How a Mantra Can Help You Run Further

Choosing the right motivational phrase kept me moving all the way to a marathon PR.

Before I crossed the start line at the 2019 London Marathon, I made myself a promise: Any time I felt like I wanted or needed to walk, I’d ask myself, “Can you dig a little deeper?” And as long as the answer was yes, I wouldn’t stop.

I’d never used a mantra before. Mantras always seemed like something better suited to Instagram and yoga intentions than words actually worth repeating out loud (or even just in my head). But at every marathon I’d run so far—London was my sixth—my brain checked out way before my lungs or my legs. I knew I needed something to keep me dialed in if I wanted to stay on my goal pace and run a sub-four hour marathon, which would be my fastest time ever. 

I wasn’t the only one using a mantra at the London Marathon. Eliud Kipchoge—you know, only the greatest marathoner of all time—wore his mantra, “no human is limited,” on a bracelet; you can see it the photos from London, where he set a then course record of 2:02:37, an insanely fast time second only to his then world-record setting pace at the Berlin Marathon in 2018 (you can also see his bracelet in the photos from that day). 

Boston Marathon champ Des Linden uses the mantra “calm, calm, calm. Relax, relax, relax,” to stay in the zone on the course. New York City Marathon winner Shalane Flanagan’s mantra for the Olympic Trials was “cold execution.” And professional marathoner Sara Hall repeats “relax and roll” to stay focused during a race.

The pros likely use mantras because they keep them engaged in the run, says Erin Haugen, Ph.D., a sports psychologist based in Grand Forks, ND. “When you're running, your brain is taking in a a massive amount of data: the scenery, the weather, your thoughts, your emotions, how your body feels, whether you're hitting your pace, etc.” When we’re uncomfortable, she says, we tend to focus on the negative—how heavy your legs feel or how strong the wind is in your face. But focusing on that will negatively impact your rate of perceived exertion and endurance. “Mantras help us cue into something positive that is occurring or that we want to occur,” Haugen explains. “They also prime us to experience or notice positive emotions that can help us think more productively about the task at hand.”

Can a few words really be powerful enough, though, to help you run faster, longer—or both? There’s tons of science that backs up the power of motivational self-talk. It was one of the psychological skills (along with imagery and goal setting) shown to boost athletic endurance in an examination of over 100 sources published in the journal Sports Medicine. Positive self-talk was also linked to improved performance in an earlier meta-analysis published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. Motivational self-talk also reduced the perceived rate of exertion and increased the endurance of cyclists in a study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (a later study showed that that held true even in the heat). 

The science is less clear, though, when specifically looking at runners. By studying 45 college cross country runners, researchers found they were more likely to reach the “flow” state—AKA experience that runner’s high, when your body performs best—when using motivational self-talk, according to research published in the Journal of Sport Behavior. In tracking 29 runners in a 60-mile, overnight ultramarathon, though, motivational self-talk did not affect performance, research published Sport Psychologist reported. But...follow-up data from that study found that most participants still found the self-talk helpful, and continued to use it after the experiment. 

“The utilization of mantras has many positive impacts on one's emotional,  physical, and psychological well-being,” says Hillary Cauthen, Psy.C., an e-board member of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. “That said, it takes time, intention, and continuous utilization of mantras to assist in impacting one's performance.”

Whenever I’ve walked in a marathon—and I’ve walked in every one I’ve run, no shame in that—it’s because my brain thinks I need to walk. But by asking myself to dig a little deeper throughout the London course, I ran for 20 miles straight. Predictably, it was after crossing that 20 mile marker (the dreaded “wall” for most marathoners) that I started to doubt myself. Every time I slowed down or took a walk break, though, I’d look at my watch and see the elapsed time getting closer and closer to my goal time, and I’d think, “dig deeper.” And every time, I surprised myself by picking up the pace. It was hard, it was ugly, and by the time I rounded the corner of St. James Park to see Buckingham Palace just meters from the finish I wanted to cry, but I always had more gas in the tank—enough to get me over the finish line with one minute and 38 seconds to spare.

Mantras are personal and situational. Dig deeper worked for me, for this race; next time, I might need something different to keep me moving. To figure out what might work for you, “as part of your mental race preparation, think back to the toughest workouts from your training and make a mental note of how they conquered them,” says Haugen. Imagine the parts of a race where you might struggle—ahem, mile 20—and ask yourself, "What might I need to hear at that moment?" “That can cue you into whether you need a motivational statement, such as ‘I am strong, I can do this’ or something that helps you accept discomfort, such as "this is normal for this part of the race, everyone feels this way right now,’” says Haugen.

Then, make sure your mantra connects to your passion and purpose, says Cauthen. “Find the emotion you want to embrace within your performance domain and develop words that evokes that emotional response,” she says. Say it out loud, write it down, listen to it, live it. “You need to believe in the mantra and connect to it for optimal benefit.”

For all the time you spend on your feet while running, you’re spending just as much in your head. Mental training should be a no-brainer. And if choosing—and verbalizing—a few words could help spur you on (even if it’s just the placebo effect) or make it feel a little easier, who wouldn’t take that boost?

This article was originally published on shape.com, but disappeared from the internet after multiple corporate buyouts and site redesigns.

the rundown

Brooks Exhilarate-BL
Remember the Brooks Aurora-BL, that bubbly bottomed everyday trainer from 2021? It was one of the few Brooks trainers I really liked, so I was bummed to learn it was a limited-edition style out of Brooks’ experimental BlueLine Lab. The Exhilerate-BL is their latest shoe: It features 3DNA, a 3D-printed midsole technology that delivers a propulsive, bouncy ride (I’ve only run in it once, and I wouldn’t say my experience felt bouncy, but it may need some breaking in…). The shoe—engineered in partnership with HP—is being released as part of a test and learn program to select Brooks Wear Testers and Brooks Run Club loyalty members who have synced their wearable devices through Brooks’ platform, in partnership with DashLX, which will allow Brooks to access runner data (including stride length, cadence, and other factors influenced by height and weight) that will help inform future iterations of Brooks shoes featuring 3DNA.

New Balance Is Raking In Cash Right Now
I know everyone loves the FuelCell SuperComp shoes, but I feel like New Balance still flies under the radar a little bit compared to some of the buzzier new running brands (On, Hoka, etc.). Well, don’t sleep on NB: The company reported a 23 percent revenue increase in 2023, with a total of $6.5 billion in sales and over $1 billion in apparel sales for the first time in brand history—and 63 percent of online customers were new, according to a report in Sneaker News. The brand also has over 350 athletes and entertainment ambassadors in their roster, so I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more of them in an Olympic year.

Sports Bras Impact Breathing During Running
If you wear a sports bra while running, you likely don’t need science to tell you this, but “sports bra underbands can impair breathing mechanics during exercise and influence whole-body metabolic rate,” a February study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise determined. Not only do they impair breathing mechanics, women can lose up to four centimeters of stride length due to poorly controlled breast movement while running—which, over the length of a marathon, could translate to running an extra mile (read more about that in an older story I wrote for Women’s Running).

“At The Olympic Trials Marathon, DFL Means Pain Over Regret”
With all the focus on the top finishers at the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon—those athletes are going to the Olympics, after all—it’s easy to forget that someone has to finish last. This Defector article by Dennis Young is a collection of stories from the runners who finished DFL—dead fucking last—over seven decades, 15 Olympic cycles, and 26 marathons. It’s a feat of reporting; I loved reading about what motivated these runners to keep pushing to the finish, how they hung “on for dear life in a race as competitive as the Trials,” and how many of them didn’t regret the position they finished in. There’s nothing wrong with being in the back of the pack, whether the pack is the most elite athletes in the country or a 50,000-strong community at the New York City Marathon.