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Sara Hall’s advice for reframing bad runs

The elite marathoner shares how you can turn a difficult run around

If anyone knows what it’s like to have a bad run, it’s the pros. After all, when you’re running a 100 miles or more every week, you’re bound to have a not-so-fun one once in a while. Recently, elite American marathoner Sara Hall offered advice on Twitter on how she reframes a bad run, and it’s something we should all start doing regularly.

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It’s easy to start beating ourselves up when things don’t go well in a run or workout, but, as Hall says, “everything can be reframed for success.” Just because you don’t hit the right pace in every interval or you have to take a walk break on your long run doesn’t mean you didn’t get any value out of it. In fact, it’s during our “bad” runs when we learn the most about ourselves as athletes. They teach us how to push through when things get tough and, as some coaches like to say, they “build character.”

Other ways to handle a bad run

Reframing a bad run is an excellent strategy for dealing with disappointment, but it’s not the only one. Another way to shake it off when things go south is to remind yourself how far you’ve come. Maybe you weren’t able to get through your entire 20-km run, but remember when you could barely run 5 kilometres without stopping? Don’t let one bad day cause you to second-guess your progress or your ability to do well in your next race.

You can also learn from a bad run if you take the time to reflect on why it went poorly. Did you fuel properly beforehand? Have you been getting enough sleep? Have you been over-reaching during your training? Sometimes a bad run can show us our mistakes and give us an opportunity to correct them.

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Finally, as tempting as it can be to want to wipe the bad run completely from your memory, you should instead file the memory away somewhere, so the next time you’re in a race and it starts to get tough, you can remember that you’ve been through worse and you can push yourself through this one, too.

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