Test Your Mental Toughness With A Treadmill

When you are doing a long run on the treadmill you learn a lot about yourself. You could stop after 2km’s or you could do the full 20km’s that you intended. Running on the treadmill takes all of the glam and luxury out of running and just leaves you with your thoughts. Treadmill running isn’t just a physical battle, it is 99% psychological.

Staring at the wall in front of you while your legs melt away is an exercise in mental toughness. It’s so easy to just stop running on the treadmill when you get bored 1 minute into your workout. That’s because when you are running on the treadmill time stops and 1 minute feels like 20 minutes.

But guess what, you can stop if you want to.

No one will ever know that you stopped early, that you gave up or that you got bored looking at the wall ahead.

But guess what?

You will remember stopping early on race day because you will know that you didn’t give it your all in the pain cave. When you have the chance, all of your cards will be shown on race day, and your competitors will find out if you actually put in the work. Training is a physical and mental battle that prepares you for race day and you can’t fake it. If you want results you have to put in the work even when it sucks.

The treadmill is a battle that separates you from the rest If the pack. The top performers in the world are training non-stop and they are pushing through the mental barriers that you are facing at this very moment. So don’t be lazy and don’t make excuses, put in the goddam work and grind it out.

If you want to get the opportunity to achieve greatness and if you want to accomplish crazy goals, then put in the work; day in and day out. It doesn’t matter if you show up on race day ready to win, you need to show up every single training day leading up to that one big race.

You can try to lie to other people about your work ethic but you can’t lie to yourself. The treadmill never lies, that revolving machine just consumes people.

Get after it and don’t stop.

If you enjoyed this article follow Bradey Thompson on his journey to the 2020 Multisport World Championships as a part of Team Canada!