Week #11

Don Megerle, the Director of the Tufts Marathon Challenge and former Tufts University Varsity Swim Coach has kept me on his mailing list for years now, regularly forwarding items of running interest for which I am very grateful.  Today I received an e-mail from Coach Megerle which included the following and which I feel you can and should relate to THIS WEEK . . .

            How you walk, how you carry your head and shoulders, and the expression on your face can stimulate emotion-specific responses.

            Acting 'As If' you feel a particular way can get the chemistry moving in that direction. Looking calm, challenged, energetic, and confident in a stressful situation may begin as a faked look. However, that faked look can quickly lead to a genuine emotion – that is, to a specific biochemical response that has a very positive effect on athletic performances.

            Acting 'As If' is a trained response – the more you do it, the better you will be at making it work.

            Developing a strict code for how you act and look under stress gives you a large degree of control over your stress response. Following that code consistently increases your control of negative arousal so that you can better avoid feelings of fear, frustration, and failure that cause despair, defeat, and disaster.

            The top performers (in sports and in business) project strong, powerful images when they perform under stress! So ...

            If you want to be confident ... act 'As If' you already are!

            If you want to perform well ... act 'As If' you already have!

            If you want to be the best ... act 'As If' you already are!

            And a surefire way to do this right is to make it personal ... this is your private way of 'thinking' that everyone around you is saying... “There goes the champion distance runner . . .”