Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Mind Games on the Trails

From Running Times online

Mind Games on the Trails

How mental preparation can maximize racing performance

By Max King

As featured in the Web Only issue of Running Times Magazine

As I write this I sit in the Steens Mountain Wilderness in far southeastern Oregon listening to a speech by Harland Yriarte, founder of Steens Mountain High Altitude Running Camp. This isn’t your normal high school running camp with all the amenities you might expect from a hotel or dorm camping experience. There is no running water, no electricity, sleeping accommodations are a roomy 1970s Army tent with 20 other campers and unless you brought your own air mattress, you’re on the ground. Sure, we do lecture on form, nutrition, the normal stuff, but this camp is more about teaching athletes that the mental edge is what builds better people, teammates, and champions in cross country running and in life. This is a mental training camp. The message out here at Steens is “Overemphasize to trivialize.”  We’ll come back to that.

Read on here.

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