A Marathon is a race in which you have to run for 42 km in a row, so it requires a high performance physical, tactical, technical and mental preparation, appropriate to the effort we will submit our body and mind.

Although there are professional athletes who participate in this event, many of them are popular runners or people who are running a Marathon for the first time after a period of preparation and after other long-distance races (half Marathon, ten thousand metres, etc.). To prepare for this event, a series of psychological coping strategies are needed , which are ideal for training for the Marathon , as the mental section will be key over many kilometres.

Strategies to prepare

As the sports psychologist, Jose María Buceta, explains, runners usually use techniques such as thought arrest, self-instruction and plans of attentional refocusing because it has been seen that what most influences Marathon runners in the race are their thoughts.

In this way, through adequate psychological training, athletes use strategies such as coping to interrupt harmful mental activity and replace it with another that favours overcoming those critical moments and does not decline performance in the test.

Associative and dissociative strategies

The authors Morgan and Pollock proposed that the mental activity of Marathoners was defined by associative and dissociative strategies. The first ones are based on paying attention, having thoughts or autodialogues regarding one’s own body sensations or the activity involved in the race (attention to the circuit). The second ones imply an attentional disconnection from the previous factors in benefit of stimuli alien to the activity, that is to say, to pay attention to the landscape, the music, the public, etc. These strategies change depending on the type of runner .

Jose Maria Buceta saw that in the case of popular runners, both associative and dissociative activity can be relevant to their performance goals. However, when it comes to runners who want to perform well, it is preferable to use associative strategies during most of the race, alternating them with dissociative strategies at less critical times.

What are the emotional phases of a Marathon?

It can be observed that on a psychological level there is fatigue, tiredness and wear and tear , as many kilometres are involved in this test. Vich establishes different stages or “emotional phases” through which one passes depending on the kilometre one finds oneself.

Emotional Phases of the Marathon (Vich, 2002):

Concluding

To conclude, it should be noted again that the Marathon is conditioned by both physical and psychological qualities , as it is such a prolonged physical effort that it requires great mental toughness. That is why when we have to face it, we must also work and train the mental part with the aim of handling the sensations of tiredness and fatigue that come with the race.

It is fundamental to try to give the same importance to the physical section as to the psychological one if we want to obtain a good performance in the test.