27/10/2025
I recently asked the lovely Amanda Kuek, who works at Performance Edge Psychology to write about her experience of preparing for the Sydney Marathon. Her insights are super interesting from the perspective of being a performer whilst being a performance psychologist working with athletes and high performers every day. I was curious about what she learned from the experience, what psychological skills she had to utilise herself in the preparation and during the race. Here is what she had to say:
"I started running in 2024 because a friend had said to me ‘I see all these people training for marathons and wonder why not me?’ That moment shifted my perspective on what I believed I was capable of, and I thought ‘why not me too?’ To my surprise, my name was selected for the 2025 Sydney World Marathon Major. The 8-month training block was anything but easy. Here are three mindset shifts that got me to the Opera House finish line.
Purpose is a priority
Starting anything new is hard because you’ll probably suck at it. If you’re anything like me, you hold high expectations for yourself, and those ‘not good enough’ thoughts probably kick in when you fall short of where you think you should be. But the trouble with sport is that it takes time to cultivate your skills to a level that enables you to reach your big long-term goals. That’s why it’s important to have clarity about why you’re doing it in the first place (your purpose) and what it is about you that’s going to get you there (your values).
For me, I was training for Sydney because I could. My purpose was to see what I was capable of, and my values of curiosity, perseverance and gratitude got me there. I shifted my focus from achieving a certain pace or time each session, to an open goal like ‘let’s see what I can do today’. This made those sessions more enjoyable - and the outcomes were usually better too! Shifting from achievement to purpose made the ‘not good enough’ thoughts less sticky, and enabled me to embrace the process of slowly building toward a goal that sometimes felt out of reach.
Lean into discomfort
Marathon training requires discipline and consistency, regardless of motivation. It means getting out the door when you don’t want to, and putting one foot in front of the other when your mind and body are screaming at you to stop. It’s recognising that discomfort is the price of admission to meaningful growth; when you’re running long distances or pushing through sprint intervals, pain is inevitable. To manage this, I found it helpful to lean into the pain, invite it along for the ride, make space for it to be there. Struggling against it got me nowhere; accepting it would be there freed me up to run longer and faster no matter how I was feeling. And, I reminded myself “I get to do this.”
Be flexible, because you can’t predict the future
A training block, a season, a career - when you’re in it for the long haul, anything can happen. I was recovering from long-covid throughout my journey to Sydney. My lungs and limbs didn’t have capacity to reach my usual speeds and distances, and I found myself resting for days at a time from fatigue. I simply couldn’t keep up with my original training plan, so I had to adjust. Then, six weeks out from race day, I developed achilles tendonitis. I was promptly put on a running ban until race day by my physio. Again, I had to adjust. I got back in the pool for the first time since I was 15. But despite the hours in the pool, I lost some fitness and slowly came to accept that my original goal time was realistically out of reach. Again, I had to adjust.
Setbacks like injuries, mistakes, and things out of your control are an inevitable part of sport and life - but they still suck when they happen. Mental flexibility allows you to manage setbacks more effectively by redirecting your focus to what’s in your control and what’s truly important to you. For me, flexibility was possible because I was clear about why I signed up in the first place - to see what I was capable of. Race day was about trusting the work I had done, leaning into the physical and mental discomfort, and allowing my body to get me over the line. I definitely wasn’t a first place finisher, but I felt like I had won."
By Amanda Kuek
