Hi, I'm Nike Run Club Coach Rebeka Stowe from New York City.
And I'm here to talk to you about
attentional focus and mindfulness in running.
Any athlete that's looking to improve their performance in running
needs to work on more than just the physical.
They need to look at the mental as well.
So, attentional focus is what are you giving attention to.
When you're running,
you want everything that you're doing to be relevant.
Say you're in the middle of a two-minute rep
and you're thinking taking out the trash,
is that relevant to what you're trying to do right now?
Come back to something that's brining you present
right here right now in this moment.
Maybe that's thinking, "Oh, I need to quicken up my steps."
Maybe that's thinking, "Let me keep my hips up a little taller."
Maybe it's you're listening to a coach in your ear.
Whatever it is that's getting you closer to the thing that you want to accomplish,
that's what matters.
So, let's talk about internal versus external monitoring.
External is going to be everything that's going on around you.
Maybe it's the weather.
Maybe it's the surface that you're running on.
Internal monitoring is going to be your breath, your cadence, your self-talk.
No matter what it is that you're engaging with internal or external,
you just want to make sure
that it's getting you closer to the goal that you're trying to achieve.
This work, it's not easy.
But hopefully, you can take some of these thoughts
and see benefits in your own running performance and life.