I saw a youtube video from kristin armstrong , ex women's bike pro. She had a good long video how the mind comes into play for training/racing. Basically, you count how many times your mind focuses on other things then the actual training, such as thinking of your kids, what will you when you go home, how your knee hurts right now, etc. What she recommened, what I do, is count your breathing...1,2,3,4,5 breathing in, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, finish breathing out. Also, have your mental inventory list ready to go: is my head up, check, are my hands level, check, am I landing on mid foot, check, where are my hips ..are they too foward/backward, check, what is my cadence count...1,2,3,4...left foot/right/left/right. Bying doing all of these things above and others like it, you actually push out all emotional thoughts
(good or bad
), but your mind focuses on the task on hand vs how well/bad you are doing the task. I've gotten through allot of good runs, tuff ones, where I wanted to quit because they felt too hard or something was not feeling well...by using these mental games. Its wierd how your mind will shift over to something else and the quit demons go away.