Get Off On The Write Foot

How a journal can help you plot your best running performance

- Rich Elliott

A few sentences about your best workout. Fifteen minutes jotting down your goals and concerns regarding the next day’s run. A chronicle of good days and bad, disappointments and successes. Could these simple acts of writing mean the difference between a PB and a sub-par performance?

Runner Megan Vaccaro finds that getting her thoughts down on paper helps her stick to her race plan. Ernesto Ramirez, a 1:13 half marathoner, says that his prerace writing helps him strategise in more depth. Lauren Fleshman, a two-time US champion at 5 000m, knows that when she puts things down in a journal she sleeps a lot better the night before her race. These three athletes have added an effective strategy to their repertoire – writing in a journal.

Put Down Those Worries

What is it about writing that helps an athlete? “Negative self-talk can occur in athletic situations,” says psychologist Sian Beilock, director of the Human Performance Lab at the University of Chicago, and author of Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal about Getting It Right When You Have To. “Getting the worries down on paper makes them less likely to pop up in a competition situation. It’s akin to downloading them from the mind.”