Mindfulness for runners: How to stay calm in the face of discomfort
Mindfulness as a performance enhancer
If you’re pushing your limits in training or gearing up for a race, you already know your physical fitness is only half the equation. The rest of the equation comes down to what happens in your mind.
Whether it’s pre-race nerves, your inner voice telling you to slow down, or questioning if you have what it takes to keep going, every runner hits a point where the body still has more to give, but the mind wants out.
That’s where mindfulness comes in.
Most people think mindfulness is just about relaxing or clearing your head. It’s not. It’s about building the capacity to stay with what you’re experiencing, especially when it’s uncomfortable.
This being said, I want to make a case for why mindfulness is one of the most powerful tools to handle pain, stay focused, and keep going when your mind is begging you to slow down.
In this article, I’ll break down what mindfulness is, how it helps with endurance, and how to practice it on your next run.
What is mindfulness (and why does it matter in running)?
Mindfulness is the ability to pay attention to what’s happening right now without judgement.
You’re not trying to change what you feel. You’re simply noticing what’s going on inside your mind and body without reacting.
Here’s a simple example:
You get stung by a bee. A reactive, mindless response might be to flail , scream, and curse the big man upstairs. A non-reactive, mindful response would be to feel the sting, notice the pain, and calmly tend to it.
The difference is how you respond to the experience.
In running, that difference matters. Because when discomfort shows up, your ability to be non-reactive to the sensations determines whether you ease off the gas pedal or keep pushing.
The thing is, discomfort is just a bundle of physical sensations: pressure, tightness, tingling, stinging, heat. Sensations only becomes “suffering” when you start adding a story on top of them:
“This hurts too much.”
“I can’t keep this up.”
“I’m falling apart.”
Elite runners know this. Take Alexi Pappas, the Greek-American Olympic 10,000m runner. She describes the discomfort of racing as “an expected guest at my dinner party”, something she welcomes, and doesn’t resist.
She’s also said, “Pain is a sensation, not a threat.”
“What I’ve tried to do is shift from being offended by that pain to embracing it.”
There’s an old Buddhist metaphor that sums it up well:
Pain is like being shot with an arrow, which is unavoidable. But suffering is the second arrow, the one you fire at yourself when you react to pain with fear, frustration, or self-pity.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
How do you improve endurance with mindfulness?
Mindfulness trains you to be less reactive to discomfort. And that has real performance benefits.
There’s a growing body of research showing that mindfulness helps athletes push through fatigue, stay present under pressure, and improve endurance by shifting how the brain processes discomfort.
It works in two key ways:
1. Awareness
You become more aware of what you’re thinking and feeling in the moment, whether it’s fear, frustration, or physical pain. That awareness helps you catch the reaction before it spirals.
2. Acceptance
You learn to let those sensations and thoughts exist without trying to fight them. You stop wasting energy resisting the pain and start putting that energy into your running.
Acceptance doesn’t mean you like the discomfort, or that you give into it. It just means you don’t react to it and let it take over your mental narrative. You let the discomfort be there and you keep moving forward anyway.
Let’s talk about how you can improve your awareness and acceptance in your next workout.
How to use mindfulness in training
I want to make something clear: everyone is different. If you and I were to work together 1-on-1, building awareness and acceptance could look very different than if I was working with someone else. I like to think of everyone as their own unique puzzle. Each person has their own set of “unlocks” that are completely unique to them.
But for the sake of this article, I’m going to give you general mindfulness techniques that I’ve found work for most people.
These are three simple techniques to help you stay grounded and non-reactive in the middle of hard efforts. Each one is backed by research in psychology.
1. Label what you feel
This is one of the simplest and most effective tools: put your experience into words.
It might sound too easy to make a difference, but studies from UCLA show that when you label what you’re feeling, especially emotions like fear, anxiety, or pain, you reduce emotional reactivity in the brain.
In other words: naming the feeling takes away some of its power.
During a tough run, instead of thinking:
“This sucks”
“I’m dying”
“I can’t hold this pace”
Try a more neutral label, specific to the sensation or thought you’re experiencing:
“There’s burning in my legs”
“My chest feels tight”
“There’s a thought saying I can’t do this”
This technique is called affect labeling. It separates you from what you're feeling, stops your mental narrative, and calms your nervous system.
2. Look for what feels good
When you’re deep in discomfort, your mind naturally locks onto what hurts. That’s biology doing its thing (your brain’s job is to scan for threats).
But here’s the problem: if you only focus on what’s uncomfortable (burning legs, tight chest, fatigue), you’ll start to feel like your whole body is falling apart, which often isn’t the case.
So instead of zeroing in on the pain, shift your attention to where you do feel good, or at least neutral.
Your arms swinging smoothly
The breeze on your face
The rhythm of your breath
Your feet tapping the ground beneath you
These are real sensations too. They just don’t grab our attention as easily.
When you pay attention to them, you’ll notice you start to relax, your form will settle and you’ll find more rhythm in your stride.
In sport psychology, we call this attentional flexibility, the ability to move your focus with purpose. Athletes who do this perform better and feel more in control when things get hard.
3. Note when sensations pass away
Most of the time when we talk about discomfort in running, we focus on what we feel right now. But if you pay close enough attention, you’ll notice something else:
What you feel right now is different than before.
Fatigue comes into the legs. Then it shifts. Then it’s gone.
Tightness builds into the chest. Then it dulls. Then it disappears.
We rarely notice our shifting sensations because we’re too focused on the intensity of the one we feel in the moment.
So the next time you're in a hard workout or race, try this:
When a painful or distracting sensation fades, even for a second, simply note to yourself: “Gone.”
That’s it. Two seconds of attention.
It’s a subtle shift, but it retrains your brain to recognize something crucial in running, which is that the discomfort didn’t last. And the next one won’t either.
And the more you see that for yourself, directly in your body, the less you’ll panic and resist when things get hard.
Final Thoughts
You don’t need to meditate for hours or master some ancient discipline to benefit from mindfulness. You just need to start noticing what’s happening in your mind and body without immediately reacting to it.
That’s what mental strength really is.
The ability to feel discomfort without spiralling. To stay present and composed when it’s really hard.
Mindfulness trains that ability.
Try one of these techniques on your next run and practice it regularly like you would any other part of your training. Because just like fitness, your mind gets stronger with reps.
If you want more
If you’re looking for help with your specific challenges, connect with me to work 1-on-1 or with your team.
