At the end of last year, I wrote about using self-hypnosis and mental imagery for enhanced running, and as well as using animals and machines for our mental imagery skills, we also used other exceptional athletes. Of course, you need to have seen those athletes run in order to attempt to emulate their style, posture and way of running.

Likewise, just before that, I wrote about getting motivated to run and throughout my training for the multi marathons I am (and have been) running this year, we have been looking at ways of getting self-motivated, as well as finding external sources of inspiration and motivation to help drive us on through the challenging times in our training.

That is what this new regular feature is all about here on the blog. Each week, I am going to feature a motivating clip, or focus on an inspiring runner, which can then be used to build up our motivation, build up our mental catalogue of useful material and to help keep us inspired as much as possible.

Today is the first such entry.

In the latest edition of Runners World magazine, they pointed this clip out to me, it features an American 800m runner who won gold before I was even born. However, the manner of how he raced is not just inspirational, it is hilarious!

Dave Wottle, looked a bit unorthodox, he ran wearing a golf cap and had a tendency to hang at the back in races before offering up a sprint finish many could not deal with. In the 1972 Olympic 800metre final, he was 50 metres behind the other runners at one stage in the first lap, then just watch him go. Enjoy the commentary too as he “beats one Kenyan, then another…”

From now on, I shall certainly be emulating Wottle ‘The Throttle’ with my sprint finishes at the end of races. Enjoy this clip!

I’ll be back with another self-hypnosis strategy soon…