Ultrafondus, the French ultrarunners association, running a monthly paper and a website, started a survey on ultrarunners mental preparation. After replying to this survey, I compiled and translated some of the questions.
  • What is mental preparation?
    Mostly 3 things: The capacity of prior projection into the race, the relaxation just before the race and the lucidity during.
  • What is the proportion of mental preparation in a performance objective?
    It's quite hard to estimate, because mental preparation can be done at any time, in the office, in the tube, before sleeping... I would say roughly about 50%. I guess this proportion increases when the objective comes close.
  • Do you do a specific mental training?
    No, training comes by itself. It's often an advantage, but sometimes a problem as it may not happen (see question on improvement).
  • What kind of training do you do precisely?
    Mostly imaginary conditioning. As an easy start, I simply imagine the route using maps and elevation profiles, as well as pictures and videos. Then I add the hardest possible conditions. For the UTMB for example, I imagined the snow, wind, hail, cold, mud, as well personal conditions such as cramps and hypoglycemia. Reports and stories about the 2003 edition help ... I try to visualise that as precisely as possible, up to a point I can actually feel the same as during the race. I try to see how I could deal with it. Actually it's fairly tiring. It gives the impression that these conditions are known and helps to make them less alarming.
    I also try to convince myself of a couple of strategical points beforehand, for example not to suddenly withdraw, but at least try to walk for a few hours and decide afterwards.
  • What could help you to develop mental skills?
    Maybe a team mental training could help, just as for the physical bit.
  • What techniques do you mostly use during the race?
    When it's not going so well, think about something else, look at the landscape, try to cheer up with simple things such as a glass of water. Try to listen to your body in a positive way to make the pain(s) less ... painful.
    When it's going well, focus on the stride while trying to keep optimistic. Or look at the landscape anyway :)
  • How did you get your mental skills?
    I didn't really mean it. Hiking in harsh conditions, fear of the UTMB, internet forums...
  • What mental skill would you need while racing?
    The lucidity in hard times.
  • What is your best mental skill?
    The race previsualisation.
  • What mental skill do you need to improve the most?
    It seems that my mental preparation is mostly linked to a sort of fear of the race. The mental preparation then comes by itself, as it helps to demystify the objective and I feel better afterwards. So no fear means no preparation... And then I'm in trouble when I don't take an ultra seriously enough. For example, once a race has been run and then known (eg. UTMB 2005), it will look a priori easy the next year. Follows a natural laziness. I should then force myself to work on mental preparation depending on the objective and not on the fear of this objective.
  • What is the advantage of a mentally performant runner compared to others?
    In ultramarathons, there are often harder moments, not to say always. The numerous overtaking runners then make your mental drop quite badly. The tiredness helping, it's quite easy to withdraw at the next water station. A mentally performant runner will ignore the DNF sirens and will simply slow down a bit until it gets better. Probably less stress as well, and therefore a better sleep before the race.
Ultra survey.