You’ve trained consistently.
You’ve planned your pacing.
You’ve thought about the time you’d like to run.
Then Saturday morning arrives.
It’s windy.
The course is wetter than expected.
Someone you normally run alongside has started much faster than you.
And your GPS watch is giving you pace readings that don’t seem quite right.
Suddenly, instead of concentrating on running your best parkrun, you’re worrying about everything happening around you.
Here’s something I want you to remember:
You can’t control everything that happens during parkrun. But you can control how you respond.
And learning to recognise that difference can make you a more consistent, confident and effective runner.
Stop Wasting Energy on Things You Can’t Change
Think about how much mental energy runners sometimes spend worrying about things outside their control.
The weather isn’t ideal.
There’s a headwind along the waterfront.
Someone has positioned themselves ahead of you at the start.
The course is crowded.
Your favourite pacing partner hasn’t turned up.
None of these things is necessarily going to change because you worry about them.
Yet they can become distractions that influence your decisions and undermine your confidence before you’ve even started running.
Instead, ask yourself one simple question:
“What can I actually do about this?”
If there’s something useful you can do, do it.
If there isn’t, redirect your attention towards something you can influence.
That’s not ignoring the problem.
It’s choosing where to invest your attention.
What Can You Control at parkrun?
There are plenty of things you can influence, even when conditions aren’t perfect.
You can control your preparation, the decisions you make during the run and how you respond to changing circumstances.
For example:
- Your warm-up: Arrive with enough time to prepare your body properly.
- Your starting effort: Resist the temptation to get dragged along by faster runners.
- Your pacing decisions: Adjust your effort to suit the course and conditions.
- Your running technique: Relax your shoulders, avoid unnecessary tension and maintain good form.
- Your attention: Focus on your own running rather than constantly comparing yourself with others.
- Your response to difficulties: Stay calm, reassess and make sensible adjustments.
- Your finishing effort: Make the best use of whatever energy you have remaining.
You won’t execute every one of these perfectly.
But they’re all more useful things to concentrate on than worrying about circumstances you cannot change.
You Can’t Control the Weather, But You Can Control Your Effort
Imagine you’ve been training towards a particular parkrun time.
You’ve completed some good sessions and feel ready to run well.
Then Saturday arrives with a strong headwind.
You have two choices.
You can become frustrated because the conditions aren’t what you wanted.
Or you can recognise that the wind changes the demands of the run and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Trying to maintain exactly the same pace into a strong headwind may require considerably more effort than running that pace in calm conditions.
If you stubbornly chase the number on your watch, you might expend too much energy early and struggle later.
A better approach is to run according to effort when conditions demand it.
Accept that your kilometre splits may vary.
Use sheltered sections or tailwinds sensibly.
Keep your effort controlled.
You cannot remove the wind.
But you can prevent it from dictating poor pacing decisions.
You Can’t Control Other Runners
This is one of the biggest challenges at parkrun.
You arrive at the start and notice somebody you normally finish close to.
You know roughly what time they usually run.
So when they charge away in the opening 500 metres, you’re tempted to follow.
But why?
You don’t know what training they’ve completed.
You don’t know how they’re feeling.
You don’t know whether they’re attempting a PB or have simply started too fast.
And you certainly don’t know whether their chosen pace is appropriate for you.
Their race is not your race.
Let them go if necessary.
Concentrate on your own effort.
If you’ve paced yourself well, you may catch them later.
Or you may not.
Either way, you’ll have made decisions based on your own capabilities rather than someone else’s behaviour.
You Can’t Always Control Your Finishing Time
This is an important distinction.
You can influence your finishing time through training, preparation, pacing and effort.
But you cannot guarantee a particular result.
There are too many variables.
Weather, terrain, accumulated fatigue, sleep, illness and countless small factors can influence performance.
Even when you’ve prepared extremely well, you might not achieve the time you were hoping for.
That’s frustrating.
But it doesn’t automatically mean you’ve failed.
A runner who executes an excellent pacing strategy in difficult conditions may have performed better than someone who runs a faster time on an easier day.
A good performance and a personal best are not always the same thing.
Your finishing time is an outcome.
Your preparation and execution are the processes that help create that outcome.
Concentrate on doing those processes well.
Control Your Response When Things Go Wrong
Let’s say your opening kilometre is slower than expected.
Maybe the start was congested.
Perhaps there was a hill.
Maybe your GPS watch was inaccurate.
You can panic and immediately surge to make up the lost time.
Or you can calmly reassess.
Ask yourself:
Am I running at the appropriate effort?
Is there a genuine reason for the slower split?
Do I need to change anything, or should I simply keep running?
Sometimes the correct decision is to gradually increase your pace.
Sometimes it’s to maintain your effort and accept that the split wasn’t ideal.
And sometimes it’s to adjust your goal for the day.
The important thing is that you’re making a considered decision rather than an emotional reaction.
One imperfect kilometre doesn’t have to ruin the remaining four.
Focus on the Process, Not Just the Result
There’s an important principle in sports psychology that applies particularly well to parkrun.
Athletes can set different types of goals.
A performance goal might be to run under 25 minutes.
A process goal might be to run the opening kilometre under control, maintain an appropriate effort through the middle kilometres and commit to a strong finish.
Both have value.
But the process goals give you something specific to concentrate on while you’re actually running.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of 27 studies found that process-focused goals produced greater improvements in sporting performance than goals focused primarily on results. The researchers also identified benefits for athletes’ confidence in their ability to perform. DOI IRSEP
This doesn’t mean you should abandon your PB ambitions.
It means you should support those ambitions with actions you can execute.
The finishing time gives you a target. The process gives you a plan.
A Simple Mental Strategy for Your Next parkrun
Before your next parkrun, identify three things you want to focus on.
01 Before the start: Prepare properly
Arrive early enough to complete your warm-up without rushing. Don’t let other people’s preparation distract you from your routine.
02 During the run: Execute your pacing plan
Start under control. Adjust for the conditions. Run your own race, even when others are doing something different.
03 When it gets difficult: Choose your response
Relax your upper body. Concentrate on maintaining your effort. Make sensible decisions rather than allowing frustration to dictate your running.
Then, when something unexpected happens, remind yourself:
Control what you can. Adapt to what you can’t.
It’s a simple strategy, but it gives you something constructive to return to whenever your attention starts drifting towards things outside your control.
Bringing It Back to Saturday
At your next parkrun, pay attention to where your thoughts go.
Are you worrying about the wind?
Are you frustrated because somebody has overtaken you?
Are you becoming anxious because your watch isn’t showing the pace you expected?
Are you already thinking about your finishing time when you’re only halfway through the run?
When you notice yourself focusing on something you can’t change, bring your attention back to what you can influence.
Your effort.
Your pacing.
Your relaxation.
Your next decision.
You don’t need perfect conditions to execute a good parkrun.
And you don’t need everything to go according to plan to be proud of how you’ve performed.
Sometimes your best performance comes from responding well when things don’t go to plan.
You can’t control the weather, the other runners or every circumstance on Saturday morning.
But you can control your preparation, your decisions and how you respond.
And that’s where I want you to put your energy.
Because the runners who consistently perform well aren’t necessarily the ones who experience the fewest problems.
They’re often the ones who make the best decisions when problems arise.
Control what you can. Let go of what you can’t. And run your own parkrun.