Confidence dips before it rises

This episode explores why runners experience confidence dips during training, how to interpret fatigue, and practical strategies to maintain motivation and trust in the process. Coaches Rochelle and Sarah share insights on mental resilience, data tracking, and the importance of consistency.

takeaways

• Confidence dips are normal and often occur during the hardest part of training.
• Interpreting fatigue as a sign of progress, not failure, is crucial.
• Tracking data over time helps put training in perspective.
• Focusing on effort and consistency rather than pace or perfection.
• Trusting the process and understanding body signals improves mental resilience.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, I'm Rochelle. And this is my co-host Sarah. And together, we are Runversation, a conversational paced podcast for your easy-paced running journey. And we're here to chat about all things running, community, and everything in between.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Hello, Sarah. Hey Rochelle. And hello, listeners. In the last couple of episodes, we've spoken about consistency over motivation and inner dialogue of runners' experiences when things get tough. Yes, both of those topics lead quite naturally into what we're talking about today. Because at some point in almost every training block, runners hit a moment where their confidence dips.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

It's that phase where the sessions feel heavy, the race is still far away, and suddenly you start questioning everything. Exactly. The am I fit enough phase. So today we're going to talk about why that happens, why it's actually normal, and how runners can navigate it without letting it derail their training.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

But before we dive into today, Sarah, what did you see on your run or at the gym this week?

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Well, it isn't this week, because I've done nothing no activities this week due to eye surgery. But I'm on my third day of recovery for that. But last week though, um, I thought this would be an interesting one to talk about. Is I was running along Midland Road, which is a not a busy road, but there's a bit of traffic. Um, and there was a teenager on a scooter coming the other way, and he was like weaving across the footpath, like in between the white lines. Yeah, across both sides. And to intimidate me, he did it right up until as if he was gonna crash into me and then be it at the last second. And it was one of those things where I realised this actually isn't the first time I've probably been intimidated or attempted to be intimidated by teenagers. And it just made me think about, you know, yet again the challenges, I guess, of being a female running. And this, you know, this is at like 5 or 6 p.m. Yeah, fairly normal time. That even then, I guess I hate that now I have to be weary of anyone I encounter at any time because there are people that this is not the first time it's happened to me, and it probably won't be the last time. It happens to me, and it's it's very frustrating that we have to go through that. Um, I don't know if you've had similar experiences.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

I haven't had similar similar experiences in that sense. I've had people yell at me out of their car, but not in recent times. That's probably going back to when I first started running and when I lived in Thornley, but nothing in the last, I'm gonna say decade, which I mean, I guess I'm pretty lucky in that sense, but I wouldn't know like what how did you handle that scenario?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

I guess I'd try not to give them a reaction or just keep running. And you know, I've had kids come up running alongside you and I just pretend I'm listening to music and try and ignore them. But I've had them literally come right up on my shoulder and yeah. And sort of I guess they're trying to intimidate, I don't know. They think it's funny. And you yeah, it makes you uncomfortable and you just you just keep running and just gotta ignore it. Ignore it, yeah, because they're looking for that rise, I guess, in you. Um the reaction. The reaction, yeah. But I presume, yeah, it's not something my husband ever complains about.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Well, no, it's not something that commonly men deal with when they're running. Interesting. Well, hopefully you stay safe on your future runs and you don't encounter the teenager on his scooter again.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

There seems to be more of them. But um, what about you, Rochelle?

SPEAKER_00 3:28

What did you see?

SPEAKER_02 3:29

What did I see? Well, I have done lots of running actually in the past week. First of all, let's say. Hmm, I'm gonna start with Tuesday. Yesterday, when we had training, it was actually really good to see team camaraderie and like really good sportsmanship, specifically by you.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

You had eye surgery, so you couldn't train. Yes, I wasn't allowed to. But you rode your bike and you paced me, which was really cool because nobody ever paces me, because I'm always, as a coach, encouraging and pacing other people.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

It was quite fun actually, even to encourage Urdom, who was ahead of you, to let him know that you know that others were on his tail and watch him pick it up. And it wasn't something I'd really done for people either, because it's not really a scenario where I'm I've been out in recent times where I've sort of been playing a different role in the team, I guess. But it was really fun. Yeah. Um, and obviously a lot easier for me to ride my bike ahead of everyone.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

Well, I mean, you didn't have to come to training, right? Because you couldn't run, but you did. So that was really cool as well. So kudos to you. Yeah, it was good. So let's dive into like topics. So when the confidence starts to dip, when do you usually see this in runners? Or maybe actually let's go to yourself. When do you see yourself starting to question your fitness during a training block?

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Probably about halfway or even three quarters through the block. You've gotten over the excitement of the new block. That sort of that feeling isn't really there anymore. And now you're sort of thinking about I only have X amount of weeks until the race day, and it doesn't feel like enough time sometimes that and sometimes I'm feeling as though the pace or whatever my goal time isn't really feeling achievable. And so you're freaking out that have you got enough time to make that feel achievable before race day? Um and so yeah, this is kind of me at the moment with the lead up to HBF. I'm sort of in a phase where I've had these things I've had to recover from, and it's left me wondering where my fitness actually is at. Um, and it scares me about having enough time between now and HBF to sort of get where I want to be. Yeah. Um, so that's that is very much me at the moment. Yeah. Probably quite early on in this block, only because I've had some interruptions to this block has already made me start to freak out about where I should be or where I am at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

I think the thing for you is when you look at your like confidence and the doubt that you've got, it's not because of an injury, it's actually something completely different. Like you had eye surgery. So a good way to think about it is well, I'm not injured, and yeah, I can continue to exercise. So am I gonna lose fitness? Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Yeah, I don't know if I keep reminding myself of that.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

The mental thing, the mental side of it that you've kind of got to like push aside. But I mean, yeah, I see the same thing from people all the time. Like, and not just yourself. A lot of people doubt themselves, and yeah, the first few weeks they feel exciting and everything feels new and fresh. But once the body starts to carry a little bit of fatigue, that's when runners start to interpret that fatigue as a sign of is there something wrong?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Um, and really that's often a sign that the training is actually working. Correct. And why do you think runners sometimes interpret this normal training fatigue as a loss of fitness?

SPEAKER_02 6:49

From a physiological perspective, when runners running becomes hard, the brain interprets the rising fatigue signals. So, like I just said, when fatigue starts to like pronounce itself, you start to think, am I fit enough? Or you start to question things. So your heart rate could be increasing, you might have a little bit of muscle fatigue, or you have a change in your breath. And that's just your body protecting itself by sending sending signals to you to say, all right, let's slow down. You need to just take things a little bit easy. But those signals often appear as negative thoughts. So instead of your you thinking, slowed down, it's okay, you automatically will go to this is too hard and I need to stop. It's an essential thing that the brain does. And the brain's trying to regulate effort and prevent like excessive strain, whether it be on the physical body or just like the mental, even though the body is still quite often capable of continuing on. But because fatigue changes how everything feels, we just automatically go into that self-self-doubt. So we need to start looking at like the recovery as well. So, do we need to take longer recovery in between sessions so that these don't start to present themselves with negative thoughts and the demotivation starts to kind of trickle in? Or do we just need to reframe what's going on so that you can feel mentally fresher?

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Yes, and I guess we can't compare to how you feel now compared to maybe when they felt when they were fresh. And I have an interesting example of this, my most recent half marathon. PB. I should did my worst half marathon specific session in the lead up. You did. I did. I struggled to hit the paces I was meant to, and it felt really hard. And when I look back at the ones I'd done prior to my other half marathons, those those were faster. And so that that obviously made me go into that spiral. Yeah. But then, you know, I very much did perform on race day. So it just goes to show you.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Well, that's just your body comparing fatigue to then a body that's rested. Yeah. So in that type of week, you're resting, right? So that fatigue level has like gone away. And so then you can start to like mentally talk to yourself kinder and nicer and start to positively think about the race rather than thinking about the session a few weeks back when you were like tired and fatigued and grumpy and thinking like I can't do this. It's too hard.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

I think it's hard as well that having the benefit of Strava is actually looking back and directly comparing. Whereas if I hadn't had that kind of day before, I never would have. I just would have been like, well, that felt hard, but I wouldn't have been able to directly compare and then create more sort of mental hardship with that, looking back and comparing the two.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

And that's what Matt and I were saying in the previous episode, like we were talking about the comparison of Strava. So if you're using it as a tool for yourself and you're paying for that up subscription to get extra data and information, then like as a really positive thing, so that you can track your fitness over time so that when these scenarios present themselves, you can go, yeah, like you said, go back and go, oh, actually, well, I still did better than the last time I did this session. Why did it feel hard? And it could be for X, Y, and Z.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Well, that's the thing that you don't put in the in the why I don't really put much in my runs, but you wouldn't have put if you were, well, you wouldn't have known at that point in time. Was work really stressful at the time? Was it really hot at that session? Were you just really tired that session? There could be many factors that you don't just looking back on the individual run, you know, you don't know any of that information. And that could explain why it was different. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

And for you, you have just had an iron infusion. But the reason that run could have been hard three months ago is because you were in that phase of your iron getting to a point of like really low depletion. Um, and now that you've picked that back up, you'll probably find if you do the same session again, it'll feel better than the last time that you did it.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yeah, combined with the weather improving. Yeah, that's true. Hopefully that it doesn't uh rain or it's not too windy on that day. Rochelle, when runners start doubting themselves mid-block, as we just talked about, I guess, and let's get into the practical side of things. How do you help them reframe that feeling?

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Well, first of all, it's completely normal to doubt yourself. So I always remind whoever I'm talking to that this is a normal feeling and it's okay to feel like this. But it doesn't mean that the training isn't working. Often it means they're right in the middle of the hardest part of the block. So I always just continue to say trust the process. Which is where the biggest growth usually happens. Exactly. I also encourage runners to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. So instead of judging their fitness on one run or one session, look at the consistency over weeks. So, like yourself looking back at your Strav data.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Actually, I was gonna ask you, Rochelle. You obviously you help us, you know, as a coach, you help us athletes reframe that doubt. But how does doubt affect you personally?

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Yeah, that's a really hard question to answer. I feel in the last 12 to 18 months, I've started to really understand my body more and know exactly where I'm at with my fitness and what I'm capable of doing. So when I'm training now, I try and just focus on the effort of what I can do in that moment. And generally that helps me like keep that doubt, you know, pushed down. Back in the day, I'm gonna go back to, I went on a training camp down in Dunsborough and we were doing a marathon specific session. I have a feeling it was maybe 36 or 38 kilometres. I can't remember exactly, but I was running and all I could think about was how hard it felt, and that I was nowhere on even marathon pace that particular run. And I thought to myself, how on earth am I going to get through this? But I remember as hard as it felt then, there was nothing that I could change to make the run any better than what it was when I finished. So that's just how I was feeling, and there was nothing more that I could do to get out of that particular scenario. So what I did was I kind of just put it aside and tried to forget about it, knowing that previous runs that I had done like that were much better. And I put it down to I had that like backed up three marathons in one year. That's a lot most people will do too. So I thought about it and I thought about the load that I'd like been running at. And I spoke to my then coach and said, you know, I probably am not at where I'm supposed to be for this one. And then what we looked at was the data of my paces that I were running previously. And because I had started to run slightly faster, that's why the effort felt really hard. And I felt like I just couldn't maintain what it was that I was doing. It was probably also a nutrition um intake back then as well. So whilst we still ate the same food pre-race, back then gels were very basic and very And for a 38-kilometer train run, you'd have, you know, they you'd have to be consuming. Yeah. So I think I was taking on like one gel every 10Ks, but there was no drink setups. So then my fluid intake was down to that would probably have influenced why I was having a really negative run because I was just dehydrated.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

I like the idea that, you know, I guess in the moment, if it's a crap run, yeah, there really is nothing you can do to change it. So there's no point. Nah. You just have to grip out and finish it. Finish it, put it to the back of your mind, move on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

It's like think about the next one. I could have been having a crap run and I could have been like, I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm fin giving up on this particular training session. But that mentally would have been worth than not finishing it, having just an average time.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

I do often think about some sessions that I go, well, my aim today is just to is just finish it. Like it's 40 degrees today. My aim is not gonna be about hitting particular paces. I'll be pretty happy if I just and I guess changing the goalpost of your success for that session and just be like, well, actually, today it's probably just if I can finish it, I'd be pretty happy.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Yeah. And it's like when we're training in the heat, nobody's ever gonna hit their paces. So if you can just run to a relative effort that's gonna give you the same sort of output, that's okay. You're still gonna get the benefit, aren't you? Yeah, I always just say I always ask my athletes to do their best. Yeah. And I think that's something that I never had said to me. And so that's why I say it to you guys, because all I ask is that you do your best.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah, yeah, instead of being disappointed that we didn't hit the paces that you said or whatever. Yeah. Tried. Yeah. So what role do you think trust plays during a training phase? Quite a lot. I mean, you always remind us to trust the process, which is something that I have tried to be better at this year and sort of having a more positive frame of mind going into races, knowing that I've done the work. And just like, yeah, just like Bustleton when I knew that some of my sessions beforehand hadn't gone exactly great or so to what I comparing to for my last one. But just trying to keep that positive frame of mind going into the race that I have done the work. And you know, we trained over summer, it was hard. Um, so I did have to have have to have a lot of trust in the process, and that is exactly what got my result as well. Yeah. And that, you know, I just have to trust that by the end of the block, you'll be where you need to be. And you're not, you know, in the middle of the block, you're gonna doubt that. But by the end, if you've done the work, you will be sort of where you need to be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

And I always say, like, your fitness will start to present itself in that training, like D load week. So, like two weeks before you start to taper, you'll notice the sessions start to drop off a little bit and things start to feel slightly fresher because you're having a little bit more of a recovery period in between each session or run that you start to do.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

And I guess that's where we realise we are fitter than we thought because it does take time to absorb that training, and that's difficult to be patient for as well, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 17:02

It is. It's always there's always a method behind my madness. And as hard as it may feel at the time and the doubt starts to creep in, the week over the race is almost forgotten.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yes, yeah. Taper tantrum. Yeah, that's right, that's right. So if a runner is listening right now and is in the middle of a block and starting to doubt themselves, what would you want them to remember?

SPEAKER_02 17:23

I'd remind them that confidence often dips before it rises again. Feeling tired doesn't mean you're losing fitness. It often means your body is just in the middle and it's adapting. And also consistent training and attendance is reassuring for them. So, you know, you could be saying that you've had a really bad training block, but have you consistently shown up? Yes. Tick. Even like yesterday, you couldn't run, but you consistently showed up. You were still there. Yeah. And I did some exercise, just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

You could have removed yourself. So yeah. Because showing up is important. And one difficult session doesn't define your whole block. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

What matters most is consistency over time. So if this episode has resonated with you or you found yourself questioning your fitness mid-block, just know that you're not alone. Almost every runner experiences that phase at some point in their training. And if you've enjoyed today's conversation, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss the next episode.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Share it with a friend who might need to hear this right now. And let's keep the runversation going.