Psychologically informed coaching for runners
Run Smarter - the importance of self regulation
At Run Smarter our vision is to help runners to keep making progress and enjoy the joy of running. We believe this is possible to achieve even with a busy life outside of running. Our expert coaches provide structure and guidance tailored to your specific needs, ensuring consistent progress and enjoyment in your training. More than just improving your form or speed, we delve into the mental aspects of running—those often-overlooked elements that can significantly affect your performance. Whether it’s overcoming race-day nerves, dealing with discomfort, or staying mentally strong during long runs, we can help you. Through our holistic coaching approach, you'll identify areas for growth, learn strategies to manage mental and physical challenges, and work toward your running goals with the support of both a coach and psychological tools that fit your unique needs.
The physical and mental aspects of running are inextricably linked, so it makes sense to work on both simultaneously. One major goal in mental preparation for sports is improving self-regulation skills.
Evidence has shown that self-regulation can help runners to enhance their performance and achieve their goals through helping them to manage their thoughts, emotions, and behaviours.
Becoming an effective self regulator can also contribute to supporting overall wellbeing, a sense of achievement, enjoyment and resilience in the face of challenges and adversity.
Critically we believe that effective self regulation can be taught through developing psychological skills. In our approach we will support you to develop and maintain the skills of planning, monitoring and evaluating.
Stories
As part of Becky's Professional Doctoral research we ran an eight week study using the same principles and components. Here are what the participants said about their experience on it.
“It taught me a lot about myself and my running, what I am good at, what I need to work on and helped me figure out what I enjoy. I felt it struck a good balance, allowing me to fit my work and life alongside my running and still see results.”
“Coming into the study I wasn’t feeling very positive about running, but doing the eight weeks have changed the way I think about running, I am not scared to do stuff now and it has made me more confident in my running, enjoying it more and getting more from it.”
“Taking that step back and thinking about running in a bit of a different way actually improved my running.”
