Associative vs. Dissociative Thinking While Racing

Two general theories regarding what you should think about while racing:

1) Dissociative - Dissociate, separate from reality. Don't think about the pain. Go to your happy place. Turn on the auto-pilot. Think about work, family... anything but the race.

2) Associative - Become hyper-aware of your body. Associate with your body. Run through a checklist, head to toe. Does my head hurt? If so I may need water or salt. Are my shoulders hurting? If so I may need to relax them or change my stance on the bike. How are my lungs feeling? What's my pulse? How does my core feel. How are my thighs? What about my calf muscles? Any blisters on the feet? After the body check, move to nutrition and strategy. Am I on pace? What's my next timecheck/milestone? When is the next time I should eat? What should I eat? After you get through those take a few minutes and then go back through the checklist. Over and over again. And then, importantly, adjust based on what you learn.

The article on trifuel.com about the inner critic got me thinking about this stuff. While racing I'm definitely an associative thinker. I run through the checklists and take in all of the pain.

It takes a while to understand all of your body's types of pain. Some are good. Some are bad. So I generally train in an associative mental state. Sometimes to a fault. I'm always watching numbers, heart rates, etc. It gets tiring to do this all the time. It's why I enjoy riding with friends, like I did this past weekend. That's largely a form of dissociative thinking. We talk about life, etc and our minds leave the pain of the training.

Interestingly, Keith pointed out this weekend that we go faster when we stop talking. Makes sense. We all focus on what we're doing. Now, none of us was pushing our limit, but the things we learn about our bodies apply.

These two theories are also related to the notions of naturalistic training vs. scientific training. I need to do an entry on that one, but in summary the Kenyans do naturalistic training... they just go out and run. Americans, in general, subscribe to scientific training... we chart numbers and track things. My belief is that the best plan is somewhere in the middle. Right now I'm too far on the scientific training side of things.