Marathon Willpower: Racing Veteran, #2

By Kirk Mahoney

Do you want to know how faster runners apply self-control and discipline?

Do you have questions like these about willpower and your marathon training and racing?

* How do commitment and progress affect my willpower?

* Is there such a thing as too much willpower?

* How do pride, shame, and guilt affect my willpower?

* What are some simple things that I can do during a race to protect my willpower?

* Which runs out first, muscle energy or willpower?

Marathon Willpower answers these questions -- and many more -- by covering:

* Thirteen ways that your thoughts and feelings affect your willpower

* Three impacts of your physiology on your willpower

* Ten willpower recommendations about your diet

* Twelve research-driven approaches to maximizing your willpower to work out

* Six connections between everyday activities and your willpower

* Four willpower implications for marathon training groups

* Six effects of authority figures and strangers on your willpower

* Eight opportunities to leverage willpower research for your future

Each chapter of Marathon Willpower begins by challenging you with a question. The chapter then gives you the correct answer, the research behind it, and some practical advice that you can apply right away.

Do you need this book? Take the marathon willpower test today at 1sf.us/mwtest .

• Language: English
• Publisher: SpryFeet.com
• Release date: Mar 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781540188168

Kirk Mahoney

I believe that we have a moral duty to be happy around others and that our happiness positively affects our running and walking. So, I write books under the SpryFeet.com imprint to help readers to become happier runners and walkers. Join the SpryFeet.com Readers Club to get ... * A free ebook * Sneak peeks at his future books * Entry into his birthday-month drawings * Opportunities to beta-read his future books * Weekly "Single Biggest Question" newsletter * Get More Clarity, Get More Happiness guide Join Today! http://www.spryfeet.com/free

Book preview

Your Thoughts and Feelings

Chapter 1: Recalling Your PR

Question:

Which statement is true?

A. Recalling your personal record (PR) — also known as your personal best — can increase your willpower to achieve a new one.

B. Recalling your PR will not affect your willpower to achieve a new one.

C. Recalling your PR can decrease your willpower to achieve a new one.

Answer: C

Recalling your PR can decrease your willpower to set a new one.

When you recall your PR, you are focusing on your goal progress. Researchers looked into whether focusing on your goal progress is a good thing. The short answer is no. Instead, this decreases your likelihood of pursuing actions that will lead to more progress. The reason? Thoughts of past goal progress lead to assumptions of future goal progress. This tends to liberate you from continuing to strive toward your goal.

For example, suppose that you want to run a marathon in four hours. Suppose that you ran an earlier marathon in 4:25, and that you just ran your latest marathon in 4:10. Then recalling your 4:10 PR and dwelling on it will tend to move you away from — not toward — achieving a 4:00 marathon PR.

Advice:

Log each of your race chip-times or finish times in a journal, but don’t otherwise open and look at that journal. Choose a new PR goal based on what you enter, but don’t link it in your memory to your current PR. Instead, link it to something external such as a running buddy’s PR or to something that you’ve read in a magazine or online.

Chapter 2: Progress vs. Commitment

Question:

Which statement is true?

A. Commitment beats progress when it comes to achieving your goal.

B. Progress and commitment equally affect achievement of your goal.

C. Progress beats commitment when it comes to achieving your goal.

Answer: A

Commitment beats progress when it comes to achieving your goal.

Researchers divided undergraduate students into three groups. They asked group 1 to think about their own commitment to academics when they study hard all day. They asked group 2 to think about their own sense of progress that they feel when they study hard all day. They did not ask group 3 to think about either of these topics.

The researchers then asked all three groups whether they would hang out with friends at night.

Group-2 students were more likely than group-3 students to answer, Yes. Thinking about their own progress with studying drew their attention away from their goal.

In contrast, group-1 students were more likely than group-3 students to answer, No. Thinking about their own commitment to academics kept them focused on their goal.

Advice:

Suppose that you have a goal such as a faster chip-time in a marathon. To keep moving toward your goal, contemplate your commitment to — not your progress toward — that goal.

Chapter 3: Thinking of Your Failures

Question:

Which statement is true?

A. The more easily you think of your failures, the faster you improve.

B. The less easily you think of your failures, the faster you improve.

C. How easily you think of your failures does not affect how quickly you improve.

Answer: B

The less easily you think of your failures, the faster you improve.

Researchers showed that we tend to judge the probability of an event by how easily we can retrieve or construct that event in our minds. We also tend to judge an event’s truthful representation of us by our judgment of its probability.

So, you are more likely to believe that failures represent you when you can easily remember your failures. And, you are less likely to believe this when you have difficulty remembering your failures.

Elite athletes show a tendency to avoid dwelling on their failures. You can see this in almost any television interview with an elite athlete after a bad event. When asked about the failure, the elite athlete will avoid talking about the failure. Instead, he or she will talk about commitment to successful future performances. And, as discussed in chapter 2, goal commitment helps you to improve faster.

Advice:

You are not obligated to dwell on your failures. Let others do that, if they must. Instead, let a poor performance remain recorded on an obscure Web page. Or, leave it in a log that you’re keeping for posterity but not for frequent reference.

Chapter 4: Low Willpower

Question:

Which statement is true?

A. Athletes with low willpower always know it.

B. Athletes with low willpower rarely know it.

C. Athletes with low willpower never know it.

Answer: B

Athletes with low willpower rarely know it.

One group of researchers looked at people failing to recognize their own incompetence. Why? People’s preconceived notions about their skills dominate how they see their own performance. Those notions are stronger than their actual accomplishments.

Other researchers later looked at people’s judgment of their own competence with willpower. They confirmed for willpower what the first group of researchers found for any area of competence.

In particular, people tend to overestimate their impulse-control abilities.

As a result, people tend to overexpose themselves to temptations. They do this because they have a false belief that they have more willpower than they have in reality.

Advice:

No matter whether you know that you have low willpower, assume that you do. Limit your exposure to temptations that will promote impulsive behavior.

Chapter 5: Meditation

Question:

Which statement is true?

A. Meditation cannot hurt willpower.

B. Meditation can reliably neither help nor hurt willpower.

C. Meditation cannot help willpower.

Answer: A

Meditation cannot hurt willpower.

In fact, researchers have shown that a particular type of meditation counteracts willpower depletion. It’s called mindfulness meditation; you focus your attention on something as basic as breathing.

The researchers reported three major results.

First, people who suppress their emotions deplete their ability to exert self-control later.

Second, mindfulness meditation restores this ability after the initial emotion-suppression task.

Third, only a brief period of mindfulness meditation is necessary to restore self-control.

Advice:

Teach yourself mindfulness meditation. For example, use UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center’s free guided-meditation MP3 files. Go to marc.ucla.edu for more information. Then, suppose that you have just suppressed your emotions and want to exercise renewed willpower. Practice mindfulness meditation first.

Chapter 6: Too Much Willpower

Question:

Which statement is true?

A. Research is unclear for endurance athletes as to whether there is such a thing as exercising too much willpower.

B. There is a danger for an endurance athlete of trying to exercise too much willpower.

C. There is no such danger for endurance athletes of trying to exercise too much willpower.

Answer: B

There is a danger for endurance athletes of trying to exercise too much willpower.

Some researchers presented radishes and chocolate to test subjects and a control group. The researchers forced the test subjects but not the control group to eat the radishes. The researchers then asked each group to exert willpower in a later task. It had nothing to do with the radishes and chocolate. The test subjects showed less willpower than did the control group.

Other test subjects had to suppress their emotions while viewing a movie and then had to perform an anagram task. Control subjects did not have to suppress their emotions with the movie. The test subjects gave up sooner with the anagram task than did the control subjects.

So, exercising too much willpower over one aspect of your life can hurt your ability to exercise it over another.

Advice:

Look at your willpower as if it were a muscle. Seasoned runners don’t tire leg muscles with several hours of walking around the floor of a race expo the day before a marathon. You should avoid fatiguing your willpower before a long training run. You can do this by avoiding exposure to temptations.

Chapter 7: Feeling Good Enough about Your Training

Question:

Which statement is true?

A. Feeling good enough about your training can hurt your willpower.

B. Feeling good enough about your training will not affect your willpower.

C. Feeling good enough about your training will boost your willpower.

Answer: A

Feeling good enough about your training can hurt your willpower.

Researchers compared people who took supplements to those who did not. The supplement-takers were more likely to engage in health-risking behaviors. The supplement-takers felt licensed to take actions contrary to the benefits of the supplements.

Other researchers have used the phrase moral self-licensing to label this phenomenon. This covers any behavior that is immoral, unethical, or otherwise a problem for the individual.

Still other researchers simplified the label to self-licensing. Their rationale is that the behavior may not be immoral. An example of this is when you lose the willpower to work out after feeling good enough about your training.

Advice:

Celebrate a training session for a few minutes, but as soon as possible turn your attention to what you would like to do better next time. For example, suppose that you do speed work each Tuesday. Suppose that your latest speed-work session went well in comparison to a previous Tuesday. Tell your spouse or training buddy, but follow that with a plan about how you can do better next Tuesday.

Chapter 8: Being Hard on Yourself

Question:

Which statement is true?

A. How hard you are on yourself does not affect your willpower.

B. You should be kind to yourself to protect your willpower.

C. You