Article written by Coach Brant Stachel
When marathoners talk training, they talk miles: long runs, tempos, intervals. Every week gets measured in numbers. But the truth is, your mental game needs the same consistency.
You wouldn’t expect to show up on race day fit if you only ran once a week. The same goes for your mindset. If you only think about it the night before the marathon, you’ll be caught off guard when the pressure hits.
The fifth step of the IGNITE Method, which I developed and use with my athletes, is simple: Treat mental training like mileage. Do it daily, keep it light, and let the reps add up.
Why Daily Mental Training Matters
Most runners wait until they’re under stress to use mental skills. That’s like waiting until race day to break in your shoes. It doesn’t work.
By training mental skills every day, you do two important things:
1. Make these skills automatic, so you don’t have to think about them in the heat of the race.
2. Build resilience. Your brain gets used to the pressure and recovers faster when things go wrong.
Over time, just like your aerobic base, your mental base grows.
Small Habits, Big Payoff
I worked with a marathoner named Jordan who had a strong physical engine but struggled whenever conditions weren’t perfect. Heat, wind, or a bad mile would send him into panic mode.
We built a simple plan that included five minutes of mental training every day. Jordan practiced short breathing drills before workouts, used a mantra during tough intervals, and wrote down one win from each session in a journal.
At first, he felt silly, and it seemed almost too small to matter. But when race day came, those “micro reps” paid off. At mile 20, when the wheels started to wobble, Jordan didn’t panic. He took one breath, said his mantra, and found his rhythm again. He finished with a negative split and a new PR.
His takeaway: “I realized my body was fine. It was my brain that used to blow up. Training it daily made all the difference.”
How to Train Your Mental Skills Daily
You don’t need hours. You need consistency. Here are a few options you can rotate into your week:
Visualization (2-3 minutes): Before a workout, picture yourself handling the tough part, whether that’s the last rep of an interval or mile 22 of the marathon. See yourself calm, steady, and in control.
Breathing Drills (1-2 minutes): Try a breathing drill called box breathing. Inhale for a count of four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four. Repeat. Do this before a key workout or anytime stress spikes.
Mantra Practice (during runs): Choose one phrase that anchors you. Examples: “Relax and drive.” “One step at a time.” “Calm and strong.” Use it in training so it’s second nature in racing.
Reflection (3-5 minutes post-run): Jot down one thing you did well and one thing to improve. This keeps your focus process-based, not outcome-based.
Start Small, Stay Consistent
The mistake most runners make is thinking they need a 30-minute meditation practice or a complicated mental program. You don’t.
All you need is 5-10 minutes a day. Stack it with something you already do, such as your warmup, cool down, or post-run stretching. Over weeks and months, these small reps build the same way mileage does.
Why This Matters for Your Marathon Mindset
The marathon is a test of patience, resilience, and presence. The runners who thrive aren’t the ones who never feel stress. They’re the ones who have trained to handle it.
By logging your “mental miles” now, you’re preparing your brain the same way you prepare your legs. And come race day, you’ll be ready for whatever the course throws at you.
Next up in the Marathon Mindset series: Win or Learn: What Comes After the Race. The final part of the series will look at race reflection and how to evaluate your performance without judgment. Learn how to use every marathon, good or bad, as fuel for the next.
Brant Stachel is a mental performance coach, registered psychotherapist, and former professional triathlete. He has coached more than 25 athletes to international teams, including six with Olympic Trials-qualifying times. He works with endurance athletes, from high schoolers to Olympians, helping them train the mental side of performance through his IGNITE Method. Brant is the author of Fast & Free. He coaches runners through TeamRunRun.com and is a mental performance coach through CEPmindset.com.