Today on Weekly Strides, we have, as Tina says, "a weird, random episode, a one-off." Tina is the interviewee, and long-time listeners will recognize the interviewer's voice - it's Jeremy Noessel, the editor for Running for Real, who used to do the intro to the podcast.

At the end of 2019, Tina launched a course that she had created to help runners with something she had struggled with - and successfully overcome. As she explains, "Basically, when I was running at the elite level, I did a lot of work on the mental side of things. I worked with Evie, my sports psychologist; I read up on things. I did what I could, but I noticed that for me, the mental side of things was always what came between me and my best performances. When something went wrong, it was mentally that something went wrong."

When she wrote about those mental freakouts on her blog, people would tell her that they felt the same way. Meanwhile, she was learning tactics to break through those barriers. "I thought," she says, "I learned these tactics and yes, they still come through, these negative thoughts, but surely other people could learn them too. And so I gathered up everything I had learned, every tactic I used, and everything that I felt was a piece of me getting stronger mentally and therefore being able to run to my potential. Reaching that lifetime goal of running for Great Britain was because I got that mental part done. And so I thought if I made a course where I could teach everyone everything I had learned, then maybe they could take it into their own running, and when people said to me, 'I'm not mentally tough enough,' I could say, 'Here's everything I know; go do it.'"

She called the 12-week course that she created Mile 20: Mental Training to Win Your Race. The runners who took it loved it; you can read what they have to say about it at the bottom of this page. But the world shut down in March 2020, and Mile 20 shut down with it. Now Tina is relaunching the course, and if anything, it's even more relevant now than it was originally.

One of the things that sets Mile 20 apart from other courses is its community element. There are videos to watch and worksheets to complete, but there's also an exclusive Facebook group where participants can get support from others who are running a race at around the same time that they are, as well as from the Running for Real team. As Tina says, "I think if we've noticed anything from the last few years, it's that we need that connection, we need that community, we need to be talking to other people for our own mental health, and so to be doing it with a mental course is just a perfect combination."

Mile 20 is open for registration through August 21st. It will be $197, which is $100 off the regular price, through August 14, and then it will be the regular price of $297. After that, registration will be closed until December or January. You can start the course whenever the timing is appropriate for your goal race, so even if it's in the winter, you can sign up now and begin when the time is right. You can learn more and sign up here.

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