5 Race Day Mental Preparation Tips for a Marathon

As the countdown to race day begins, harnessing the right mental strategies can be just as crucial as your physical training, ensuring you approach the marathon with confidence and focus. Here are five tips to set your up for success for your big day.

1. Visualize Executing your Race Strategy

Visualization is a mental technique commonly used by high-performing runners and has been shown to lead to enhanced preparedness, reduced nerves and anxiety, and race-day success (Journal of Physical Fitness and Sports Medicine 2012). The runners use anything from images to sounds to walk themselves through their pre-race check list, in-race pacing plan and strategy, and the success they’ll ideally feel at the finish. Try visualization by sitting quietly and walking yourself step-by-step and mile-by-mile through your pre-race plan and in-race pacing strategy. Focus on any people, places, and sounds you might experience to enhance the visualization effect.

2. Positive Self-Talk

Write down a list of positive affirmations for yourself for race day. Examples of positive affirmations for a marathon racer might include ‘I am strong and capable’, ‘I embrace the challenge and will push through discomfort’, and ‘I am focused and determined’. Positive self-talk has been shown to boost confidence and reduce self-limiting thoughts (Association for Psychological Science, 2011).

3. Setting Specific Goals

Developing clear, achievable goals can lead to athletes having better focus, enhanced motivation, and more success on race day (Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 1985). Take some time to write down SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely) goals while in training and for race day. The smarter the goals, the more likely the runner is to be successful in accomplishing them. An example of a smart goal for leading into a race could be: on Sundays, create a calendar event (schedule) for every training session for the next week of training. An example of a race-day smart goal could be to run at a 9-minute/mile pace for the first 10 miles. These are examples of process goals. Process goals will help the athlete achieve their outcome goal. An example of an outcome goal may be a goal time, such as a sub-4-hour finish time. While outcome goals are important for setting realistic expectations and finding success, process goals will likely be more helpful and impactful for setting the runner-up for success.

4. Mindfulness and Breathing Techniques

Practicing mindfulness and various breathing techniques can help improve focus and manage anxiety for marathon runners. An example of a breathing focus for runners includes diaphragmatic breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing, or belly breathing, includes the runner focusing on expanding and contracting their abdomen when breathing rather than their chest. This can help to slow down the breath rate, feel more relaxed, and inhale more oxygen. If you’re feeling nervous on race day, try focusing on breathing from your belly.

5. Develop a Pre-Race Schedule

Writing down a schedule of all the little things you need to do on race day morning will help to prevent any mishaps and reduce race-day nerves. Working backward from the start time of your race, figure out what time you want to eat your pre-race meal, when you need to leave the house or hotel, when you want to be at the venue when to get to the start line, and if/when you want to take in any food or drink close to the start. Write down tasks to complete in addition to the schedule for extra preparedness.

In addition to training, nutrition, and quality sleep, mental skills, and focus are important for runners to focus on when it comes to having success in their big race. These mental strategies will get you to the start as well as the finish line with confidence and ease.