Adel-DeSoto-Minburn Girls Cross Country Coach Steve Brown discusses the mental capacity it takes to run at a high level.

Brown is candid about the fact that running a high school race is stressful and is as mentally challenging as it is physically. He says the team focuses on framing a positive mindset ahead of meets.

“When you get into a race, and you’re asking a kid to make themselves extremely uncomfortable and then purposely stay that way for 20-something minutes, that’s not an easy thing to do. And so as you get uncomfortable and you’re running through a race, your brain starts to spin doubts and tries to talk you out of it, because it doesn’t like to be uncomfortable, and so we work a lot on mental strategies to try to keep positive thinking and positive thoughts and strategies to overcome doubt.”

Brown believes that the same approach can apply to life because people are going to go through struggles, but encourages them to keep pushing to get to the other side. ADM Girls Cross Country is back in action on Wednesday, running at the Harlan Golf & Country Club at 4pm.