Craig Mottram (35) from Surrey Hills, VIC is an Olympic long-distance runner and recently won the 10K event in 30:02 at the Townsville Running Festival, QLD.
Q. When you’re running, what’s one mental strategy you use?
A. Visualisation – it helps you focus on your goal and helps keep you relaxed.
Q. Why it is important for runners to analyse their performances?
A. I think it’s important that we runners don’t over analyse our performances. I’d suggest, picking one or two points to focus on from each race and work on them specifically. This way you will improve piece by piece. For example: If you went out too hard too early and slowed in the second half of the race, then work on pace judgement and practice this in training.
Q. What is the most important lesson you’ve learnt about racing?
A. Patience. A lot can be gained in the last part of a race and a lot can be lost if you go out too hard too early. Even splits to hit your target time is often the most economical way to run.
For the rest of the interview please see page 30 in our January 2016 magazine.
