When I hear “racing mentality”, my mind immediately jumps to mental toughness, hanging in the race when it hurts, and being impossible to break. However, over the last couple years, I’ve begun to form a new set of ideas for what race mentality means. The reason for this redefinition is simple: sometimes my toughest and grittiest self still doesn’t hit the times or beat the people that I want to. When I walk away from a race where that happens, instead of being proud of how gritty and tough I was, I’m disappointed that my best wasn’t better. If the definition of race mentality includes holding onto the pace when it’s tough, then are you not tough if you can’t hold onto the pace?
These were questions that I asked myself again and again, walking away from races wondering if I just wasn’t tough enough. Eventually, I realized that I was being tough. I was hanging in a race when I wanted to quit or fighting back from being dropped or overcoming early fear to give myself a chance in the race. Having a strong race mentality means putting my all into every race, even though its scary and painful and doesn’t always work out. This season, I want to see success in a race as being able to leave the race knowing that I put my best effort forward, instead of gauging the quality of my effort against those around me. My toughest is just that: MY toughest. That is what I want to bring to every race, and, if I do that, I can leave every race proud.
That’s exactly what I did in the 15k US Championships, and while I’m not necessarily over the moon with my race, I’m proud of my effort. Watch the race video at the link below.
