So I wondered, if it’s not the oxygen that’s limiting the athlete what could possibly be limiting him? By 1996 I decided that the brain was controlling the muscle function in some way. I knew that most people don’t die during exercise. That is, when you exercise you stay in balance no matter how hot, stressful, or high the altitude. So I decided there must be a regulator that is regulating performance and it must be in the brain.
The way you control the work of the heart is by controlling the work of the muscles. So if you want to protect the heart you must slow the muscles down. And then I saw it! I realized that the governor works by controlling how much muscle work you’re able to do.
Then some of my colleagues found that fatigue is purely a sensation; an emotion. It has nothing to do with what’s actually happening in your body, and it’s got lots to do with how close you are to the finish of the race. So the brain uses this emotion of fatigue to keep you within a safe pace as you run a long race.
It’s the certainty that you’re going to finish that allows you to speed up at the end.
You have a pacing strategy that the brain works out in advance and it updates it with every stride. With every stride the brain has to answer four questions, “Are you going to stop, go the same speed, speed up, or slow down?”.
I hink all physical training in the end comes down to mental training. The interesting thing about biology is that if you train the same way every day, after about two months you are fully adapted -you don’t make any new adaptations. The only thing that you can change is your perception of what you CAN do. So the reason why you do long runs during marathon training is to convince your brain that you can do it. I think that all training has an emotional component that is terribly terribly important!
What I do know is, if you ever ask the question “Will I finish?” or any negative statement, that’s it, your race is over.
The very best athletes presume that they’re going to win and that’s what they’re focusing on all the time