Self-Awareness

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought. Possible. This is running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode two 90 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today three keys to building mental toughness for endurance athletes. So mental toughness is one of the most powerful tools that you can develop as a runner and also one of the most overlooked.

Physical training is important, [00:01:00] sure, but if you don’t also train your mindset, you’ll keep hitting the same walls over and over again. You’ll quit when things get hard. You’ll doubt yourself when you need confidence the most. And you’ll never quite live up to your true potential. So in this episode, I’m sharing the three keys to building mental toughness for you, endurance athletes.

And these are the exact same strategies that I’ve used in my own training and that I teach every runner that I work with. If you wanna run stronger. Go longer and finally stop giving up when the going gets tough. ’cause it always gets tough. This one is for you. But before we dive in, I wanna remind you that the real work of building mental toughness doesn’t happen.

Just from listening to a podcast, it comes from applying what you learn, and that’s exactly [00:02:00] what we do in my coaching program. You don’t have to figure it all out on your own. If you want support, accountability, and a solid plan. To help you hit your weight loss and your running goals without burning out or giving up.

When things get tough because it does get tough, then come check out my coaching program. Just head over to running lean podcast.com/apply. Let’s get you started. All right, let’s get into this. So the first thing I wanna do is kind of define what it is that we are actually talking about here. What is mental toughness?

What does it mean to be mentally tough? So mental toughness is your ability to stay focused, to stay positive, and to keep going even when things get hard, especially when things get hard. And listen, it’s not about being emotionless or never struggling. It’s about being willing to [00:03:00] feel discomfort and keep going anyway.

And another thing I wanted to say is that, um, the best, one of the best parts of this whole topic of building mental toughness is that it is a skill that you can learn. It’s not something you’re born with or not born with. It’s not something that’s just baked into your DNA. You know, we look at people like David Goggins and we think that dude is mentally tough.

He’s got more mental toughness than anybody, and that might be true, but that’s not always been the case for him. He built that. You’re not born with mental toughness. We develop it over time. Okay. It’s something that you can train, that you can learn, that you develop, just like you develop your, uh, VO two max or you get faster as a runner or you can lift more weight, you know, you can increase your deadlift pr.[00:04:00]

These are all things that you can learn to change and develop and build and, and get stronger and grow over time. Same with your mental toughness, same with your mindset in general, but when you’re running and your legs are burning, when your brain is screaming at you to stop when everything says you should quit.

Mental toughness is that thing that you’ve learned over time. It’s that part of you that says, not today. I’m going to keep going anyway. And there are so many examples of, uh, people myself especially, who have. Uh, proven to myself that I can do hard things, not because there’s anything special about me, because I’ve practiced being mentally tough over time.

So we’re gonna get into three sort of keys to developing mental toughness. [00:05:00] Um, and just a little sidebar here is that part of my coaching program is, uh, a twice weekly group coaching calls that we do, and on those group coaching calls every Tuesday night, we, we discuss a topic and we pick a different topic each month.

And this whole month of July, we’re talking about building mental toughness. And we’ve, it’s been a great conversation and a, and a great, uh, month of calls so far. But we are taking a very deep dive into how to build mental toughness. Um, everybody’s been getting some homework assignments to do and some worksheets to kind of go through, um, all kinds of things.

So what I’m talking about today is just scratching the surface of this. I can’t get into, you know, the depth of, of knowledge and everything that. That I’m imparting on the people in the group over the span of five Tuesdays this month. But just [00:06:00] keep in mind that we talk about this kind of stuff a lot.

This is a big part of what I do in my coaching program, is help people to develop, uh, the right mindset, to stay on track, to, to do hard things, to accomplish things that maybe you think are impossible for you. Okay? So just keep that in mind. So the first key I wanna talk about is learning to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Like you have to get good at being uncomfortable. And, you know, I’ve talked about this a lot in the past. We talk about things like embracing the suck, you know, um, and the, the cost of your success is discomfort. Well, those things are very, very true. If you’re going after some big goal, like maybe you want to run your first marathon or lose 50 pounds, or maybe you want to qualify for Boston, whatever that goal that you have for yourself is, if it’s anything significant for you, if it’s gonna be meaningful for you, then it’s [00:07:00] gonna require some discomfort.

You know, think about discomfort as the cost of accomplishing these things. It’s, it’s the price you pay. So there’s no way around the discomfort it’s going to be there, and your brain at some point is gonna tell you, this sucks. I don’t like this. This doesn’t feel good. We should stop. You should just quit.

Go back to being comfortable. And that is normal. That is a part of being a human being. Our brain is designed. To keep us safe, to keep you from dying. Your brain is there to say, this is uncomfortable. Let’s move towards something that’s more comfortable. This is unfamiliar. We should go back to what we know, what’s familiar to us.

This doesn’t feel safe. We need to seek safety. This feels dangerous, or this is painful. Let’s go for something that brings us pleasure instead. So that’s your, that’s your brain. That’s the normal [00:08:00] functioning of your brain. Your job is to kind of override that. Voice, you know what your brain is telling you.

What’s normal is not being mentally tough. What’s normal is to constantly seek comfort. And I think to a degree this has become something that is, uh, a problem in society today, especially in the western world, the developed world. And where we’ve gotten so comfortable with everything, you know, we can sit on the couch and have food literally delivered to us without having to leave the couch.

You know, maybe just to get up to answer the door and grab the food from the delivery person. You know, we order things from Amazon that it can be there the same day. Um, you know, we don’t have to take the stairs. There’s elevators and escalators and little scooters you can drive around the grocery store if you need to or whatever.

So we’ve, we’ve really like moved away from hard things and we, we moved [00:09:00] towards what’s easier and we’ve done that over millennia. And some of that is good. I mean, it’s good that we can be more comfortable. We don’t have to be afraid of saber tooth tigers and, and you know, small face bears and things like that.

But at the same time, we have gotten a little too comfortable, right? So mental toughness means you recognize that voice in your head that says, this is hard, this is uncomfortable. We should stop. So you, you, it’s not like that voice is gonna go away that ’cause your brain is hardwired in that way.

Unfortunately, mental toughness is recognizing that voice and choosing not to listen. Recogni, uh, recognizing that your, your brain is trying to tell you should stop and continuing on anyway. So this is very key. Some people think, oh, you, you know, if you’re mentally tough, that just means that none of this stuff is hard for you.

That is not true, and I remember when I [00:10:00] was, um, training for my, uh, a hundred miler because this is one of the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever done. Running a hundred miles, very uncomfortable. And I remember getting to, uh, it was a 16 mile looped course, so we had to run that 16 plus miles six times.

And I finished the fifth loop. I had one more 16 mile loop to do. So I was like, like mile 84. And I was done. My, my inner voice was like, we can’t do this. You’re going to die. This is terrible. Okay, so that mental, the mental toughness was there, but that voice was very, very strong. And I had to like decide in that moment, do I continue or not had to choose to either listen to that voice and say, this is gonna be too hard.

I should stop. Or just go. I mean, I’ve, I’ve come this far. Do I want to quit now? I chose not to listen to the voice and [00:11:00] I chose to. Persevere. I chose to continue on even though everything hurt, even though it sucked bad, even though I was in a lot of pain, even though it was very uncomfortable, I, I don’t think I’ve ever been more uncomfortable, but I kept going anyway.

I chose not to listen to that voice. The voice was still there. And the way you get better at this is that you practice it and. The way that I practiced this was in my training. I continually did long runs that were very difficult. I would do, uh, like a, a a 30 mile run on a Saturday and a 20 mile run on a Sunday.

Um, and I did kind of a lot of those ki types of distances as part of my training. And so you do something very long and difficult on a Saturday. You get up the next day, so you’re a little bit. Recovered but not [00:12:00] fully. Your legs hurt, your body hurts. You’re tired, exhausted at times, and you gotta run like 20 miles.

So I did that a lot and those were tough runs, I will tell you. But that’s how you practice the mental toughness. That’s how you practice being uncomfortable. You purposely put yourself in uncomfortable situations. That’s why we do things like, you know, hill repeats, um, fasted runs, cold showers, strength training.

Even if you’re sore, you teach yourself that being uncomfortable. It won’t kill you, that it actually makes you stronger because you can show up for yourself in a way that, um, is really powerful. It’s very powerful to show up for yourself and do something, even though it feels incredibly uncomfortable to do it.

Something that you can kind of do is, um. [00:13:00] Practice the 92nd rule. The 92nd rule is that when something feels uncomfortable, so maybe you have, uh, you’re in a, in the middle of a tough run, you’re in a moment of doubt, or you have a craving for some ice cream or some pizza or something like that. It’s okay to have those cravings, to have those moments of doubt.

Just give it like 90 seconds, feel the feeling that you’re experiencing. Breathe through it, and most of the time it just passes. You know, 90 seconds is not a lot of time, but you’d be surprised how if you just allow yourself to feel that discomfort, um, you start to build that trust with yourself. You start to see that every time you face a little discomfort, you don’t have to give into it.

You don’t have to back down. You can continue anyway. Okay. So that’s number one, which is just getting comfortable, being uncomfortable. Uh, key number two is training that inner voice. So your inner voice is that nonstop mental chatter, [00:14:00] and this can be, uh, your worst enemy or your greatest weapon. Um, so ask yourself kind of like, what are you saying to yourself during the tough moments?

Are you saying things like, I’m not strong enough, I can’t do this. This always happens to me. I always fail. I always fall apart. I always quit. That is not inner strength, but that inner voice is going to make it very difficult for you to have confidence and believe in yourself and keep going. If you’re saying things like, oh, this is really tough, but I’ve done harder things.

Or this is really hard, but you know, I got this. Or you know, I feel very uncomfortable. I’m just gonna take this one step at a time, one aid station at a time. Whatever the words that you say to yourself matter way more than you think, and you gotta train that voice. You [00:15:00] have to notice. Those default thoughts.

Notice when you’re having these thoughts and these, and you’re saying these things to yourself, you know, that inner dialogue, um, and, and just have, have some self-awareness of like, what am I saying to myself? Um, and then maybe challenge some of those thoughts like, is this actually true? Is this helpful to me at all?

And then maybe replace some of those thoughts with something more empowering. You know, like, Hey, I got this. I can do, I’ve done harder things. It’s not about lying to yourself. It’s about choosing thoughts that support your goals instead of sabotaging them. One of my favorites is that I do hard things.

That’s who I am. That, that’s just a statement that I say to myself all the time, and part of me running a hundred miles and finishing that last loop was like, I do hard things. That’s who I am. I have done this kind of [00:16:00] thing before, like I’ve, I’ve run this distance before 16 miles. It’s not that far. I can do this.

I’ve done hard things. I continually push myself. I challenge myself. I see what I’m capable of. That’s baked into my DNA. That’s who I am today. Say that often to yourself. It can become part of your identity too, but this is one of those things that you have to train yourself. You can’t just show up one day and say, oh, I got this, and think that that is going to be enough.

This is like lifting weights. You gotta get your reps in. Uh, we wanna say it enough until it becomes part of our identity. Okay? That’s key Number two, train your inner voice. And there’s lots of things that you can say to yourself to kind of that, that mean something to you, that are gonna help you to, uh, overcome some of those moments, those o overcome some of that discomfort and push through it.

Um, and, and it’s personal. You gotta come up with some of [00:17:00] these things for yourself. Think about that. Maybe jot some things down. And then use that as ammunition. Use that as something that is going to help you to develop that strong, uh, mental toughness. It’s like building a muscle. You gotta, you gotta get your reps in.

The third key is playing the long game. So mental toughness isn’t just about getting through. You know, one tough run or one event or, um, you know, I talk about this a hundred miler that I did. Mental toughness wasn’t about that one event. It’s about being consistent with this stuff, showing up for yourself consistently, especially when you don’t feel like it.

So for months and months and months, I was developing mental toughness actually for years. You know, I had done a lot of other hard things prior to signing up and running that a hundred mile. I did a bunch of ultra marathons. I did it Iron Man. I did a 50 mile run, a bunch of, you know, 50 Ks. [00:18:00] And in every single event, there’s gonna be some time where you have to push through the discomfort, you gotta push through the pain.

You’re gonna feel like quitting, but you don’t. So mental toughness, for me, if it’s about playing this longer game, about developing it over time, so many runners are all in, like they feel mentally tough when they’re motivated, you know? But the real test is when you don’t have the motivation, when that motivation disappears, that’s where the discipline and the practice of getting your reps in comes into play.

Discipline is saying things to yourself like, I don’t feel like running today, but I’m gonna do it anyway. Or, I don’t feel like prepping my meals today, but I’ve got big goals. Or, you know, I’m not seeing results yet. The scale isn’t really moving, but I’m not giving up on myself. This is being [00:19:00] disciplined.

That’s what it looks like. And if you can learn to detach from the outcome and just focus on the process day after day after day after day, that’s where the real transformation happens. Mental toughness is built through repetition, not through inspiration. It’s not about one epic run, it’s about stacking small wins over time.

So ask yourself, what does the mentally tough version of me do today? And then go do that thing. Okay, so we’re playing the long game. We’re we are at this because this is how we wanna live our life. We want to be mentally tough. We’re gonna continue to build that mental toughness, and it takes time, and we are okay with that.

But the more you do it, the more you keep showing up for yourself, the stronger you become. And what a great [00:20:00] skill to learn, to become more mentally tough, to become more resilient, to push through When things get hard, listen, life gets hard. This isn’t just about running. This is about life in general, and this stuff all bleeds over into all these different areas of your life.

Um, so just understand that when you build mental toughness in one area, you build it in all areas of your life. So quick recap here. The three keys to building mental toughness. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Train that inner voice, and then remember you’re playing the long game. These are simple. I know that, but they’re not always easy.

Which is why they work. ’cause if you want to build, you know, a mental toughness, it does require you to show up for yourself and do this work. If you wanna build endurance, if you wanna burn fat, if you wanna run stronger, if you actually wanna stick with something long term, you gotta build your mindset just as much as you.

Train yourself to, to [00:21:00] build your mileage, you know, or, or lift heavier weights. You gotta build that mindset as well. And if you’re ready to stop quitting on yourself, if you’re ready to finally stay consistent, even when life gets tough. Check out my coaching program. We work on all this stuff, not just the physical stuff, but the mental and emotional stuff too.

’cause that’s where the real change starts. Just go to running lean podcast.com/apply. Fill out that application and let’s do it. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean and I will talk to you soon.