2 Mental Tricks to Help You Finish Any Race—No Matter How Badly You Want to DNF

I’m going to say something obvious: Racing can be very hard and uncomfortable. An obvious result of this is people are often tempted to stop running.So if you’ve ever been in the midst of a competition—on a hot day, on a tough hill, at the course’s halfway point—and thought of dropping out, it’s not just you. As solitary as those moments can feel, they are happening to athletes all around you, too.Elite runners aren’t immune, either. Conner Mantz said that he entertains the thought in every race, and he’s an American record holder! Author and coach Steve Magness shared in a Twitter thread that the feeling is very common among pro runners. Morgan Beadlescomb confirmed he has—and has overcome—these thoughts all of the time.So these two things can be true—many runners consider stopping and many of them complete races every year. It’s possible to successfully navigate these thoughts.I’ll give you an example of how I navigated a moment like this that turned into one of the best races of my life.It was pretty early in the 2022 New Bedford Half Marathon, and I had dug myself into a hole. The race started at 11 a.m. on one of the first warm spring days of the year. I went out way too fast, with a 5:06 first mile, followed by a series of tough uphill climbs. By the third mile, as I was climbing a big hill in the sun, my brain was deep into doubtful thoughts. There’s no way I can keep doing this. I messed up. Maybe today isn’t my day. Instead of stopping, I started a negotiation—with myself. I wasn’t near the start line, and I knew it was going to be a long walk home if I stopped where I was. I made an offer, to myself, that I would drop out when I got closer to the starting area, around mile 4.Once I reached mile 4, I was a bit more relaxed and still in one piece, so the pitch became How about we drop out at mile 7 and we jog back toward the start? Once I got to the 7-mile mark, the effort was hard, but not overwhelming. So when the course reached a 3-mile loop, I bargained again, with the option to drop out at mile 10. When I hit the 10-mile mark, it occurred to me that I had actually PR’ed in the 10-mile distance and that I would likely run a decent time even if I slowed down to a jog, so the bargain was that I could back off on effort instead of stopping.I reached a big hill at mile 12, and the next deal was that I could stop after I got to the top of the hill. But when I got to the top, there was maybe a minute or so of running remaining, and I went in for a massive kick. I finished in 1:08:59, a PB by 32 seconds, in a race where I once had been convinced that I was going to drop out at mile 4.Looking back, I used two mental tools. Life coaches call them “bargaining” and “chunking.”The series of negotiations put me in a position to think about the race as a collection of smaller distances within it, or “chunks.” In my head, I was no longer running a 13.1-mile race. Instead, I was racing for a few miles at a time. This allowed me to panic less and focus a little more, moment to moment. It helped me to calm down and eventually find my stride. The physical sensations were the same, but committing to race just a few more miles was easier to wrap my head around. I could focus a little more.Ultimately, the thoughts that I had in the beginning were not ironclad truths, but interpretations of how I was feeling. Reframing them made the same sensations tolerable. You may or may not find chunking or bargaining helpful as a mental tactic. You might prefer another mental framework that works better for you. But the point is that these kinds of thoughts are very normal and there are tools that you can use to navigate them.So, if your brain wants to stop when you hit the second mile of a 5K, for example, don’t assume that the desire to stop is a final offer. Perhaps it might help to think of it as the beginning of a negotiation.Find Your Next Running PlaylistAlex Predhome is a contributing writer at Runner’s World. He’s a former all-region runner at Dickinson College and a five-time marathoner with a best time of 2:27:11. He also boasts a sub-2:00 4x800-meter relay split and once logged his wedding ceremony on Strava. His other hobbies include telling bad puns and being a diehard fan of the Philadelphia Eagles. (Go Birds!)