Bendigo’s Andy Buchanan is the Australian frontrunner heading in this Sunday’s Sydney Marathon.
After his national marathon record of two hours, six minutes and 22 seconds was beaten by two seconds in July, he’s “hungry to have success”, says fellow elite runner, Brady Threlfall from the Inside Running Podcast. In a star-studded international line-up, Buchanan is Threlfall’s favourite Australian.
Thirty-five-year-old Buchanan, who won the City2Surf earlier this month, says he is feeling fit and strong. But his physical fitness is only half of it. The rest? His psychological conditioning.
“I think it’s pretty close to 50/50, maybe 60/40 in terms of the psychological,” Buchanan says.
At the Gold Coast marathon in July, where his record was taken by fellow ASICS athlete Haftu Strintzos, Buchanan had a taste of what happens when negative thoughts triumph.
It was his first race since returning from injury.
“I started thinking, ‘It’s been a while. I’ve been out of the game for too long. I haven’t got it any more’,” he says.
The effect was immediate – his confidence dropped, and so too did his shoulders and his cadence.
“As soon as you start having those thoughts, it just kind of spirals.”
Training mentally has now become as much a part of his preparation as the physical training.
“I’m still only just a student at this,” says the Olympian. “But I’ve learned that your brain is going to think different things, and you can’t control it. You just need to be curious and sit with it.”
He still has the same negative thoughts that he has always had, but he is less inclined to give them undue power: “I’ve normalised some of those thoughts.”
It’s a Zen approach that has arisen out of an unusual training technique.
In 2023, Buchanan began working with a sports psychologist. “He’s a person I credit a lot of my success to.”
The sports psychologist rides on a bicycle alongside Buchanan, sometimes pumping him up and telling him he’s looking good and super fit.
In other sessions, he does the opposite: “He’ll tell me things to make me feel shit.”
His psychologist might comment on how long the session has been going and how exhausted Buchanan must feel. He’ll tell him his legs look tired, and that he’s not moving well. Sometimes, he’ll ride off on his bike, leaving the athlete behind.
“He gets in my head, but he does give me a warning,” Buchanan says. “He’s like, ‘Sorry, I’m going to make you feel pretty shit on this one’.”
The point, Buchanan says, is to simulate the feelings and thoughts he might experience during a race, so he can rehearse his response.
“Your mind is a really powerful thing and someone saying something to you can have a really big impact on it. So why can’t you have the same impact on it?”
Sports psychologist Dr Damien Stewart says the approach Buchanan’s psychologist uses is a form of mindfulness training, acceptance and commitment.
“You accept the thought, thank the mind for the thought, and then move on to the next thing,” he says. “You just keep going, which is the definition of mental toughness, right?”
The caveat, Stewart says, is that it should be done under the direction of a sports psychologist, with permission and under very regulated conditions, so it doesn’t get into that realm of abuse.
By getting into Buchanan’s head, it becomes a form of pressure training, where sports psychologists try to recreate the intensity of game or race day, so the athlete can train their physiological and psychological response.
Mental and physical skills are not separate and athletes are just as likely to struggle with negative thoughts as anyone else.
“Athletes are mere mortals as well,” Stewart says. “They suffer through the same mental challenges.”
To redirect his attention in moments of suffering, Buchanan uses various techniques. He might turn his attention to his body, focusing on the process, not the outcome and listen to the rhythmic, “awesome sound” of his race shoes – ASICS Metaspeed Ray – hitting the asphalt. Another way to focus on the process in times of challenge is to count steps or count breaths, Stewart says.
Buchanan uses distraction by looking for “funny combos” of dogs who look like their owners on the course. Music is another way to distract, says Stewart: “There’s a lot of research showing music can help to pump us up, calm us down, or to focus.”
Finally, Buchanan reminds himself to just ride the wave: “If you’re going through a bad patch, it’s going to end.”
It’s a form of micro-goaling, Stewart says. Inevitably, in a big challenge such as a marathon, which 40,000 people will tackle of Sunday, there will be suffering whether you are an elite or a beginner. What matters is how you respond in those moments, says Stewart.
“When the pain kicks in, setting small goals of getting to that light post, to the next light post, just to give us something to achieve,” he says. But we all have moments of doubt and moments we tell ourselves we can’t do something:
“A mindful practice says that a thought is just a thought. It doesn’t mean it’s true. We give it the power to be true,” says Stewart.
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Sarah Berry is a lifestyle and health writer at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.
