Joanne Smith ran marathons expecting severe pain, then gradually expected to feel fine instead. Her belief shifted without her understanding why, but the change worked: after the Yorkshire Three Peaks marathon, no soreness. What you believe about recovery shapes how your body actually recovers.
But I used to, when I first started doing long-distance running, I used to expect like that it was gonna really, really hurt, you know, afterwards. And as time went on, that I naturally— I'm just trying to work out how it happened, but basically— I got to a point where I expected it not to. Don't quite know how it happened, it was over a long period, but somehow my belief changed from, this is gonna hurt, to, this is gonna be absolutely fine, I'm just gonna get up, get up like I did nothing yesterday. And that is what began to happen. So I could have gone and done a marathon, like the Yorkshire Three Peaks, which is like 3 mountains, And I could have gone out and done that one day and got up and not had any muscle change or anything the next day because I got to a level where I did not expect anything to flare up afterwards. So the power of expectations, I'll leave it with you there about what you believe.
