Mental Skills for Ultrarunning-Part 2 with Neal Palles | KoopCast Episode 168

trail and ultra runners what is going on what's happening welcome to another episode of the coo cast as always i am your humble host coach Jason Koop and this episode of the podcast builds off of last week's episode with my homeboy dr justin ross all about mental skills for ultra running on the podcast this week we have a cts coach who also happens to have his master's in applied sports psychology and is also a pretty badass ultra marathon athlete in his own right he's been on the podcast before you guys know him it is neil palace neil came up with this incredible framework for mental skills and ultra running that works like a periodized pyramid where you start out working on motivation and then you move to mindfulness and then to emotional regulation imagery and self-talk and finally at the apex of the pyramid is focus and i think a lot i think that will resonate a lot with athletes because you have to start somewhere you have to start with things that are foundational and that are going to build from one to the next much like what we talked about with justin last week this episode is going to be particularly conducive to the youtube channel so if you haven't checked that out go on and go over there because i flip back and forth between our conversation neil and i just talking back and forth as well as a little bit of a slide deck that he had

prepared in advance of this conversation all right that's it i'm gonna get right out of the way here we go here's my conversation with neil palace neil welcome to the podcast man or welcome back to the podcast it's been a little bit right it's been about a year a little over a year i think yeah i'm psyched about this you know i was uh kind of reminded today i'm doing unbeknownst to you i'm just bringing this on you now oh good um i've got a few uh kind of more sports psychology and mental skills uh podcasts lined up i'm recording with justin ross who i know you're familiar with uh tomorrow and i'm recording with carla maheen who probably wrote one of the more like impactful books yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah i just you know i didn't recognize her name at first but yeah i know exactly what you're talking about yeah um so i'm recording with her in like early march if i remember correctly and in addition to that like for whatever reason you know january rolls around and kind of early february rolls around and we're recording this i start to see a lot more people getting uh curious about mental skills yes and i take it this is a little bit of the motivation for kind of what why you came up with what we're going to talk about today but is this something that you've like noticed in your practice that there's some sort of seasonality to it you know a little bit of seasonality and i think a lot i mean it's a lot of it's just rooted in you know my training and you know i'm thinking back you know

when i was going back to get my second degree in applied sports psychology um doing you know looking at the research and looking at how mental skills were taught and then even seeing discussions about mental skills periodization and that's why i was just like oh i've got to do this you know why aren't we why are people doing this more um we see a lot of people doing mental skills training six weeks out before the race which is like totally you know i mean it might help a little bit you know but you know you know or i'll get a lot of calls you know a week before the race or a couple weeks for the race and really you know i think the most important thing is people you know doing the reps you know you're starting way earlier six months earlier now this is six months out from uh the leadville hundred bike and hundred run so we're just coming to it right now so let's get started well i i kind of use the same analogy right you wouldn't do physical training or you wouldn't incorporate new physical training six weeks out from a race at least you shouldn't like you shouldn't be doing high intensity intervals for the first time six weeks out from the race or increasing your volume to some absurd level six weeks out from the race or even starting training to really like accentuate the analogy right starting training six weeks out from the event you see athletes that do that and they're usually not all that successful in there unless they're ridiculously talented but the

same thing is is on any kind of intervention right you can talk about strength training intervention i wouldn't do that six start that six weeks out from the from the event i wouldn't let me let me repeat that i wouldn't start that six weeks out from the event if you're doing it certainly doing it throughout the through the event is fine nutrition interventions we need to be figuring that out at this point of at this point of the year and not in just the last you know few few weeks i've had a number of uh really high quality nutritionists reach out to me recently saying hey this is the time of year that we need to start this stuff so it all kind of goes in line right it's repetition and you create you created this this course and this framework that you're starting to apply across not only your athletes but athletes that you know you may or may not work with on the physical side to to to to to give the to give this this uh hey start now some teeth right right so it's not just you know kind of throwing it in the wind and it's almost periodized to a certain extent so i kind of first want to know like like like what motivated you to to to start to draw this out in a quite quite a literal fashion well you know i mean it was you know you know kind of like i mentioned it really six years ago you know five six years no i can't i'm losing track of time now um with covid so it was it was about six years ago you know just learning this idea of you know periodized mental skills of

course i knew about periodization but i was like oh wait a second you can periodize these things and then i you know just going through the research seeing a need where you see in the research they'll do an intervention six weeks out before a race and then the results are kind of you know you know you know but you know you see in the comments there the results will say well what we found out six months later is that they were still using these skills so here you know so you got six weeks and then six months later wow they're still using self-talk you know still practicing this so does that help then um i you know sitting in our discussions or wednesday night discussions or reviewing them you know afterwards i you know we we hear you know a lot about the physiology and physiological testing and i you know i think about that in regards to ultra runners and like well wait a second you know why aren't we doing this uh you know mental skills on top of all that you know doesn't take you know 10 minutes you know you know let's 10 20 minutes to talk about self-talk or imagery and um so that you know i was like that really got to me you know i was like let's let's put that together so um looking at it's for a long time just trying to decipher what would be a periodized mental skills and then you know it and then i wanted let's do a training let's do a six-week training let's do something before the everyone needs it in july and august in july and

august and you know let's put this together so yeah i could tell you more so so no let's get into it so putting it together you decided to illustrate in a pyramid which is what we see a lot in periodized schemes right it's a pyramid yeah with the base and it goes to a peak and it has five different um five different types of mental skills kind of layered on top of each other and i'm going to ask you to describe it for those of you that are watching the youtube version i'm going to periodically bring in this image that you guys can take a look at it will also be available uh on my website Jason Koop.com and you i'll refer people to your website as well neil that we can that you can give right now and we'll i'll have it linked up in the in the show notes as well but just to just to set the stage for you these five skills that you have kind of like layered on top of each other from the base of the pyramid to the top are motivation mindfulness emotional regulation imagery self-talk and focus in that order from bottom to top and the one of the reasons i'm extremely curious about this is kind of the order and why one comes before the other and why once it's on the base and once it's on the peak so first off like how did you get to this pyramid structure why is motivation on the bit on the base of it and then it goes through the rest of these and why it's kind of focused on the peak yeah so motivation is a foundation right it has to be the foundation of what you're doing and

and so that that is why simply why it's at the bottom and there cannot be holes in your motivation you know it has to be rock solid why why are you doing this you know and so that that's one of the reasons why motivation is right there you know and it's yeah and i have a lot of different pieces to that what motivation is you know and uh you know why we're doing this really why are we doing this activity but i you know i i look at it as has to be values driven it has to be autonomy focused you have to be connected to people have support have feel like you're getting a sense of mastery or competence and it really should be intrinsic versus extrinsic but extrinsic can be okay too once in a while and you know the other piece of it is in the middle of a race if you're not feeling that motivation action itself can yield the motivation so getting out and moving can actually kind of yield that motive you know yield that motivation um so that really is the you know the um the rationale for having motivation in there um without it you know why why are you doing so why are you getting up every morning at 4 a.m to go on this run why are you starting your race at 4 a.m and why are you still running it to it you know i mean all these absurd times like what is the point of all this

well it's absolutely absurd and you know when i i can go off for a while about that you know even thinking back to my own races of like you know what is my motivation i had to think for a while of you know you know there's people you know some people say you got to have this big why they're like well look for a big why the only thing i can think of is it's fun and i like having an adventure you know and um and i love i love chatting with people i love talking to people and i was thinking about this at javelina recently and uh where ajw was trying to kick me out of uh the aid station and i was like i'm talking this is what i like to do i'm having fun i'll make it you know so it's um that's you know that's the rationale for motivation okay you know why you know let let's stick there and kind of peel it apart a little bit since it's at the base and then maybe we'll take this kind of like layer by layer athletes always kind of want to know like like how do i get motivated for things like what's my why what's my purpose and things like that as you're you're a practitioner on the other end of this quite frequently where you're taking athletes through this how do you how do you help them how do you guide them in the right direction so that they're centered around this correctly yeah so you know really kind of taking a look at why did you get into this sport in the first place what about this what value maybe personal value is is driving this is it is it because it's fun running is it because you enjoy exploring you know running around the woods for a day and a half

or three days or four days um is it i you know really what i would almost ask them to do and you know probably you know definitely in my course is ask you to kind of write in dirt how did you get involved in this you know you know what is your story you know what what brought you to this um do you get a sense of mastery doing this you know i mean usually if someone's you know getting to the hundred mile they're they're they're kind of enjoying you know they're enjoying the the gradual build of you know mastery of a skill of competence oh yeah this is enjoyable this and and going back to a value this is a value of challenge and okay so let's draw those things out let's remember those things why am i doing this you might also have the you know a big why maybe you're doing it you know uh in memory of someone or maybe you're doing it um you know to raise money for cancer um sometimes those could be really extrinsic and not necessarily you know if you you really have to strongly be attached to that you know and i i tried searching for why's like that and i was like well i i have trouble attaching to something like that so why am i doing this because i love running around in the woods and this is fun you know and there's a there's a twisted amount of fun in this right but it's all gonna be different like that you know you know what is you know you know you know and uh but there's

also this you know for me you know and and for others is who your connections out there you know oh man i just love you know i'm running next to somebody and start chatting it up with somebody that's so much fun um seeing other athletes um that are out there that i might know or recognize hey you know how's it going you know and that's fun um that's what brings draws me to this but everyone's going to be different find out what that what's powerful for you there what is going to what is that thing that you know that's like yeah this is what's what's taking you around the next corner you know what's taking over the next hill it seems like it's a kind of a really deliberate process i guess is what i'm trying to get at is is you just don't like wake up with it you've got to go through the internal dialogue yourself and say what's meaningful to me absolutely what's meaningful to me you know why is that meaningful you know and it doesn't have to be like super elaborate yeah you know have a good idea what it is now some people just they know immediately you know and i love i love the competition i love running around outside great okay let's let's remember that why you're getting up every morning what do you say to to people who have a hard time finding where this base is because it is so important right and you're starting here for a reason you're starting here you know for its importance right it's got to kind of everything but everything's got to lay on

a foundation yeah when people get when people have a stumbling block over this i'm not motivated or i don't know what motivates me to do this right what do you specifically do to kind of crack that code i think i think that's where that narrative comes out when did you start this you know when did you not not this questioning but when did you start running what did you feel what emotions did you feel when you first started running you know when you first got on the trail when you're out on a trail for three or four hours what emotions are you feeling and it might be suffering you know but it might there might be other things in there that kind of supercharge it like your dopamine you're feeling that rush you know you're feeling experiencing some flow and so what is it that you know if you can you know and we have to kind of tease out what those words are for people because some people might not you know what is that emotion oh yeah you know you know talking to someone the other day is like what did you smell out there you know what did you you know oh yeah the furs you know oh yeah you know yeah i was able to see you know a deer you know feel like i'm out there all alone and that just gives me a sense of freedom but it's really tapping into those emotions they're there but you know sometimes they're you know a little push back it's almost like an origin story that's kind of how i was how i'm

listening to it like if you kind of go back to hey i first started running and i felt this and then i kept running because i kept feeling that this or that or maybe it changed a little bit that's kind of the way that i that when i'm listening to you that's kind of like the key to unlocking it absolutely you know what's your origin story and even if it's changed a little bit go back to your most recent run what did you enjoy about that you know because it's going to change i mean motivation you know and i'm working on a blog um with one of our other coaches uh patrick um you know on you know on taking a dnf and you're looking at motivation as dynamic you know motivation's gonna change yeah yeah it's not gonna start the same thing you loved 20 years ago isn't necessarily you know the same thing you're gonna love today you know yeah it's just the way it is you know okay so we've got motivation as as the base right next rung up the pyramid is mindfulness skills and out of everything out there this is kind of like the most buzzy right everybody wants totally buzzy everybody wants mindfulness practice meditative practice and things like that yeah so take the listeners through what you mean by mindfulness skills and why this comes next so you know what i'm referring to is you know first of all being present right here right now and what we're doing

sometimes if you're able to do this is observe our thoughts observe our experience where we are thoughts feelings sensations non-judgmentally and we're going to return to the present moment and some people are able to do this really really well you know and not even know that they're doing this have you said are you doing mindfulness oh okay were you lost in your thoughts not really i was right you know kind of right here looking at the trails kind of following you know chasing down you know these other runners okay you were really mindful and really present right here right now does a mindfulness mindfulness practice helps and puts energy to this right and it gives you the tool starting early and practicing this practicing it while you're running practicing it you know in the morning when you wake up practice it while you're washing washing dishes you know that can help you to you know to develop those skills if you need you know to enhance them later on because some people you know may not have that i guarantee you well i don't want to guarantee anything but it was like all of a sudden there's you know i'm writing checks to coop here um so the i guarantee you though if you were to you know do you know there's um there there are tests of mindfulness out there you

know these uh psycho psychometric tests that you can give people and i always guarantee you that some of you you know the the elite of the elite um you know folks are winning some of the big races you're pretty mindful even though they may not say they practice mindfulness or something um you know i would almost guarantee that they're having the ability to kind of okay go through this some of this stuff really quickly not even think about it and go i i swear i see people get hooked up is when they're getting hooked on those thoughts and getting pushed around push around by those thoughts and that's causing problems yeah i noticed the same thing that a lot of athletes they are mindful but they're not deliberately practicing mindfulness when they're actually out on a run and it's because it's like it's it's an intentional act and especially the really good ones as you just mentioned they're not going through the motions when they're out there training that's part of what makes them extremely good is they're deliberate within their practice they don't necessarily make the connection uh you know i i give a example in my book of a mindfulness practice just when you're folding your clothes right can you feel the buttons what does the fabric feel like is there a crease is there a seam can you feel the stitching on it as you're folding it and like those kind of things they almost like when you present it to some people it almost seems kind of silly but there's there's a translation out to the competition field that happens when you do those things in a normal environment for you is you know washing the

dishes and we can give you know five or six other different examples but when you can take them in a normal environment and then extrapolate into the in the competitive field that actually makes you just that it just makes it that much more powerful yeah oh totally and if you can build off that so yeah learning to fold your clothes maybe eating a raisin you've probably heard about the the raisin mindfulness experience you're eating some candy or something go through the raisin thing let's not skip over that okay yeah let's not skip over that okay so a really you know a really good um mindfulness uh tool you know or mindfulness um meditation even uh is to get a piece of food maybe it's a raisin um i had somebody with a piece of candy last night you know and what what you're doing very much like when you talk about unfolding your clothes is you know you're first looking at that raisin let me see if i could show this to the cameras you're looking at that raisin here or i should you know i should show this to one of these bolts that i've got here shout out to probe our bolts sorry about that sorry about that um hey yeah i know you don't talk about sponsors i buy them hey i just eat them and the problem is is i don't eat a mindful so what should you do let's go through the exercise so let's go to the exercise so you're taking this piece of raisin and just looking at with curiosity and maybe looking at you know the wrinkles noticing

the colors you know what you know what you know it's brown or black or what what shades is it you know flip it over and look at it um and study it very curiously yeah and the next step may be actually smelling it you know can you smell the raisin what does it smell like what does it remind you of you know and you're doing this you're taking a very slow time doing this and you're doing this with intention and very curiously um and you know as i'm talking about this you may even have some thoughts going through your head you know and those thoughts may just pass there they may be really loud but come back to the raisin come back to that and the next step would be actually eating putting the raisin in your mouth and tasting it and enjoying it for a moment what flavors do you sense what do you sense your mouth doing how are you engaging with that the transference occurs so that's that's kind of the my mindfulness of a raisin exercise in a very very short abbreviated version but the transfer is okay you're out on the trail right now what do you notice what do you hear you know what what sounds do you what do you smell you know what do you feel on your feet do you feel your body do you feel your legs do you feel internally do you feel your legs burning you feel your lungs do you hear your your um

your breathing do you hear the wind uh do you hear the wind in the trees what is the temperature on your skin do you feel moist you know you feel sweaty or clammy or you know what does it feel like so you're coming back to that present moment and engaging you know yesterday we were you know with michelle doing a physiological you know physiology testing there and uh in the headquarters you know um at cts and someone asked me is what would you tell her right now there's nothing you know what what if she's able to engage in the present moment right then and there and be able to focus on what where she is and what she can control instead of this really hurts and i'm hurting really bad then that's going to be a distraction but if you can come back to right here right now that's going to give you a little bit more power and you're going to be able to control a little bit more um and so getting back to that idea why is mindfulness second that leads to everything else once you're mind you know that once you're once you're once you're aware then you can move through that now some people like i said are you know they're really mindful they can just go right up and down that uh right right down that so i i think i think people will start to see how mindful and mindfulness runs through the rest of them when we start to actually do that because the next one is emotional regulation right and um the first thing that

comes to my mind when i think of emotional regulation is you're running down the trail you catch your toe on a rock you superman across the trail and you immediately start cursing and throw your water bottle down and your water bottle busts and now you're mad about the water bottle and the fact that you tripped and then you look at your knee and your knee is scraped and now you're mad that your knee is scraped and your water bottle is broken and you've just fallen somebody passes you and now you're mad that somebody saw this whole ordeal and you're losing your temper on the middle of the trail and just this big snowball of emotions that is cascading down the hill in this negative fashion that's what i think of it but i'm gonna like turn it over to you like emotional regulation like what is it and how do how do we work yeah well that's that's a great example because it's um you know you know i remember seeing you know i'm sitting in winfield for leadville and just seeing people kind of coming through at leadville and and are coming through at winfield and just you know oh you know i'm yelling at their yelling at their um uh crew and i need this and i said dude you're not gonna make it you know you know and so and also think about it as the start of a race leadville is a really great example because they get you pumped up yeah they don't all right you know it's you you got to get down and great you know get really gritty here you know and everyone's amped up that gun goes off and they rock it down the boulevard you know and

they're going seven seven minute miles and by you know by may queen they're walking you know exactly anybody who's ever been out to UTMB notices the same thing but it's even more hilarious because there's so many people normally you're just like walking for 30 minutes and so you've got all this like adrenaline from the music and you know the atmosphere and things like that and then you have to emotionally regulate right because your activity level is pretty low your effort level is pretty low so you know arousal control is the next step so first of all kind of going back to that mindfulness we're going to jump back up there is you need to be aware of what's going on what are you what are your thoughts what do you what is your what are the sensation inside oh yeah i'm getting amped up i always get amped up at the start of races all right what do i do and one of the first things i tell people to do is let's take you know it and this all depends on the race this is 5k it's gonna be a little bit different it's a you know it's a hundred yard dash it's gonna be a lot different um and so i am trying to regulate that emotion so hey i've got 100 miles to go i'm going to slow everything down here and i'm gonna you know and what i might do is take it you know take a deep breath and slow breath diaphragmatic breath letting your lungs fill up you know maybe five seconds in or six seconds in and slow breath out seven seconds out um or i may suggest some other things like square breathing which is four seconds in and a four second hold

four seconds out slow down getting the aid stations it's great you know i'll always recommend it's like okay this is the place where you can take that deep breath you can take a deep breath there you know do a leg swing you know do you know i i my hips are i'm getting old and so i have to loosen up my hips every time i get to an aid station and i'll do that and that resets that arousal because you get into the aid stations and sometimes some of those places are like yeah get out of here your twin legs you know when you run you grab your shoes you know that you know i forgot everything so slow it down you know so slow it down you know and this is where that those skills could be tremendous now yeah okay the other side of that is higher arousal right 90 miles into the race oh man that would have been great for me had someone reminded me at um um um yeah well most of my race is at 80 miles so you know at 80 miles um um okay let's let's amp up a little bit you know maybe take a few quick breaths okay this is you know this is your football player here you know we're getting ready yeah this is the time to finish this thing off okay and so getting amped up a little bit may be okay but it all depends you got to find your you know optimal zone you know the optimal zone of functioning is kind of what it's been called and um and just really just kind of being in your zone what is that optimal level of excitement and non-excitement for you everyone is different everyone has a

different level of that i am different than you know where everybody's you know and um and so finding that for you is is critical so that's my question because i have a hard time figuring this out with athletes and as you know i go to a lot of races with athletes and kind of one of my jobs is the emotional regulation within the aid station and it's kind of this it's one of those things where you try to learn about it a little bit uh in advance just from working with the athlete but then when you get there in real time you default to the second thing that you mentioned right like the hype right and many times that's a mismatch right when you need to kind of like bring in you need to help them bring their emotional regulation down so how do athletes go about figuring out what is optimal for them if it is an individual thing like how do we go and train these things to figure out how to deploy them in the race situations that you just mentioned self-awareness i think self-awareness is key so this is where you're writing that stuff down in training peaks or your personal journal or wherever you know what are the what what worked for you on the smaller races you know i mean after every race you know do you know do your race report for you so you don't have to put it out there on a blog or anything if you might but you know what is your race but what worked for you what was your not just you know okay this gel work and this you know this what what was you what mindset worked for you what you

know yeah you know when i started this race you know i just remember being just really calm and composed um you know i think i think back to some of the races that i didn't finish and i was like and some of those you may have been too low arousal right you know may have been too low um and it's like you know i was really tired the night before and i get my sleep like why am i getting up at three o'clock in the morning you know and so noticing reflecting on that stuff writing that stuff down you know the races that i've been really successful at is just kind of yeah yeah that my mindset was right in that place and if you notice that you know reflect on that write it down even the shorter races your 5k's your 10k's your half marathons your 50k's write that stuff down get really clear this is where going back to that narrative can be really helpful um and then that's how do we replicate that you know because that's you you know especially you know at an elite level is you got there for a reason and now it's figuring out how do we replicate some of the good stuff and kind of you know you know take out some of the stuff that wasn't too high i i look a lot i look at that along the exact same lines when i do race debriefs with athletes and i try to take the most meticulous notes in the in this area where were you running really good and what were the things around that where you were running

really well during the race and then if you did have a low point what got you into that low point and then what kind of got you out and then using that those kind of two patterns as the blueprint for teaching the athlete how to how to emotionally regulate in a future circumstance because in an ultra you you you've already kind of uh you've already kind of gone over this aspect you have the opportunity to go through this cycle more than a few times right just because of the duration of the race and you know you mentioned ludville and how all these aid stations work out and stuff like that like but it's not just 100 milers i mean even a marathon right marathon or even short distance triathlon you have the opportunity to kind of go through these cycles sure and and it it's not just i'm always going to be low arousal i'm always going to be high arousal i'm always going to be the hype right for everybody or i'm always going to be like even keel like with with in many cases maybe not all in many cases it's regulating that throughout the course of event to the correct extent right right you know like the thing and i think you can divide almost any race up into this is composed consistent and then compete and kind of these three c's is i love this you know okay you start in this race even a 5k you know start composed you know you start composed you want to be consistent and then you know you get in the last third of the race compete and get last you know mile 70 you know 60 or 70 of

100 yeah let's let's turn it on a little bit you know it's time you know time to wake up get some coffee and go you know but early on you need to be composed the first 20 30 miles you need to be composed and how are you going to do that what is that going to look like um and i i just identify the little pieces of that for you and and that's why this takes six months and not six weeks this is this is start now you got these races in june july and august and september start now so so they're chronic adaptations not a cute adaptations that's what we would say in physiology right exactly they're chronic adaptations you know and you know these are neural nervous system pathways we've got to bring together so you get it wired so you get it dialed in you're wired okay so let's move let's move up the pyramid again just to recap for everybody we've got motivation at the base mindfulness skills next emotional regulation after that and this next one which i think a lot of people like almost kind of default to this like they just go right up they just go right up the pyramid to this one and that's imagery and self-talk yeah yeah well i'm going to put self-talk and imagery so okay and so there's a reason very i was very intentional about that um is putting self-talk and then imagery um so self-talk you know is what am i saying to myself what is my mind telling me right

now you know what do you know and well the reason for the self-talk in front is a lot of people that you know may not be able to you know right away have images in their minds and so they're going to default to the thoughts and the self-talk that they're having so let's let's go there first and then we can kind of develop imagery and for some people it can take a longer time to actually develop that skill so what am i saying to myself and i like to say is it helpful and do i need to use it it can be positive self-talk and oh yeah sometimes positive self-talk can be too much right and sometimes it takes a lot of energy to to create that it to hook on to that positive self-talk so maybe maybe it's just a matter of you know this is a big word that it's kind of comes from acceptance commitment therapy or or um or psychological flexibility is diffusing from that self-talk so if you have a lot of automatic negative talk or unhelpful talk is it is that going to work but also creating some of that positive self-talk can be helpful and if you find it helpful and find what works for you starting early this is where it's key that in that motivational self-talk fluctuating between motivational you know psyching yourself up you know using kind of in third person terms you got this you know you're strong um yeah it's time to push it you know using a mantra you know uh yeah i i had this great mantra

a couple you know years years ago already now um um um let it go uh you probably heard you probably heard you saw the movie frozen stop it stop it stop it the river's gonna help out their head oh no you don't want me to start singing it you know and you know i had a four-year-old daughter at the time and you know and so i'm playing this is all you know and this is great you know i'm running the boston marathon this is it you know and i've got this mantra and someone holds up a sign let it go bum bum bum you know it's like yeah you know that's it you know but i get i get emotional you know okay whatever works for you you might not it might not be let it go it might be you know you know whatever you know you got to come up with that term for yourself to find it and you've got to test it out not a week before the race you need to bring it with you on your long runs you need to write it somewhere um you know i'll have i'll have athletes write things down on a note card just sitting by their gels at the aid station so you got a crew out there you get the gels okay look at my note card okay let's go grab this um yeah put it on your water bottle and put it where you're going to see it not it's not going to get smeared up you know by all the goo and the water that's on you so you're using that to get yourself psyched up so create these in you know create these instruction instructional self-talk is just just that you know maybe it's like something like stand tall move your feet you know um it could be all right let's push ourselves to that next glow stick at night you know let's go

three more clips three more clips you know let's go and um and you know that could be instructional like that um but in order to get there you have to be aware that you are hooked on the negative self talk so this is coming back to the mindfulness skills because you're not going to be able to just like magically well you know oh make this go away you know it's not going to go away you know be aware of your talk what can i use now can i use motivational self-talk okay if that works for me or maybe i just diffuse from this and really become really present and keep focusing on moving forward so you see a lot of athletes and i've taken this strategy as well use the note card strategy that you just mentioned earlier they'll have their like mantras on there yeah but i get the sense not with everybody but with a lot of people that they did that the night before the race and almost like a hail mary type of approach like what am i gonna need to tell myself when things go awry oh my god it's this thing i heard from david goggins and then they write it down on a note card they stuff it on their water bottle in their pack like it's gonna be some like magic elixir or something like that it's totally it's totally right on i mean you know and that's and that's the thing i mean you know they may or may not be doing that but um you know and i know for myself i've done that you know i'm like this doesn't work let it go with something that i had for months and months and months and that's the thing is you know you've got to practice now practice now test it out test make me do your

test strategies the same way you're testing you like okay you got your goo or you got your scratch or whatever you know whatever your nutritional strategy is what you need to be starting to develop your self-talk strategy you know and you know again i i like to kind of you know emphasize there yeah sometimes this is helpful and sometimes diffusing from you know the negative self-talk and really focusing on just becoming present it can be equally as helpful because if you're trying to force something that's not there you're using energy that you don't have and anytime you you start using extra mental energy you're taking away from the race so i want to talk on another aspect that's it's kind of tangentially related to that that i'm kind of fascinated by it my colleague um jt kearney who was really influential in my in my coaching career he would call this dissociative enthusiasm so being enthusiastic irrespective of what the situation was calling for right and the way that he would describe it to me is is you can get away with that with an athlete maybe once may like maybe maybe want maybe once like so once is the maximum amount of times and then if that enthusiasm or optimism or whatever else you want to however else you want to call it if it's not rooted in some reality or not it's not kind of like deliberate or if it's dissociated from reality to use his vocabulary

yeah it actually becomes a negative reinforcement loop because the athletes are smart they like under they understand that in whatever moment in time you're telling them that they're awesome good yeah yeah they understand they understand that they're not yeah they understand that they're not awesome at the time like you can't you can't kind of fool them i want to get your like perspective on the balance of this because our natural tendency is we want to pump people up like we want to like make them feel good about themselves totally totally well i mean you know and it's just that it's just that because then you start um fighting it right then then you're getting into this contingency you know where your mind is going no it's not i'm not super positive right now and i am not you know at any time you know i you know this is where i you know i love thinking about you know energy not just for your body you know but but for the other part of your body this big part of your body right here your mind okay so when we think about calories it's not just to move forward it's to make this work okay and if i'm using if i'm just trying to fight something and push it away you know or i'm fighting it because it's like you know i think i think of the term toxic positivity and over you know over positivity like that that at times can be unhelpful you know and so we got to regulate that for the athlete and for yourself what works for you i don't want to you know i don't want to be a downer here you know but i mean optimism

is good you know i will say that yeah but it's you got to develop you got to regulate that what is good for you you know and okay yeah hey guys you know i really appreciate when you say this to me you know that's why you're talking to your crew um this is you know i appreciate when you say this to me that helps me a lot have that communication beforehand that's why you as a coach you know if you're sitting there black canyon next week what works for you you know i'll have a runner come in there i'm going to ask her this week you know what's going to work for you when i'm out there you know mile 20 you know you got 40 left you know what's going to help you here um you know so i am there you know for her um so yeah thinking that that way you know i mean i i just think that sometimes we get it's really easy to get hooked on this idea that you know a positive is good positive is good and it is but there's a balance on there there's a balance that you need to regulate that it's like is this too much energy that i'm that's that's not where i'm at right now okay well it's how do we refocus though how do we diffuse from that you know whatever you know if you're in a negative space how do we diffuse from that and come back to right here right now there we go back down the line from this so in terms of like figuring out what works i i try to draw that out in the training process when things go good and things go bad because the training process it's kind of like it's always a mirror image of the not always but the vast majority of cases it's like a mirror image of the race if your

training is very it has all these undulations in it like peaks and valleys the race is probably going to have that if your training is really consistent right and you're just kind of like nailing everything the race is probably going to be pretty consistent not without flaws but but pretty consistent and to your point of like how like how can i help you i try to draw that out during the training process whenever there is something hey listen this is really good like tell me why it was really good okay how can i help you like understand that it was really good and the same thing on the other side hey this week was really bad like let's pull yourself out of this how can i help you pull yourself out of this and kind of like use those as like the race cues almost yeah oh that totally makes sense yeah i mean absolutely you know you know you've done that you've done that work already and so utilizing that again here we go six weeks six months out and i use it again that you've got that relationship and you've got that rapport with that athlete so all right let's let you hey this is this remember when we did this in training yeah this is this is where we are right now yeah so the other part of this rung of the pyramid or leg of the pyramid is imagery right so we talked a lot about self-talk like here this is how i'm this is how i'm going to talk to myself how does imagery fold into this how does imagery fold into this particular leg so you know imagery you know or really visual representations of you know what you're doing you could create your own little movie you know in your

head and you know for some races you could actually maybe even like watch youtube videos of first person you know i did this for the leadville 100 bike is you could actually look for look at first person you know level 100 clips um you know what's it like to go down power line so you you're creating your own highlight reel and um with some athletes i'll have them you know like mountain bikers okay you know we're going to put your gopro on and you're going to go through those sections that you have trouble with and uh you know have heavier make them make music to it you know and then i want you to watch it and then i want you to replay it in your mind you know what was that what did that feel like what did what was you know we're going to kind of go back to this mindfulness process again too is what did this feel like what it was the sensations on your body when you're doing this now you could do a reel over a gopro i'm just this is my gopro here you know or you can write a script out you know and you know go through step by step not you know not a hundred mile race because that might be a few thousand pages go through go you know go through sections where you think you may struggle or sections you know because it's the good sections that you know you may not need to do this with you know you know start to make you know you know or maybe the start of a race you know what does that look like what do you want to

look like what do you want to feel like how do you want to you know how do you want to be during this experience write that out as a script um and this is i mean it's interesting as i'm thinking about this this is your uh ability once you become mindful then you can actually move towards that vision you know once you're you know like oh yeah this is oh yeah now we practice this a couple of days now this isn't something you do a week before the race this is something you do now and start building that writing some of those scripts out you know maybe it's you know you don't have to do like a 20 minute script do five minutes it doesn't have it doesn't have to be a lord of the rings uh jackson movie not a novel just one page you know i see myself but you know go through different scenarios oh you know i i got i got out there and i forgot my favorite gel you know and now what am i going to do how am i going to respond to this and um but you go through just like we did in the mindfulness of the raisin go through the physical sensations go through you know what is it doing outside what is it you know what are your friends saying to you what is your crew saying to you what does that feel like to be that runner right here right now and that's your highlight reel yeah practice that here so okay let's help people start with this though because i think a lot of people

you get to the peter l jackson reference ultra marathon's a long right that's a long script that you can pick different points of imagery from and a big heart as you know right a big hurdle for athletes that are trying to deploy specifically this imagery strategy is is like what like what should i imagine like well like what should it be should it be an aid station should like you said the start line like can you kind of give some direction on like if you were to pick one thing where would they actually start so you know i mean let's let's find the crux of the race find the crux of the race what are the crux so it's the power line climb coming back uh in leadville that's the crux of the race uh so the most important thing that's kind of where you're getting at the most important yeah you find find those most important sections okay um you know where might you have trouble you know so i'm so that might be you know you know leadville um i have lead i do level a lot um and so you know i think the power line climb i think about going up a pass from winfield what does that look like what does that feel like you know what are you doing how what is the athlete that you want to be look like here and then you know write that down in your script you know maybe if it's a professional athlete maybe it is you know in the later stages of the race and you know you're either leading the race or you just got passed by somebody how do you want to respond you want to respond going ah you know or

do you want to respond like all right here we go the chase is on let's go you know and what does that look like what are you physically doing at this point so i mean here's what's really cool about this right if we kind of like move through the the order of skills the way you would start that it's almost the opposite of the mindfulness side of things where you're picking something mundane and even outside of the competitive environment washing the dishes looking at your raisin or your pro popolts you know or folding your clothes like we mentioned like those are things that are not related to the context of sport for the for the imagery side of things you're deliberately picking something within the sport that is that is impactful not just like tying my shoes going to the start line like something that's actually going to be impactful something that's going to be impactful and you set it up so you know it could be just a um could be just something that is yeah i want to you know how i want to finish this race what do i want to look like so that's that's kind of easy to do we all want to be like you know doing that right yeah i can never do a heel click don't even ask me to do that but the it's going to trying to create that challenging situation for you you know okay you know your quads are beat up you know your feet are just just trashed how do you want to respond to this what do you want to look

like here and this is yeah this is taking that mindfulness three steps up here it's like okay this is how i'm going to be able to visualize this this is something you know like i like like i said this is the reason why self-talk kind of comes beforehand is because we can kind of hear thoughts in our heads movements so for some people some people not all you know it could be a little bit more challenging to get that image in and so practicing with smaller things you know um you know practicing you know okay what's it like just standing outside you know when i practice imagery i i'm you know for this for the five minute script i might be standing up and if is it you know as if i'm running or i might even go through it in my head as i'm running you know that there is a strong connection to that physical um stance that you're in uh to the actual experience you know and i tell every athlete this you know in regards to imagery years ago i was learning a kayak and um i had a video i had a vhs video this says how old i am um um if you have this video um and we had put in and it would show you how to roll a kayak and someone was asking why are you doing you know what you know what's the purpose of that and i was able to roll the kayak before i was able to get you know got got in the kayak into the water and that's because i had that whole thing down that i would sit there you know on the tv set you know and you do my

whole kayak roll and and that helped me tremendously develop that you know the same thing with you know other professional sports basketball football they're visual they'll go through these you know visualizations or imagery of you know throwing that touchdown pass throwing that pass and going through their plays and then they've got it all wired in i uh i heard i listened to this uh really famous mma fighter the long time fans of the podcast will know i'm a big mma fan and uh he was vitor belfort and after he retired he was a he was a prolific uh uh fighter maybe you know five years ago or something like that five or eight years ago and her i heard him on this podcast talking about uh imagery and he said what one of the things that he would do in practice for his imagery practice is position or is to to visualize himself in the worst position possible that his opponent could put him in so he's in his opponents what you know say it's a guillotine choke right his opponent is really famous for a guillotine choke he's in his opponent's guillotine choke up against the cage in the worst position possible where it's a 99 you know chance where he's going to get finished and he and he visualizes himself getting out of that step by step first i'm going to do this and then i'm going to do this and then i'm going to do this other thing and then i'm going to do this other thing but the point of it all was for him it was the worst possible scenario right and how can i can i actually

image myself can i actually actually visualize myself getting out of the worst position possible and have somewhat of a successful outcome and to your point right like yeah i mean it's like because you can do it in your mind and it's never as bad in reality most of the time it's not as bad in in reality and you have some blueprint yeah totally that's i mean that's exactly it imagine yourself you know you know if you're a professional runner uh you know or even you know someone who's trying to get a sub 25 or a 24-hour you know belt buckle you know for a 100-mile race is is visualizing that i always do this i mean actually i visualize that clock um for the leadville 100 bike and like yeah and i'm getting down and i'm just you know i'm doing on my trainer and i'm just going you know and that wow well you know my ftp you know just shot up you'd have 300 watts i mean it's it's in that that's exactly it you know you practice those scenarios over and over and over again in your mind yeah so for like a gold like let's make this realistic to an ultra marathon uh right so for like a golden hour finisher coming into a aid station at mile 80 right against the cutoffs because that's kind of likely right for for a golden hour finisher to kind of press the cutoffs right there if you've done it in your mind in training how am i going to react got five minutes to go to leave the aid station how am i

going to react these are the five things i'm going to do when you encounter it in reality you're like oh yeah i've been here even though you really haven't like physically you haven't been there but mentally you have so you grab your jowls grab your water yeah go but if you haven't rehearsed that in your head that's where you see the panic right and you've seen this like happen you've seen people panic when they really don't need to see the may queen you see it twin lakes you see it in outward bound you know it's you know whatever race you know yeah whatever race you're doing you know with big horn it was um uh you know i can't remember the name last name of the aid station dry creek or um but yeah i mean that's it's exactly it yeah you know you you rehearse that you know what you're doing let's go cool all right let's go up the pyramid the point is the point of the pointy part of it it's focus yeah so this is the final part i mean you know in the in the reality is um um this this is it um i'm kind of getting my notes out here where's your attention you know what are you focused on you know this is this ultimately it's critical because if you are focused right now on all the stuff that's going on upstairs you know this person just passed me what your mind is telling you um that race is going to be really really challenging if you are able to focus your attention on what those things are that you can control right now

that could be something and i use these terms narrow broad internal and external i can you know and i can go over those really briefly is you know we we think of our attention as being either inside of ourselves or outside of ourselves internally externally and then there's a narrow focus of you know i you know you know that that cut of my arm i really focused into you know that or the broad or the you know or you know overall internally you know yeah it's okay you know i feel pretty loose right now you know this is this is the way to feel or externally it might be you know what you know what broad it might be what the weather is doing or narrow it might be you know i need to get to that next tree i need to get up this next 50 foot what is my focus where am i how am i directing how am i narrowing that down or i need to pass that i need to catch that runner how am i going to do that and how am i going to okay let's move let's focus on the movement forward right now again you're you know i feel even thinking about this as the thoughts coming up in my head oh yeah what if what ah focus you know yeah you know i love watching um over kai and the karate kid movies you know and mr miyagi was you know focus daniel son you know and that was x that was totally it you know because you know daniel uh daniel la russo was caught up in

his head you know and he's like ah you know they're gonna be right focus you know and okay what we do we just emotionally regulated now we're coming up the ladder here to this paying attention to what i need to do and you know these are the controllables um you know the greater control you know focus is the greater likelihood of success so if you're able to control that or manage that focus it's going to be hard you know we talked about kind of think about energy it's like yeah that focus is kind of fading um sometimes you know you know and i know you've talked about associative and dissociative focus and i think that too is very helpful knowing when to switch it on and switch it off what do i need to focus outside of myself right now what do i know i need to focus maybe just kind of checking out you know you know i had an athlete who was like uh she's training for cocodona and she was like i don't know i was just i practiced association neil you know and just listening to the music and that was it was perfect because you're gonna have 250 miles of it's hard to maintain narrow associative focus for 250 miles but i mean some people can do it i kind of view this almost like so when you look at all these i almost view it as like interval training right like you want to be able to switch between if i want to use the interval training analogy high intensity for short periods of time medium intensity for medium periods of time and low

intensity for long periods of time and here you want to be able to switch from narrow focus for certain periods of time broad focus for certain period of time internal for certain periods time and external based on what the situation kind of dictates and i almost prescribe it i don't almost i do i kind of prescribe it like that you know like hey for two minutes focus on how your foot feels okay let's switch on so yeah and that's all it takes like a couple minutes two minutes you know you don't the thing is is you know it's uh practicing it just a little take five minutes to practice any of this on a run okay so you're you're going on your run don't don't you know try to spend the whole day doing it because then you're just like you're not paying attention to the run you're not focused on the run and so take five minutes ten minutes of your workout to just you know practice some of this stuff and switch on and off and like okay oh yeah i was like enjoying that pizza just a minute ago um you know so dissociative focus is really kind of checking you know i i kind of describe it as checking out kind of going into your head listening to your music miles kind of go by where associative is you are focused on really the present where you are right here right now and we kind of talk about that a little bit but you can control that um and not being focused on how my what my mind is telling me what my mind is how my mind is pushing me around because if you're focused on that you're not focused on what you could control and switching between those two is this like that i

think is the hero skill i think that's like the like the mr miyagi you know ask thing if you can intentionally say i'm going to apply some associated focus here and some dissociative focus over here based on what's going to make you run and not just check out the whole time like we mentioned coming down and i just put my ear just not put my my headphones in for all 250 miles and just be oblivious to everything that is easier said than done because we think that checking out is easy but at some point you have to check back in and learning when and why to check out is a way harder skill than a lot of people give credit for oh yeah i mean this is this is where reviewing your race you know maybe even reviewing okay even taking a short section and okay where where's the best place you know put my headphones well you know mile 30 to mile 60 you know great you know when you know when do i need this take this away from me you know make sure you take this away from me now because this is when i need to focus mile 80 someone take away my headphones okay this is when i need to focus here i need to get through these aid stations um you know uh that you know i it's critical but you're kind of going back in the triangle in the pyramid in the triangle the pyramid is going back to that mindfulness stuff right is that's being aware of where your mind is right here right now let's be

able to move that focus like a flashlight even so think of it think of focus of like a flashlight and you can kind of adjust the beam of it um you can only control that flashlight if you're aware of what's going on where you are right now what your mind is doing and how it's pushing you around so you can take that flashlight and go all right all right here we go this is what i'm focusing on okay i can take off the brakes a little bit have some of that emotional regulation too so you think of that dissociation and that's some of that emotional regulation there too so i love how it just yeah it's kind of you're kind of cycling through the pyramid a little bit too can you you mentioned this earlier now that we've gone through all five of these it's really six you can have a six-step pyramid yeah to find and divide up imagery and self-talk but that's nitpicking but you mentioned this you mentioned this kind of earlier like a lot of athletes especially very good athletes that have already have some like developed uh mental skills they kind of like rock it to the top of the pyramid i want to hear a little bit more about that because like my you know you know me i'm kind of methodical about some of these things i would always want to start at the base like with the fundamental stuff and like start there so who are good candidates to like rocket through it versus people who need to spend a lot of time on the fundamentals i would i would say the people who know what their motivation is you know people who know who practice you know have some mindfulness skills even though they may not identify

it as mindfulness skills um you be and you know have those self-talk skills have practice you know have ability because people some people naturally have that ability to do this and then some people may have it might be more challenging and so that's where it's like okay you know if you could actually almost use this as an assessment right you know and this is you know i've started actually you know i put this this out there wow you know i was working with an athlete i could actually use this pyramid as an assessment because i can go okay where are they motivationally where you know what are their mindfulness skills how are they able to emotionally regulate do they have self-talk skills or you know and imagery skills great awesome let's move up that ladder to you know kind of adjust the focus oh wait a second you know you know they're not able to stay present let's go back to the mindfulness skills they don't know what their motivation is for doing this race or their motivation is really strava clicks let's talk about motivation you know you know i want to look i want to be really cool and get this belt buckle you know and show it to all my friends okay but what else is in there usually you know because it's going to get challenging here let's talk about motivation um you know and what are those values behind it so i could you know you could go in an assessment and go through that pretty quickly and go yeah yeah yeah okay all right you know here's where we're going to work you know this

is where we're going to work you know maybe they want to work over here and i just want to work on my focus okay let's talk about that but you know maybe we need to work on some of the motivation or some of the other skills you know along the way i mean just it's just like physical coaching right you're tailoring the prescription based on the strengths and weaknesses or what the athlete comes to the table with it's it's the same thing here but you've got the skillful eye to determine that and you would use this as a assessment tool essentially yeah listen you know assessment tool or just you know just kind of yeah you could use it in an assessment tool and you can probably use it pretty quickly you know it's kind of my you know just you know in a short conversation with some athletes you know doing mental performance work you're you're only working with them very briefly you know so a lot of them will call you two weeks before the race or three weeks before the race and like how do you okay how do we adjust this yeah it's a crash course you know or you know uh you know examples have been given i've heard a lot of uh you know mental skills folks who've gone to the olympics they're getting in the car with somebody who's going to the race you know it's like okay you know and it's like all right here we go let's fire it out um but usually when they're that Olympic level they've already got that all those other skills you know let's tap it let's remind you that you've got those skills so okay this is really important though when you are working with an athlete on their mental skills in an ideal situation what does that look like are you prescribing something every day twice a week like just kind of like

like like we do this with coaching right yeah i'm gonna see every file that comes across the wire i'm gonna prescribe you know three weeks worth of workouts for you and then i'm gonna analyze the data blah blah blah we've got kind of like we're on a show what is that in the psychology world it's you know it depends i mean you know it is you're getting to know me i'm very processy okay you know and so it depends on the athlete and where they're coming some people just want to kind of process it but most often uh you know i like to send somebody home with i don't say homework but you know you know homework you need to do your reps you know and um and it might be okay let's start out with some of this basic mindfulness stuff so you can get unhooked from that all that unhelpful self-talk it might be something really brief um and you know i might send them home with like a uh you know even just a little two-minute mindfulness practice or so let's let's try getting on a headspace and just practice this for a little bit or i might go here is what self-talk is i want you to you know write down let's let's kind of start creating some mantras so it might be it it really you know it's like any athlete that comes to you it depends it depends where they are how close they are to the race it might be whether we're kind of cycling through that stuff and going all right let's let's talk on that self-talk strategies i you know i think of an athlete i was talking to recently where it's like no we're not going to do this mindfulness stuff but we're going to go over here because this stuff is

good you know you kind of do this already but let's let's find this and how this is going to have a little bit more power for you right now and so that's where that kind of assessment goes and you're like yeah let's go let's go with this um yeah this was awesome neil yeah there's so many other pieces to that so you see on the pyramid um that you know how self-compassion and harmonious passion and optimism play into it and how through that pyramid develops confidence and resilience too so that's i'm excited about it because i've just been digging into it oh well once again this is i i've mentioned this to you and to our coaching staff a lot like i i did not grow up with this background right i wasn't educated with this background i kind of came into coaching from a physiology background or even a cellular background right a biochemistry background if you want to go back that far so i will i will always be behind in this because i will always have had more training on the physiology side of things than on the psychology side of things and not that those are the only two things but they're two big things and so anytime i can get my hands on somebody who you know does it for a living and kind of pick their brain and go through the framework and things like that it helps me and i can tell you the like the one thing that i'm taking out of this is using this pyramid as an assessment tool i'd never had thought about that to start to orchestrate kind of the sequence of events and the priority of skills and how to kind

of run through them i i never i never really thought about using this in that fashion to initially help to yeah because i i would just always kind of default to this is what i should do first and this is what i should do which is hilarious because you know i i like on the physiological side of things like you don't need to do these things on the physiological side of the okay what i should do first yeah let's have a run exactly let's just go all right all right my friend i'm gonna let you go because i know you have to go run you have a killer recovery run on your uh schedule today if so i hear um oh this is a 30 minute endurance oh 30 minute endurance run all right uh hopefully you can survive maybe you can work on some uh imagery during that maybe where can people find out about this i'm gonna leave this in the show notes and links to this in the show notes but where can they find out more about you your practice and specifically this pyramid that we went through okay so this pyramid i'm going to be doing a kind of a six-week training um which starts march 1st and goes through may 24th it's two weeks each month and it's one night seven to eight pm mountain time and you could find information on it at www.colorado psychotherapy and sport.com and uh and again sign up you can sign up and uh yeah you know we'll spend an hour just talking about motivation and introducing this and just kind of going through some things and they'll have some handouts to you know so you could work on

some of these skills so we can start now for your races later on you know i'm not trying to i'm not trying to upsell it but you know i'm just it's like god this could really help people start now that's what i can't get that's the other thing that i get emphasis from is just start now don't wait until the car ride to the start line to use your olympic analogy right start now don't wait to the car right you know just you start now um you know and it's just like you know we tell all our athletes all right right now you need to be you know trying out different gels you need to be trying out your different drink mixes what works for you okay you got a three hour long run you got a six hour long run great let's practice this stuff right now instead of later neil i appreciate it a lot man thanks for coming on the podcast today this is great no problem take care all right folks there you have it there you go that concludes this two-part series all about mental skills for ultra running thanks to neil for coming on the podcast and really putting this together in a package that i think is digestible for just about anyone even if you have not done any previous work with mental skills if you start out with some of these foundational things like motivation and mindfulness then you can move on to the more advanced mental skills of emotional regulation imagery and self-talk and finally focus also big shout out to justin ross for coming on on podcast last week

i hope that everybody took notes between last week and this week and you can start to formulate your own plan for how you are going to reinforce your mental skills for the year if you want to use either justin or neil as part of your repertoire as part of the people that you are bringing into your circle to help your performance they are available links to both of them are in the respective show notes from each of those podcasts and i can also tell you something else i'm going to expand on this concept with a couple of additional podcasts coming up in the future i already have one booked with the incredible carla maheen her book that i'm going to show on the screen right now endurance performance and sports psychological theory and intervention might have the most sticky notes in it per page that i think of anything in my library i use it a tremendous amount in my own practice she is confirmed is coming on the podcast sometime in march i'm also looking to bring on a couple of experts in this space because i know you all the audience consider this something extremely valuable and something that actually has a can have a market effect on your performance appreciate the heck out of all you listeners out there if you enjoyed this podcast share it with your friends and your training partners that is the way we get the word out about how amazing this podcast is so i appreciate it when you guys do that for me it means a lot to me personally as well as professionally that is it for today folks

and as always we will see you out on the trails