The sport of running, whether it be track or cross country is a sport that requires more than just physical training and conditioning. Like every other sport, you must have mental toughness. But aside from other sports, running is about 80% mental and 20% everything else. Because to be successful in a race, you must be mentally tough and be able to push yourself and tell yourself to keep going even though you can’t breathe and your body is hurting badly.

You also must learn to relax your mind, and relax your body as you run because it is proven that you will run faster when you learn to focus more on being relaxed, and this is all possible through mental toughness.

I’ve always been a runner and I have always loved to run.

I may not be some amazing professional runner who wins every marathon and 5k in his free time, but it is still a sport I continue to train and get better in. Every time I go for a run, my friends always ask me, how can you run for so long so far? And my best answer for that is that I don’t focus on the distance or what’s around me. I put my headphones in, focus on the music and I focus on the road or the track directly ahead of me.

Because when you run, you cannot think about how far you half to run, or the other people around you and if someone passes you.

You have to focus on yourself and push yourself all the way through the finish line.

My whole life I grew up playing basketball, and I totally agree those are two major sports that require you to be mentally tough as well. All sports challenge athletes physically and mentally, but I still believe running is one of the sports that requires the most mental toughness. Because in a race, there are no benches, no timeouts to give you a break, no whistles to stop the race or anything.

Once you start, you have to keep going and you can’t quit until you reach the finish line. During that race you face a lot of adversity, for example, in 2 of the past 5k’s that I have run, there were multiple hills I had to run up and by the time I reached the top, my legs were absolutely dead and I felt like my shins were going to explode. But I pushed myself to keep going, and to finish the race because I had made it this far so why should I stop then?

And when you finally cross that finish line, you feel complete satisfaction...and a ton of fatigue. But you feel so proud of yourself because you made it, you could’ve given up but you didn’t.

Running is more than just a sport or an activity that helps you get your endurance up or helps you get into shape. It’s a sport that not only challenges you physically, but it challenges you mentally because once you start, you have to keep pushing yourself until you reach the finish line, t is a sport that forces you to toughen up mentally and push yourself beyond your limits. Running is a mental sport, and we are all insane.