What I Learned from a Marathon Mentor…

This post is about finding extra performance and what happens when someone else believes you can do more than you initially think you can. It’s a 4 minute read…

Motivating yourself with a mentor or coach to help you…

A few years ago, in an attempt to improve my personal levels of energy, I decided to take up running. Looking back, it was more a case of stumbling around the block only to return home bewildered at my incompetence! Like many who decide to get physically active after years driving, working and generally ‘getting away with it’, I could barely run between one lamp post and the next without getting puffed-out! As for ‘endurance’ – well, let’s just say that 6 or 7 minutes of exercise each night represented the best I could do at the time. I admit it was a real struggle!

The key thing was, once I started, I kept going; I never thought about quitting. I steadily ran each night under the cover of darkness until I could do two circuits of the block instead of one - then three instead of two.

Fast-forward to 2016: A number of medals spanning 5k to Half-Marathons indicated fairly decent progress by most people’s standards for a guy in his 50’s!

My next challenge was to complete the Asics Manchester Marathon in April 2017. I was so prepared and focussed the result was never in doubt; standing outside Manchester United’s Old Trafford football ground I just knew that big medal was coming home with me! And it did.

What a feeling! Even now, I can mentally take myself there ‘at will’ to instantly recreate the joy of crossing that finish line; how useful is that? If you’ve not tried running 26.2 miles yet, I can certainly recommend the experience!

Setting new goals…                                                           

Having completed the Manchester Marathon, one of my personal goals was re-written to read: ‘Complete 3 marathons in 12 months’. I duly registered for Dublin Marathon in October 2017 aiming for medal number two. Preparation went well until the arches under my feet decided to give me ferocious heat and pain during a 20 mile training run just 3 weeks before the actual event. This was a real setback and rectified by shifting my mind into ‘problem-solving’ mode. Four times a day for 20 days until I travelled to Dublin my feet were rolled on iced water bottles to calm the inflammation and encourage healing.

‘Motivation of self’ tempered with a dose of reality…

Aware that my calves and feet were already damaged and could flare-up at any point, my mindset was quite different from the one I possessed when I did the first marathon! To minimise the likelihood of further injury, I invested in some good quality calf-sleeves (if you’re unfamiliar, they’re like football-length socks in appearance). I don’t normally run in these, so I didn’t know what to expect. Best advice is not to try anything new on race day – stick with every process you’ve trained under. In any case, I figured I could always roll them down.

On the day (29th October 2017) my running friend Angela was with me and we set a time target to finish 5 minutes quicker than I achieved running solo in Manchester. Without doubt, the time was the second objective. Given my physical condition just days beforehand, the principle objective was simply to finish!

I was in good company; Angela is London Irish and she’d enthused many times about running the Dublin marathon. Angela had run 7 marathons before this one, so I was in experienced hands when it came to running advice. We were well hydrated with water (the Guinness could wait!) and off we set off in the late autumn sunshine. The crowd support was truly awesome; Dubliners are so warm and welcoming!

The first 13 miles were a breeze; the next 2 were OK, at mile 16 my calves and feet remained pain-free however for the first time ever I had cramp-like pains in my thighs. At mile 18 they hurt. At 20 they hurt a bit more. The encouragement I got from my running buddy and mentor appeared to be an equal measure of consideration and encoragement. I stretched and walked a few metres at every mile from 18 to 24. With 2 miles to go Angela made it clear we needed to keep going if we wanted to hit the time target. I did my best, however we finished 2 minutes outside the plan.

I could be disappointed, but hey – I finished! Not only did I get another treasured medal, I beat my previous time by over 3 minutes, meaning I had a ‘Personal Best’ to celebrate too.

The sheer pain of that last mile!

I swore, concentrated, re-focussed and kept going – with the help of my mentor I found a level of performance I simply wouldn’t have achieved had I been on my own. I freely admit self-preservation would’ve kicked in and that last mile would’ve consisted of less running and rather more walking. In other words, I only achieved a ‘PB’ on this occasion because I was coached and mentored to do so. That included before, during and after the event.

Back in the workplace I train and coach people to achieve in their business and personal objectives; I know full well that extraordinary things can be achieved – however this time I was the one being (unofficially) coached and mentored. I’m truly grateful for the experience and on refection ‘16 weeks of training and a PB’ sounds a whole lot better than a ‘DNF’ (did not finish). Mind you, even a ‘DNF’ is preferable to a ‘DNS’ (did not start)!

So thank you for your coaching and mentoring help Angela – hopefully I’ll achieve my time target next time in Barcelona. That third marathon is already booked and the winter training starts shortly… 

That business question:

If everyone in your team had coaching and mentoring to enable them to focus on doing their very best each day; what difference would that make to the collective results and bottom-line ￡ of your organisation?

With warmth,

Stuart Sayer

If you’d welcome a chat about team performance, mindset, overcoming setbacks, resilience, mental toughness, goal-setting and achievement – do let me know. We can discuss people development ideas and I won’t mention running unless you bring it up first!

Contact Details: Stuart Sayer | T: 07500 877675 | [email protected]