Running isn't 90 percent mental, however…

Published September 1, 2025

Today I want to talk about mental skills.

Have you heard coaches (or parents) say, "Running is 90 percent mental."

That's a silly idea. If that were true, there would be tens of thousands of aspiring high school athletes lying on their backs in bed visualizing their way to PRs (though there is a ton of value in visualization, which I'll get to in a moment).

However, there is truth to this: fit athletes often fail to race to their full fitness level due to pre-race anxiety, or they struggle to remain relaxed during the race as they start to feel discomfort.

When I talk to coaches with years of experience, they tell me that this problem, which they rarely dealt with 10-15 years ago, is getting worse every season.

It's heartbreaking for you and the athlete (and their parents) when the season starts and they are already stressed about racing. And if they bomb in the first race of the season, everyone is on edge about what the coming months might look like. And if they were consistent all summer, this makes things that much more frustrating.

I've coached for over 25 years and I see this trend increasing each year. More and more coaches have said to me:

"What's missing from my program is a systematic way to help all my athletes get mentally stronger, especially those who are suffering from extreme anxiety."

After hearing this for several years, I knew there had to be a solution.

So I reached out to mental performance coaches, NXN coaches, authors, professional runners, and PhDs to help you help your athletes with the most elusive part of coaching cross country — the mental side of racing.

In the mental skills section of the Complete High School Runner, there are modules that cover:

• Self-talk strategies that will have an immediate impact on their racing.
• In-race mental skills that athletes can use to stay mentally engaged when the race starts to get hard.
• Visualizations that coaches can play for their athletes in the days leading up to races

Plus, there are 8-minute mini-lessons that you can play for your kids after a short practice. Just play the audio on a speaker at practice — you don't need to bring them into a classroom to play a video.

Here's what coaches have said about the mental skills modules in the Complete High School Runner:

"The goal with mental training is to help the athletes be prepared for how taxing the championship season can be and I believe this program helped accomplish that very thing.

No matter how mentally tough someone is, there is something here to help them." - Jordan Fuglestad

Coach Jake Hayes, one of Ohio's top coaches, shared:

"We have used it over the past few seasons and have loved the results with our athletes.

Being able to have the tools needed to give our athletes an edge on race day has been one of the best investments our program has made.

I am excited to keep using this course in the coming seasons and watching how our athletes continue to develop." - Jake Hayes

Here's what's included in the Complete High School Runner:

Mental skills training with 12 experts, nutrition education with handouts for athletes and shopping lists for parents, college recruiting fundamentals, plus coaching bonuses like cross-training progressions and return-from-injury protocols.

The course is $85 and never goes on sale. If you enroll this week, you'll get the 2025 Boulder Running Clinics videos for free (they sold for $95 in February).

• You get lifetime access to this course
• You get lifetime access to course updates
• There is a 10-day, no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee

NXN Coaches Use The Course

In 2023 Coach Andy Derks took his team to NXN for the first time. And he used the mental skills parts of the Complete High School Runner throughout the season.

"I am usually hesitant to purchase coaching education materials online. There is so much out there and often it is just information overload.

However, when I saw the lineup of coaches/professionals on Jay's course and listened to a few short clips, I knew this would be well worth the investment.

As Coach Dan Iverson notes in his section, mental "skills" implies that this is something that can be learned, practiced, and improved over time.

As a coach, I am guilty of spending too much time worrying about the minutia of workouts and realized I was not doing enough to prepare our runners psychologically and emotionally to be the best racers/competitors they can be.

Our runners are extremely dedicated, and I need to match that dedication by continuing to learn so I can best help them develop the skills they need to transfer their fitness into racing and put them in the best position possible as competitors.

Bottom line: Mental Skills are often overlooked and under-coached.

Coach Jay clearly took time to consider who to interview, what questions to ask, and has a keen insight into what HS coaches need to learn to help their runners.

This package will help you as a coach to develop the confidence and skills to best help put your runners in positions to succeed as racers.

Additionally, it will undoubtedly help your runners to feel like they are not on their own when it comes to the mental side of our sport. Just like runners can improve their fitness through the right workouts, they can become better racers, especially in the biggest moments with the right mental practice."

— Andy Derks, Plainfield North (IL)

If you're on the fence, I'll be back tomorrow to discuss nutrition and why you can — for the first time in your coaching career — get your athletes the right information they need to fuel their training and racing.

Let's go!

Jay