:52

Yeah. And maybe you can't take it all the way to the conditions- Yeah are perfect, but if you can just get the story to be neutral.

Speaker 20:58

Yeah. These are the conditions.

Speaker 2 21:00

These are the conditions, and I'm trained for this race.

Speaker 21:02

That's the most neutral statement that you can make

Speaker 2 21:05

Yeah

Speaker 21:06

What did you say?

Speaker 2 21:07

I said, "These are the conditions, and I've trained for this race."

Speaker 21:09

And I've trained for this race. Yeah. Right? Those are the, those are some of the most neutral statements that you can get. All right, so I pulled the study, Kev, 'cause I was curious, and I, uh, I wanted to answer your questions. So I pulled the study here. Um, it was 2,900 individuals taking part in the 2017 Snowdonia Marathon in Wales, UK. And so they all, everyone registered for this race, so almost 3,000 people, received the invitation to participate. Um, almost 2,500 of them didn't respond and then 400 of them, uh, were recruited and consented to participate. So there were 271 men, 135 women, and then of course they then filtered it from there. Um, so that's kind of the answer to your question. We've got like a mean age and all the things there, but, um-

Speaker 2 21:57

Yeah, but we've got a pretty good size race. Yeah. And for being, like, a physiologic- physiology study- Mm-hmm we have a pretty good breakdown for men and women.

Speaker 22:06

Right.

Speaker 2 22:07

Yeah. Like, it's not like a study of 300 men and two women.

Speaker 22:10

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so they recruited people through email and then also on race day before the marathon. And so they were included for, they had to do the subjective report and then also the saliva, uh, collection. So they were collect- the saliva collection and the variables monitored were at recruitment, on race day, and during the two weeks after the race. Okay? So that's kind of how the study was designed.

Speaker 2 22:33

I would love to get recruited for a study. That just sounds awesome.

Speaker 22:36

Yeah, right?

Speaker 2 22:37

I was part of science.

Speaker 22:38

Yeah. I mean, 'cause why not, right? Um, it was a mountainous race that is run on mixed terrain, so both road and trail, with a total ascent of 939 meters.

Speaker 2 22:50

That's a lot of-

Speaker 22:51

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 22:51

That- 939 meters, that's, that's a lot of climbing for a marathon.

Speaker 22:55

Yeah. So 10 days prior to the marathon, total mood disturbance was assessed. On the morning of the marathon, state anxiety and sleep duration from the previous night were assessed. Uh, the marathon started at 10:30 AM. Saliva samples were collected prior to and immediately after the marathon. So-

Speaker 2 23:15

Oh. Go ahead. I wanna run a marathon over in the UK. Yeah. Let's start that thing at 10:30. That seems so much nicer than the 5:30 or 6:00- Right kick-offs over here.

Speaker 23:23

Yeah. Goodness. So, so yeah, so I think that that was really, you know, that, so, so it's a, it's a, it's a cool study, right? Like, it's, it's not a randomized control, it's not the strongest level, but it's a really cool perspective study of saying like, "Okay, let's just see what kind of information comes up here." And I, again, I, so I think that this really does show that the physiological response, like, your s- level of stress going into a race or even a hard run, 'cause that's what par- the another part, the second part of this study, is they actually, um, repeated this same study design with, like, the, the subjective measures and the saliva testing on people that were just completing, like, a one-hour moderately hard run. That one was about 50 people. I can find it, but I, I read it earlier. Um, but that- Yeah one was c- was about 50 people that they did on that kind of part two of the study to see was this specific to a marathon, or can this also be applied to just kind of any harder run? And that they did find that it, it still was, um, significantly, there w- there was a significant difference even with just a moderate run. It doesn't have to be marathon distance.

Speaker 2 24:35

Yeah, 'cause mood disturbance is then going to create this mental fatigue.

Speaker 24:38

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 24:38

Mental fatigue is fatigue. Yeah. That's why the word fatigue is in there.

Speaker 24:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2 24:43

And as soon as you're fatigued, you're setting off into whatever run you're doing.

Speaker 24:48

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 24:48

An easy run, an, you know, in our, in our lingo, an L2 run- Yeah suddenly slides into L3. That doesn't make it super hard, but it makes- Right it harder than it's supposed to be. And then, heaven forbid, you judge yourself for that feels harder than it's supposed to be, now suddenly it's L4.

Speaker 25:05

Yeah.

Speaker 2 25:06

And it's still the same easy run, but now you freaked out beforehand, and you judged yourself during it. You shot multiple arrows.

Speaker 25:13

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and so it, this- shows us that even the story that we tell before Tuesday's easy run or Tuesday's speed workout matters also. And I think that this is for two reasons. Number one, because obviously of the response and the things that we've already talked about. But I also think if we take it one step further, it's not just because of how you feel on Tuesday's run, or it's not just because of how your immune system response might be affected by your mood or anxiety going into Tuesday's run. But every run is a chance to practice and build your mindset and your consistency. And so if every run, if you go into every run negative, especially those harder runs, especially those speed workouts where you know you're gonna be kind of pushing yourself a little bit. If you go into those with anxiety, with stress, with a negative feeling, what do you think your brain is going to be primed to default to on race day, right? This is one of the big things that we talk to our clients about is training is not just about getting the miles in. It's about practicing your fueling and practicing your mindset and practicing the mental strategies that you use during the run, and then also now let's pull it out to before the run, because that's really what this, these studies have been, have been talking about, and sp- specifically this one study.

Speaker 2 26:42

Yeah. I think if you've been struggling with a lot of negative thoughts going into races, going into harder workouts, going into longer runs, all the things that you could key off of like, "This is gonna be so hard"- Yeah then you gotta try and flip that thing. Mm-hmm. And really go about practicing some more positive thoughts of this, it's not that this is gonna be hard, it's not that this is gonna be terrible, it's j- this is just going to be. Take it to neutral as much as you can. Mm. If you're like, "No, I, I don't have a lot of negative thoughts around this," see if you can force yourself, and this is more advanced. This is, like, if you feel like your mindset's pretty good already. See if you can s- get yourself to a place where you are nervous about the performance. Like, really say, "On this, on this speed workout, these are the paces I'm going to hit, because these are the paces I need to hit." Get yourself so that you feel a little bit anxious about it, and then see if you can get yourself out of it mid-run.

Speaker 27:37

Mm.

Speaker 2 27:38

Because it's possible during a race, even if you felt good going in, the anxiety shows up during the run. Once it shows up, do you just keep digging into the hole, or can you figure out how to get yourself out of it? Yeah. That's... Like, if you're already at negative, just flip it to neutral. That's, that's what you should be working at. Mm-hmm. If you feel pretty good, try that game. Can you make it negative and then dig yourself back out?

Speaker 28:01

Ooh, that's an advanced strategy.

Speaker 2 28:03

Thank you.

Speaker 28:04

Yeah. Must be from all those 100-milers you've done where you've- No, I

Speaker 2 28:09

stole it, I stole it from another running coach. That is

Speaker 28:11

not my call hours and hours and hours of thinking about all of this. Um, one more thing I wanted to bring in, just a little caveat about that study. Um, in women, the findings were less clear versus in the men because of, and the study authors attribute it to hormone fluctuations, contraceptive use, menstrus- menstrual cycle phase as all having a potential influence on the relationship between pre-run mood and immune response. So that research is definitely still developing. Remember, this is just a prospective study. They didn't try to control anything. They just kind of were looking at what was happening. Um, and so the authors made a point to, to make that distinction, and so I just wanted to make sure that we, we said it here, too. I don't think that means that women, like, this doesn't apply to women by any means. I definitely think it does apply to women. I just think that we've, we women have a lot more going on.

Speaker 2 29:09

I, I think, and I don't wanna try and mansplain this, I wanna praise women with this thought, 'cause I reference back to the 20, I wanna say 2017 Boston Marathon that was snowing. I think that was the year.

Speaker 29:22

With Dez?

Speaker 2 29:24

That there were fewer women that DNF'd that race than there were men that DNF'd the race Yeah Because women are able- I love that

Speaker 29:32

statistic

Speaker 2 29:33

Women are able to move the goalpost When faced with the adversity, when the race starts going off the rails, men are far more likely to throw in the towel.

Speaker 29:44

Mm.

Speaker 2 29:44

Men can't dig themselves out of the hole. They're like, "This is going bad. Oh, no, this is going bad. This is terrible." And then it becomes even harder. Women are like, "This is going bad because it's sleeting on me and I have a 40 mile an hour headwind. I need to change my goal for the race." And it allowed more women to finish that race, percentage-wise finish that race- Mm-hmm than there were men. Because women just, they can move the goalpost. So I think, yeah, there's gonna be a lot of, of other science-y stuff. It'd be cool studies to go through and follow this one, but I think women are less likely to shoot the second arrow and take their, like, their negative thoughts before the race and keep grinding into them mid-race.

Speaker 30:27

That's an interesting interpretation. I, I think it's also 'cause women are just tougher than men, and we- I

Speaker 2 30:32

thought that's what I said.

Speaker 30:34

Like, I, I mean, moving... I guess so. I guess moving the goalpost is a way of just being tougher and, and not giving up, so in a, in a way, I suppose it's the same. But I think that takes us c- to kind of our next section here, which is what we really wanna talk about, which is the interpretation of all of it, right? Because the anxiety itself is not necessarily the problem, it's what the interpretation of the anxiety is. It's what we're making that anxiety mean. Because a little bit of pre-race anxiety, it is a very normal thing. But, like, Kevin, like what you were just saying, there's a lot of people, you said men, I'm not gonna say that, but there's a lot of people that will take that anxiety or that stress or whether it's pre-run or mid-run when things aren't going your way, and then take it and spiral, right? Take it and make it worse. What you're saying is shoot- shooting that second arrow. You take that thing, and then you make it worse. Or you can just let that thing be that thing. You could also try to spiral upward, right? And get yourself out of that. But you could also just let it be there. Because oftentimes, and this is a concept that I've been trying to teach our teenage girls as well, um, I, I hope successfully, even though maybe they're just not giving me evidence of that yet. But, um, it's not the, it's not the feeling that is the problem. It's not the anxiety itself that is the problem. It is not the stress that is the problem. It is what we make that mean and what we then decide to do with it. Because no matter who you are, if you are human, you are going to experience some level of stress, some level of anxiety, some level of worry. And then you can make that mean something bad. You can make it mean something negative. You can continue to compound that thing, or you could reverse it, or you could also just let it be there. And that's a, that's an option- I don't think a lot of people understand is just allowing that to be there and not considering it a problem, and not needing to fix anything. It, it can just, like, kind of come along for the ride.

Speaker 2 32:43

Yeah. Like, there's, there's going to be your reaction to something big happening. Yeah. You- if you're running a marathon this weekend, and it's your first, you're going to have, standing on the starting line, your heart rate's gonna be higher than just standing i- in, in the grocery store. Totally.

Speaker 33:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2 33:02

Like, it's just gonna be a... You're gonna be breathing a little bit faster. You're gonna have butterflies in your stomach. You're just, everything's, you're gonna be a little bit on edge. Mm-hmm. And you can say, "I'm a, I'm freaking out about this race."

Speaker 33:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2 33:14

Or you can say, "I'm so excited for this race." Because both of those, I'm freaking out and I'm so excited, are going to lead to your heart rate being a little bit higher- Yeah your stomach being a little bit funky, you know, breathing a little bit faster. They're the same thing.

Speaker 33:31

Physiologically.

Speaker 2 33:32

And, yes, physiologically. Yeah. But if you are like, "No, my stomach's starting to feel weird. I think it might be nausea. I'm so nervous about this, I'm gonna have to go throw up," versus, "Oh, my stomach feels a little weird because I'm so excited for this race because I care so much about it."

Speaker 33:48

Yeah.

Speaker 2 33:49

Like, there's a difference between, uh, it means so much that I'm freaking out- Mm-hmm and it means enough because I care. Yeah. Like, if I didn't care, I wouldn't get these butterflies. If I didn't care, my heart rate wouldn't be rising. There's a level of care that has to come to create the excitement or the anxiety.

Speaker 34:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2 34:08

And then that caring leads to the physiological response, and then you get to decide where to go from there. If-

Speaker 34:14

Right. And... Go ahead.

Speaker 2 34:16

No, you got, you got this one.

Speaker 34:17

I, I was just saying that that basically leads our brain to either interpret that thing as a challenge or as a threat, right? Yeah. Because the physiological response in your body is the same. It's adrenaline that's essentially being released in the body, and that, when that adrenaline is released, you get the elevated heart rate, the faster breathing, the heightened alertness, those butterflies in your stomach. And like Kevin just said, this is something that we tell our cross country kids every single year, when you're standing on the starting line and you feel that way, what do you think it means? And they're like, "I'm so nervous. Oh my God, Coach, I'm so nervous." I'm like, "Or are you excited?" Because it's the same physiological response. The sensations in your body are the same. And so if you can deci- if, if you can start to recognize that- And then decide how you want to interpret it. So if you interpret this as anxiety, as stress, then it becomes a threat to your body. And then your body goes into protection mode, and then you take that energy, and your energy is actually directed away from performance. Because then your body, when it's in protection mode, it just wants to survive. It doesn't care how you perform. It doesn't care how fast you go or how long you go. But if you want to interpret that same sensation, those same bodily sensations in the body, and say, "Okay, no, no, this is, this is exciting. I, this is a challenge. I'm gonna rise up to meet this challenge," now all of a sudden you're activated, and that energy can then fuel your performance rather than take away from it

Speaker 2 35:51

Right, so then that sensation at the starting line is no evidence that there's something going wrong with you.

Speaker 35:57

Right.

Speaker 2 35:57

It's simply evidence that it matters.

Speaker 35:59

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 36:00

And then you get to do the next step.

Speaker 36:02

Yeah.

Speaker 2 36:02

It matters because this is scary, or it matters because this is a challenge.

Speaker 36:07

Mm-hmm. And

Speaker 2 36:07

which way you finish that sentence will have an impact on how the race goes.

Speaker 36:12

Mm-hmm. Right? And challenges are good, right? Like, challen- this is why we run. Like, why else do we run? Like, people say they run to be healthy. Sure, but there's lots of ways to get healthy. We run because there's so many benefits, and one of those benefits is challenging ourselves. Because if you've ever set a goal to do something, like a half-marathon, a marathon, that you've never done before, maybe it's a 5K, maybe it's a 10K, maybe it's a faster 5K, like, if you've never done that thing before, you are challenging yourself to rise up and try to achieve a goal, and that is a beautiful thing. But if you go into that thinking, "Oh my god, oh my god, pressure, pressure, what is it all gonna mean if I don't make it?" Blah, blah, blah, you're gonna be way less likely to achieve that thing, versus if you say, "It's time to rise," right? "It's time to rise to the challenge that I've created. I made this challenge and I put it on myself. Now it's time to rise." And so it's all about the way that we're interpreting it. It's all about the stories that we're telling ourself going into that thing, and those stories will actually affect how our body responds physiologically, and that's such a cool thing.

Speaker 2 37:30

Yeah, I think one of the key things here, and I don't want to skim over this, is that we're not saying to just imagine that everything's gonna be sunshine and rainbows.

Speaker 37:41

Right.

Speaker 2 37:42

Like-

Speaker 37:42

Yeah

Speaker 2 37:43

there could be ne- the race might not go well, okay?

Speaker 37:47

Yeah.

Speaker 2 37:47

You know, our, our daughter heading into the first day of school, everybody thinks to movies or TV shows where they're looking for a place to sit for lunch, and no one, that everyone's like, all the tables are full. They see an open spot, and people- Yeah like, remove the chair so they can't even sit there- Right and now they have to go eat lunch in the bathroom.

Speaker 38:06

Yeah.

Speaker 2 38:07

Like, I've... You see this on how many sitcoms and stuff like that. And

Speaker 38:10

she, and she actually told me that was, like, one of her fears.

Speaker 2 38:13

Right.

Speaker 38:14

Yeah.

Speaker 2 38:14

But that's, that's not what's gonna happen. But we're not saying is don't go into a race- picturing that everything's gonna be perfect. Mm-hmm. "Oh, I'm gonna run this marathon, and I'm gonna have no pain, and I'm gonna be high-fiving people." No you aren't. It's a marathon. It's gonna be really- That shit's gonna be

Speaker 38:33

painful.

Speaker 2 38:34

Right. If you go into it imagining only the best case scenario, now we've moved into, like, toxic positivity.

Speaker 38:41

Right.

Speaker 2 38:41

That's not setting you up for success either.

Speaker 38:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2 38:43

There's going to be things. To have the best outcome f- in a race, you have to accept reality.

Speaker 38:49

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 38:50

Like, you can't just paint over it and hope for the best. Yeah. That's not what we're working with. If our kid went to school and thought, you know, "Everything's gonna go great. Everybody's gonna run up to me and invite me to their tables. I'm gonna walk into classrooms and people will be like, 'Hey, come sit next to me.'" That's not happening either.

Speaker 39:06

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 39:07

Like, maybe you're gonna roll into class and she's gonna have a friend from, from her eighth grade that's like, "Hey, sit over here."

Speaker 39:13

Yeah. But

Speaker 2 39:13

probably not seven periods out of the day.

Speaker 39:15

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 39:16

Like, you have to think, all right, in some of these times, I'm going to just sit in a chair. Yeah. And I might have to say hi to the person next to me that I don't know.

Speaker 39:24

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 39:24

In, in a race, at mile 20 of the marathon, your legs are gonna be exhausted.

Speaker 39:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2 39:30

You're not gonna wanna keep taking in gels or, or drink mix or whatever it is, and you still have to do it. That's why you practice these things.

Speaker 39:38

Yeah.

Speaker 2 39:39

Cause it's going to be uncomfortable, and you have to get used to that uncomfortableness. But you, you know the steps to do, so then instead of freaking out about how the race is going, you're just like, "Well, these are the exact things that I'm going to do- Mm-hmm that are going to put me in the best chance for success."

Speaker 39:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2 39:55

Like, you, you're like, "I, I take in fuel every 30 minutes. I, I'm gonna get a drink at every water station." Like, you figure out the steps that you have some control over-

Speaker 40:07

Mm-hmm

Speaker 2 40:07

and then control them.

Speaker 40:09

Right.

Speaker 2 40:10

Just don't hope for the best.

Speaker 40:11

Yeah, but- I really like what you said there about kind of making sure that you're still rooted in reality, understanding that things could go south, and that's just part of the process. Because there, there was another article or study that I read, I can't remember it all, the, the details off the top of my head, but it was something to the effect of the people that were more grounded in reality and expected some negativity actually fared better than the people that were s- only positive, only looking at the positive side, that toxic pos- positivity that, that, you know, you, you mentioned there. Because we are in reality, right? Like, running is not an easy thing. We've all chosen a very challenging thing for us, for ourselves to do, and there's gonna be times where it doesn't feel good, and there's gonna be times where you feel so prepared going into this race, and it doesn't, just doesn't turn out the way that you wanted. Like, that happened to my friend recently. I, I've, I talked about it on one of our other podcasts recently, too. She trained for an Ironman. Like, her training was great. She was feeling so good going into that race, and on race day, the heat just got to her, and she had a terrible race. And, and that sucks when that happens, but that is a possible outcome. That is just part of the racing and the running process. So sometimes it's going to stink. Now, even, and, and sometimes you can explain it, and you can figure it out, and sometimes you can't. Like, this happened to our, our, our youngest daughter, who's now also on our cross-country team, and she's a new runner. She's never run before, you know, of, of any distance except when she was little. You know, we've always done family fun runs and, like, the school 5K and stuff. But she At practice, she, before practice like a week ago, sometime last week, she was with my mom, and they had lunch, and she had a soda at lunch, and then ran, uh, like I think it was two hours later, and got a nasty side stitch, and was like, "Oh, I should not have drank that poppy drink, you know, before, th- that close to practice." I'm like, "Okay, well now you know," 'cause that, you, sometimes you can point to that thing. Sometimes you know that's the thing that caused my stomach to be upset and cause this issue, and then you change it. Then you figure that out. Um, and sometimes we don't always have things to, to point to, and I think that's when it's really the hardest. But that kind of goes back to your point of control what you can control and release what you can't.

Speaker 2 42:42

Yeah, and one of the things that you can control is create, like, taking control of the story- Mm-hmm before the race gets to you.

Speaker 42:50

Yeah.

Speaker 2 42:51

And I've, I've done good jobs at this, I've done poor jobs at this. I've tried to go into a race neutral.

Speaker 42:57

Yeah.

Speaker 2 42:57

And then, a- and that's, you know, we teach that to people, of like if you can have a neutral mindset going into the race, that's way better than things spiraling the other direction. The problem is that it's quite possible that if you're neutral at the start, what happens in the first 15, 20 minutes of the race, especially if it's a longer race, is going to then start steering your story.

Speaker 43:19

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 43:20

So I think it works a whole lot better to create the story beforehand-

Speaker 43:24

Yeah

Speaker 2 43:24

rather than let it develop on the fly. Mm-hmm. Make a deliberate action to choose what, how you want the story to play out, and that does not mean that you're gonna make up a story where everything about the race goes perfect. Right. That is rooted in some reality, but it's trying to avoid all of this super fear and other people's opinions that are not necessarily helpful. Mm-hmm. Like, if, if you're taking the thoughts of somebody else who also doesn't have the experience- Yeah or they ran a marathon, but they did it on zero training, and you've been training for the last year. Like, th- their opinion's not all that helpful to form a story. Mm-hmm. Create a clear story and that gives you a way to start interpreting how the race is going. It, it helps you drive your mindset during the race.

Speaker 44:07

Right. And then you can also, as part of that pre-race story, you can also think about, well, what could go wrong? You know? And a lot of people are like, "Oh, you shouldn't focus on that because you, you don't wanna manifest that." And it's like, well, no, again, we're just living in reality here. Sometimes things are gonna go wrong. How am I gonna deal with that, right? Like, if this happens, here's how I'm going to deal with it. If my mind starts to go to this place, what's the story that I wanna come back to? What am I gonna bring up? What am I gonna... How am I going to be the lawyer against the negativity that my brain wants to go to? And I think that having some of those reframing tools in your back pocket during a race is also very helpful, so thinking about that ahead of time, and even practicing it, like you were suggesting earlier. You know, practicing that reframe exercise where if you do start going to a negative place, okay, how do I get out of this now, right? What am I gonna use? What's the story that I'm going to use? And oftentimes it's not the most positive thing. It is the most useful interpretation of what is happening right now. Because sometimes just allowing ourselves to be present with reality and stop fighting it makes the experience so much better. Because a lot of times in a race, in a run, things start going south, and we're like, "Oh, no, this is exactly what I thought would happen." And then we compound that negativity, and we make it even worse, versus, okay, just letting it be there and, and continuing onward.

Speaker 2 45:37

Right, and so when you start spiraling, a good way to end the spiral is to simply ask the question, what is true?

Speaker 45:42

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 45:43

What do I actually know- Versus what is a story I'm making up about the future?

Speaker 45:48

Yeah.

Speaker 2 45:49

What is true, truly happening right now- Right now in this exact moment? Yeah. You know, it's, it's like, it's an ultra mantra of run the mile you're in.

Speaker 45:57

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 45:58

Like when the race start, don't run the 90th mile. That seems awful. But it goes for every race. Mm-hmm. I mean, when I used to run 800s in high school, coach was like, "Run the 100 you're in." Mm. Because-

Speaker 46:11

Yeah you

Speaker 2 46:12

know, you gotta break that thing down. Yeah. If you think about running those- Are you in the straightaway

Speaker 46:16

or the turn?

Speaker 2 46:16

Yeah. Yeah. When you think about running those two laps as fast as you possibly can, it feels unachievable.

Speaker 46:23

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 46:23

So you can only think about what is currently happening. Mm-hmm. What is true in this exact moment? Yeah. Because that might not still be the case five seconds from now.

Speaker 46:32

Right. So what does this all mean for you guys? Like, what do you actually do with this information? Number one, I would agree with Kevin of, you know, naming your story before the run. Write it out. Like, if you've got a tough run coming up, if you've got a race coming up, if you've got something that you're kind of feeling anxious or stressed or unsure about, write down two things. Number one, I would suggest doing a brain dump of all the stories that your brain is currently telling you, right? Just get it all out on paper, and then take a look at those and then decide, "Okay, well, what do I actually wanna think here? What is my intentional story? Not just the one that my brain is giving to me that is definitely going to be more negatively biased in all likelihood, but what is the intentional story that I want to write here, and how do I want to feel going into this race, and how can I also stay, keep that rooted in reality," right? Not just going into sunshine, rainbows, daisies, and unicorns, right? We wanna make sure that there is that sense of reality there as well.

Speaker 2 47:31

Yeah, so you need, you need to know what the story is. Mm-hmm. Because if you let it just go, it's, it's more likely, because of your brain- Yeah to veer to the negative.

Speaker 47:39

Yep.

Speaker 2 47:41

The, the study that, that you referenced earlier also points out that this is something that you should be doing in, like, the week leading up to a race.

Speaker 47:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2 47:50

This does not mean wake up on race morning and meditate for 15 minutes with, like, a good story in mind. That, the ship has sailed by that point in time. I don't

Speaker 47:59

think it's, I don't think it's sailed, but it would probably be stronger if, if you had started it a couple weeks before.

Speaker 2 48:06

I mean, it's not gone, but it's not parked at the dock anymore. Like, the ship is- You might have to, you might

Speaker 48:12

have to take the dinghy out-

Speaker 2 48:13

Yes. Like- to reach

Speaker 48:14

it

Speaker 2 48:15

yeah, I'm, oh, I'm, I'm hanging on to this metaphor. We're going for it. Like, y- this, this, this story's not gone, but it's trickier. It should not be a race morning intervention. Yeah. It should be a week-long plan.

Speaker 48:27

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 48:28

Like, yes, you can try and rein it back in, and that's gonna be better than just letting it go crazy. Yeah. But this is not a day-of thing. That's, that seems to be the best plan.

Speaker 48:38

Yeah, agreed. Um, if you notice that you are feeling anxious, feeling stressed, feeling a little bit activated, like, say it out loud. Like, if you say, "I'm nervous"- Switch it and say out loud, "I'm excited." Right? Like, actually say it out loud so that your brain not only can think it, but also hears it. And that, there's actually research that shows that that small verbal shift can actually change that physiological stress response that you're experiencing, which is super cool. Like, it's the same darn thing that's going on in your body. The feelings are the same. You're just putting a different label on them, and that's gonna lead to a different outcome.

Speaker 2 49:20

And that seems more of a on, like, as you're heading towards the line. That is a race morning thing. As you're- That is- When

Speaker 49:26

you're- But you can do it l- in the week leading up to it, too

Speaker 2 49:29

You certainly can. Yeah. Like, and, and I think it's useful, but this is also gonna be the closer you get to the actual start of the workout, the race- Mm-hmm the hard thing- Yeah saying, "I'm excited," is going to be more and more useful.

Speaker 49:41

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 49:41

Cause you don't necessarily wanna live in I'm excited for the entire week going up. Like- Yeah that sounds tiring also.

Speaker 49:48

Yeah.

Speaker 2 49:49

Like, it's not- That's true I'm not super anxious about it. I'm not, like, like, nervous in a bad way, but I also don't wanna be overly excited. Like, when I create training plans for people, I always put a little workout into that last week, 'cause I like to say it burns off some of the nerves.

Speaker 50:05

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 50:06

Like, you don't wanna go super hard and get yourself- Yeah physically tired, but you wanna get something, otherwise you show up so flat. It, it helps you have some of the nerves have another output. Yeah. And if that output is physical.

Speaker 50:17

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think that, um, a- another way that you could look at it in that week leading up, instead of I'm excited, you could just say I'm ready, right? 'Cause I'm ready is more factual, and it is more neutral, and it doesn't necessarily have that same physiological response. But kind of when you do notice that physiological response of, like, the flutters or the, the heart racing or the breathing of, of... If you notice a stress response in your body, that's when you can kind of shift it over to I'm excited versus trying to live in a state of excitement all week long.

Speaker 2 50:51

Beautiful. All right, next, next idea here is create a pre-run routine. Mm. It helps anchor you.

Speaker 50:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2 50:59

It's like, before a race, I always do this. And it doesn't matter what your routine is. And this is the funniest, because now that we're into cross country season, there are so many coaches that have their routine, and to watch the coaches freak out when the- Yeah warmup isn't going correctly just cracks me up.

Speaker 51:20

You're like, "That's kind of the opposite of what you need to be doing right now." Like,

Speaker 2 51:24

to watch a coach yell at the kids.

Speaker 51:26

Yeah.

Speaker 2 51:27

They're like, "You were supposed to start your warmup five minutes ago, and now you're not gonna have..." Like, I'm watching them literally create more anxiety in the kids. Right. The whole idea is that you've got a routine, because the, the routine tells your brain, "Oh, this is the safe path that I'm doing. Familiarity means this is manageable. This is doable. It just puts me back into the comfort of- Of, of, it's, it's something I've done before. Yeah. And I've done it over and over and over again. Yeah. So it, I've done this before every hard workout. I'm gonna do it before this race. Mm. And that's fine. This primes my body to go do hard things.

Speaker 52:04

Yeah.

Speaker 2 52:05

It's also, you don't want that, that pre-run routine so strict that if you miss a step, you freak out. This is what I'd like to do. This is how I like to do it. But if I miss a step, it's also gonna be okay.

Speaker 52:19

Yeah. Definitely. I mean, you, you have that, for sure. Like, you know, what does your pre-race routine kinda look like? 'Cause I know, it's been interesting for me to, to watch you throughout the years, because Kevin races a lot more than I do. And I would say, like I've done- And I don't

Speaker 2 52:35

race a lot.

Speaker 52:36

No, you don't. But I don't, I'm not a big, like, racer. And but it is, has been fun for me to kind of see your stress levels. 'Cause your- When you were younger and, and, um, you know, a while ago, uh, I would say definitely kind of pre-2017, pre-seizures, you were definitely more stressed and anxious of, like, "I need to be here on time. I need to get to the... We need to get to the race. I need to get to where I need to be." And, like, you still like being places ahead of time, but I feel like you've loosened up on that a little bit. Um, and I'm curious, like, how you've done that or i- if you've noticed that you've done that, because you used to be very stress-y on race mornings, and you've gone recently in the last few years, last five years I would say, you are much more chill on race mornings. So what kinda allowed you to make that shift?

Speaker 2 53:29

Um, after Jacksonville Marathon-

Speaker 53:33

Yeah

Speaker 2 53:33

post-2017 seizures, there was a point in the middle of that race where it was just, where it finally hit me, and we've said it before, and I, I thought it, but it finally hit me that, like, the outcome of this race is really not important.

Speaker 53:53

Yeah.

Speaker 2 53:54

Like, would I like it to be a certain time? Yep. But am I so grateful that I'm running, period? Yes.

Speaker 54:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2 54:01

And it finally got to that point and, you know, then you just y- you become so clear. It is very Neo in the Matrix moment of, like, why am I freaking out about all these things? That was the race that I was stopping at all of the water stations, and I literally, I got to one of the water stations later in the race, and I stopped and walked through. And somebody at the aid station was like, "Are you doing okay?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I just wanted to drink the whole cup of water." But they came up. They had nervous energy that I- Yeah who was, like, struggling. And I'm like, "No, I just need the whole cup of water. Have a great one." And I kept on running. And it was like these small little shifts where it's like the more calm you can be- Mm-hmm the more likely that performance is gonna be, you know, better. I think, I, I don't know if I could've run faster on that day, but when I had that flip towards the end of the race of, "This is just what it's gonna be," I think that I've been continuing from that race to keep moving in a, a more relaxed place.

Speaker 55:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2 55:01

I still like to get to things on time, though.

Speaker 55:03

No, I know you do. I know. You're just a little less, at least outwardly, stressed about it.

Speaker 2 55:10

Uh, yeah. I mean, races are still hard. Yeah. So there's, there is excitement in it, and sometimes the excitement, if I, if I can't see the starting line- Yeah and it's too close to race time-

Speaker 55:22

No,

Speaker 2 55:22

it, it's- it's tricky for that excitement- You guys- to not quickly jump to nerves

Speaker 55:25

you all should see, it's a total shift. It's the craziest thing. Like, when we, like, we wanna leave the hotel or we wanna leave the house at a certain time, like when we've traveled to your, to your races, it's like, "Okay, we're leaving at this time." Up until that time, Kevin is like stress, stress, stress. And it's like as soon as, like, we're in the car and going, as soon as we get there, he's like totally different. He, uh, you, it's like you just chill, you're like, "I just need to get there. Everything's fine. I just need to get there." Like, that's one of the things that you often say, um- Yes because you just need to be there.

Speaker 2 55:53

It's, it's my calming mantra. Yeah. And you've, you've never allowed me to miss a starting line.

Speaker 55:58

That

Speaker 2 55:59

is true. And so it's, it's built up evidence that it's actually going to be fine.

Speaker 56:04

Yeah. Yeah. So anywho, um- The whole point here is that the story that you're telling yourself matters, and the story, the pre-run story, the pre-race story, it's not just emo- emotional and mental and psychological, it's also physical and biological. It changes your immune function. It changes your perceived e- effort. It changes your performance outcomes. So if you can write yourself a better story, and you can write yourself a more empowering story going in, why not do it? Because that's definitely something that you can control, and if it does something, which we've got research now that shows that it does, why not do that little piece?

Speaker 2 56:46

Yeah, 'cause at the end of the day- I

Speaker 56:47

shouldn't, I shouldn't say little, because it's a big deal, but-

Speaker 2 56:50

No, it's a big deal- Yeah but at the end of the day, the real result is probably different than the story that you created. Mm-hmm. It's, it's almost, it's almost impossible to perfectly predict the story.

Speaker 57:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2 57:01

So predict a positive one, rooted in reality, but a positive story-

Speaker 57:05

Mm-hmm

Speaker 2 57:06

so that it gives you the best chance for the most success. Even if it doesn't play out exactly like that-

Speaker 57:11

Yeah

Speaker 2 57:11

put yourself in a good mind frame, 'cause it matters.

Speaker 57:13

Yeah, and then allow yourself to just experience what is, too.

Speaker 2 57:18

Yes.

Speaker 57:18

Also a good thing. Mm-hmm. All right, cool. Uh, so guys, that's what we got for you today. And this was a fun one. I like this one. Um, so if you liked it, I would love for you to write us a review, share this podcast with someone else, leave us a comment on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. We would love to hear it and to connect with all of you. Um, if you are interested in some coaching, uh, the team, the membership is actually going to be closing down, uh, let's see, on the 18th. On August 18th, I'm actually closing the membership for enrollment. We're gonna be making some changes, um, moving forward. I've been doing a lot of restructuring and soul-searching and kind of how we wanna show up for our clients in the next, well, I, I was gonna say the next year, but just really from this point forward. And so we're gonna be closing down membership enrollment temporarily, um, while we get everything built out and restructured the way that I want. So this is gonna be your last chance to get into the membership for a while. So again, if you're listening to this episode in 2026, in August of 2026, um, we're gonna be closing the doors to the membership on Tuesday, August 18th. So make sure that if you want coaching, if you've got a race coming up, or if you just wanna get better and stronger, we've got new training plans. We've got new six-week strength cycles that we are rolling out so y- you get a new set of strength exercises specifically created for runners every six weeks. We have live weekly coaching calls on Zoom. We have an amazing community of, of other runners. We have a brand-new app so you can access everything, um, in our- personalized branded app, which is super fun and super cool. Um, so check it out. And I'm running a membership special right now, so you can get in at the lowest price of the year and lock that price in for as long as you stay a member. So check it o- out over at realliferunners.com/team. If you are on our email list, you should have gotten some emails about this already. So just don't miss out. If you guys want some coaching, and if you wanna be a part of an amazing community, come join the team. Uh, and you'll get locked in, and you're also going to get all of the benefits of all the cool, amazing things that I'm building out, um, this year. I just... We- I'm, I'm closing this down because I need time to focus on our current members, and I need time to focus on the new membership restructuring that I'm going to do, and I don't wanna be taking on new clients during that process because I always wanna make sure that we're taking the best care of our clients possible. So that's what's going on. Check it out, realliferunners.com/team, um, and get in before we close the doors. And as always, thanks for joining us. This has been the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 474. Now get out there and run your life.