RUNNERS
Rasmus Ankerson, the self-proclaimed ‘high performance anthropologist’ believes we can learn from the best athletes and coaches in the world to fulfill our running dreams.
books. In 2010 he left his job as head coach of the first soccer academy in Scandinavia to set off on a six-month world trip and answer some burning questions about talent and success. Why are 137 of the world’s 500 best female golfers from South Korea? How did one athletic club in Kingston, Jamaica, produce most of the world’s best sprinters? What is the reason that the world’s best marathon runners grew up in the same village in Ethiopia? What is the secret behind Brazil’s mass production of soccer super stars? How has one tennis club in Moscow managed to develop more top tennis players in 10 years than the whole of the United States? On his return he wrote his book, The Gold Mine Effect – unlocking the essence of world class performance which he believes will hit the World Best selling lists in 2012. He spoke to Fiona Bugler. “The mind is like any other muscle. It needs to be developed and can be trained with positive thinking and simple techniques. We need to build our mental immune system, our ability to sort out information we need and ditch the information we don’t need to help us reach our goals.
Real success is simple and winners
don’t make things complicated. World Class Kenyan 5000m runner Ben Limo only had a radio, he didn’t have
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USE YOUR MENTAL MUSCLE B
y the time he was 25, Danish born Rasmus Ankersen had written three best-selling
distractions like TV or a mobile phone, and he heard on the radio that all the Kenyans coming back from the Olympics had won a gold medal. So he decided all he had to do to get Gold was reach the Olympics. He then started training and acting on that. You could have told him that this wasn’t totally right and that he could lose. But he didn’t allow that to be an option. It’s not about being right – it’s about having the belief that supports you! The Kenyans I met don’t worry about their physiology. They don’t think I’m not the right build. They look at their cousin, and think, if he can do it so can I. Everyday average runners can
improve their chances of success and flex their mental muscle, by never looking at the reasons why they cannot achieve their goal, but always asking how they can achieve. By getting some information – but not too much. And by surrounding themselves with like- minded, high achieving runners who also want to push the boundaries. It takes mental discipline in our part of the world. The muscle will be trained if you practice visualisation on a daily basis. In your mind you have to be able to see it happen. If your goal is to run a sub-four hour marathon, visualise how it will feel and how you will look. When I work with athletes we make a vision board, a poster of success, with a picture of you either drawn or mocked up from a photo having achieved your goal. Stefan Holm, a gold medalist High jumper in 2004 made himself a Golden T-shirt with his name, the Olympian
hoops and the number one written on it years before he actually achieved Gold. In the West we set boundaries. We’ve done so much research that we know only too well what we cannot achieve. But in countries like Kenya there are less boundaries. Heart rate monitors for example, are useful, but they can also limit us, telling us that we’ve done too much, when we could go on. Runners need to develop a pain
strategy. Choose your beliefs to build your mental immune system. I tell people to be unrealistic. I’m not afraid of taking risks and I certainly took a risk when I quit my job and travelled around the world to get answers to my questions. Dare to think big. Set a big goal and don’t limit yourself.
WHAT’S YOUR PERSONAL BEST? Whether it was your fi rst race, the day you ran your fastest time, or the run on which your partner proposed, we’d love to hear about your Personal Best running memory. Send the details along with photos to us at:
letters@runningfreemag.co.uk. We just might ask you to feature on this page and share your story with the world. What’s more, everyone who stars in Personal Best gets a fantastic pair of Brooks running shoes!
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