You’ve got to get out of your own way

Hey Reader,

My co-host is just a few weeks away from the Chicago Marathon.

She’s been chasing a marathon time of under three hours for a while now.

That’s 26.2 miles. It’s a fast time for someone who isn’t a professional runner, and she’s actually in shape to achieve it.

Recently, she ran a half marathon in London called the Big Half.

That’s 13.1 miles, half the distance of a full marathon, so it was good practice for race day.

She was hoping to finish in about an hour and 23 minutes.

She came in at an hour and 25 and a half minutes.

Her coach still thought it was a pretty good time.

But she feels she should be running an hour and 23 minutes by now.

And with Chicago this close, she keeps thinking: don’t screw up, don’t get sick, don’t do anything stupid, don’t twist your ankle and fall down the stairs.

A friend who runs with her a lot told her she’s a good runner and definitely in shape to run a sub-three marathon, given how easily she’s getting through all her training sessions.

He said, “Your problem is mental. You just need to get out of your own way.”

And I could really relate to that.

🧠 Getting in your own way

Having a big goal is a great thing.

Wanting to hit something big by a certain time is absolutely awesome.

It makes you put in the work to get yourself prepared for it.

But the closer you get to the big moment, the fear of not being ready enough can creep in.

That’s not a bad thing.

It shows you care about the goal so much that you don’t want to mess it up.

But if you sit with that thought for too long, you can start panicking about all the things that could go wrong and ruin everything.

I know I’ve talked about visualizing things that could go wrong as you prepare for a goal in a previous newsletter.

But visualizing is different from worrying.

Visualizing is only helpful when you also picture how you’d handle those things.

Worrying just leaves you stuck with the problem.

All that worry builds pressure, and that pressure turns into panic.

And all of that makes you think you’re probably not ready enough.

❤️ Trust what you’ve built

The best thing you can do is trust the work you’ve already put in.

All the training, preparation, and experience you’ve built over time are already in you.

You also have to walk into that goal with an open mind.

That reframe makes you calmer and more confident about getting through whatever that day comes with.

If things don’t go exactly as planned, that’s okay.

Not in the sense of accepting defeat, but like, being ready to handle any curveball.

You trust yourself to figure things out, so you won’t get thrown off when something changes.

You get to enjoy the experience you’ve worked so hard for.

And you get to see what you’re really capable of.

So what’s that big goal you’re getting close to right now?

Has the fear of not being ready started creeping in?

Is your mind spiraling about all the things that could mess things up?

What have you already put in that you can trust?

And if something doesn’t go to plan on the day, how would you handle it?

Trust the preparation.

Trust yourself and go for it.

As Arthur Ashe once said, “One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.”

With appreciation,

Huw

P.S. We chat a bit about the mental fear of not being ready enough on this week’s pod.

We also ranked what really matters as a runner, sparked by a listener’s question, and I shared what I learned from combing through 14 years of training data (assisted by AI..)

Worth a listen.