How to Prepare for a Marathon Mentally
After months of training, your body will be ready for your first marathon. You must also prepare your mind and spirit for an experience that will represent a grueling physical test. As you taper the length of your training runs in the final pre-marathon days, prepare yourself mentally for the ordeal.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Get plenty of rest before the marathon. This is just as important several nights before the marathon as the night before. Rest provide you with the mental focus and clarity that you will need to keep digging deep in the final miles of the marathon.
-
2
Perform a visualization exercise. See yourself as you pass serenely through each mile of the marathon and finally approach the finish line. Focus on this visualization during your long training runs in the final weeks before your marathon. Return to it as you fall asleep and recall it on the morning of the race right after you wake up. Visit it once again as you join the other runners at the starting line.
-
-
3
Wander among the other runners as you gather at the starting line and wait for the call to approach the line. Take inspiration from them. Enjoy the sense of confidence that comes from having put in the miles of training.
-
4
Emotionally feed off the crowd as you await the starting gun and as you proceed along the marathon route. Running a marathon can be a wonderful experience because the route is lined with enthusiastic supporters who will cheer you on, hand you water or fruit and give you high fives. Runners sometimes print their names on the shirts so that the crowds will call out to them as they run.
-
5
Take inspiration from any source that is available to you. For instance, if you are running in honor of a leukemia survivor, you may find extra strength in focusing on what that person has endured.
-
6
Plan to reward yourself at the end of the run to spur you on mentally. Make arrangements for a great meal, a relaxing massage, a great glass of wine or all three.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Be very careful about taking any medication to help you sleep or deal with minor cold symptoms during the last day or two before your marathon. An unfamiliar medication may dehydrate you or cause other side effects that spoil your running plans. If you are used to having coffee to help provide mental clarity, have a cup, but limit your intake of coffee or any diuretics.
