EP. 120 - How To Preserve A Resilient Mindset After Achieving Your Running Goal with Dr. Lara Pence

If you don’t like the channel, change the station. Dr. Lara has helped athletes turn the channel or the volume on their mindset strength. One aspect of mental strength is that it can be trained and I also believe it can ebb and flow throughout training cycles. Today, Dr. Lara shares what happens in the mind after training and racing an A goal race, how to distinguish burnout symptoms, the importance of a good partnership with a coach, and more. Let’s dive in. Contact Dr. Lara here or through her Instagram account. DOWNLOAD A CUSTOM TRAINING PLAN: Are you interested in leveling up your running this year? You don’t need to work with a coach to show up to the start line prepared and confident! Looking to up-level your training without a coach?! The Elevate Your Running Training Plans and Custom ⁠Plans⁠ - for beginner and intermediate runners are NOW available from base, 5K,10K, Half, and Marathon distances. DONATE TO THE PODCAST: If you gain value from our podcast each week, I invite you to consider donating to the work and production of the show through Spotify! I greatly appreciate your support and listenership of the show, and look forward to providing more content, moving forward. LINKS: Elevate Your Running - ⁠https://elevateyourrunning.com/⁠ Connect w/ Sara - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/sayrahrunshappy/⁠ The Feed (Sponsorship) - ⁠https://thefeed.com/teams/elevate-your-running⁠ Inside Tracker - insidetracker.com , promocode: SARAMPRO25 for 25% off your entire purchase Data helps us objectively measure progress, and constantly refine and optimize ourselves. Inside Tracker will Elevate you from the inside, while this podcast and your training will elevate you from the outside. Use code SARAMPRO25 for 25% off your entire order at www.insidetracker.com now. Welcome to the podcast, Lara! Do you see a certain type of runner who struggles the most with mental strength? April was a huge month of racing + recovering and it’s not quite time yet to begin fall race season. What are some common feelings that runners experience after training for a long time with one, singular goal, or after racing their “big” race of the season or year? How can a runner flow through a tough race day and the feelings that can come up in the weeks to follow the race? How can coaches help these athletes honor their feelings and move into a new season of running? What are the Marathon Blues, can any runner from the 5k to ultra experience these feelings? The association humans have as being a runners is HIGH, if a runner reaches their A+ goal or reached their big running goal, like running a certain time or running the Boston Marathon, how can that athlete shift their mindset to still enjoy running? “TRAINING BURNOUT” Overtraining, often referred to as burnout, is when the amount of training you do exceeds your recovery time, or when you push the body more than it can take with the amount of rest it's given. Symptoms can be physical or psychological - Chronic fatigue. Poor or worsening performance. What are the symptoms, flags, and signals we should be looking out for with training burnout - both as a runner for ourselves, a coach-to-athlete relationship, and our friends in the run club? How can a runner distinguish between burn out and just needing a flexible schedule, or other feelings? PERFECTIONISM runs deep in running - after all, some of us are type A. How does a runner who has strong perfectionism find a way to balance training, racing, and finding the joy on the days that don’t go their way and avoid burnout? Have you ever seen an instance where a runner throws their hands in the air and says, no for me. I’m type A - I need every workout, pace, and week to feel perfect. I can’t adjust to running on effort, or needing to hit paces, so I’m not going to train. These runners often doing what they love, which is running. Are there any mindset tools that can help a runner who thinks this way?