Psychological training — What has solving a puzzle to do with running?

This game can actually be used as a tool in psychological training for runners and other athletes. Below are a few examples of how.

Prepare mentally before competition

See Method 2 under How to solve. When you start ordering the tiles in the last two rows, you need to know which tiles are the first tiles of those two rows and in which order you should bring them from right to left. If you calculate this during the game, you lose some valuable seconds, so it's better to memorise this before you start the game.

This preparation process is very much similar to the mental preparation that runners and other athletes do before competition. Playing Sprint Marathon Puzzle is a way to get used to doing the mental preparation before the start of the competition. The things that one needs to bring to mind before the competition starts, depend on what sport is in question. However, the habit of bringing the important things to mind as such is the same, no matter what one is about to start doing, and this habit needs to be a firm one if one is to achieve success in any kind of sport. This habit can be trained by playing the different levels of this game.

Use your energy wisely

When you run a marathon, don't start off as if it were a 5km run. And when you run a 100m, don't do it as if it were an 800m. This is so obvious that it may sound silly to mention it, but the truth is that many competitive athletes fail to budget their energy correctly. The competition nerves surely plays a role, so this process of sharing one's energy wisely across the distance should be automatised. This can be done only through mental training — a lot of mental training.

Just as in preparing mentally for the competition, the process in itself is the same no matter what one is to do. The habit of budgeting one's energy wisely can be trained even by playing this game. Play different levels and notice how your pace changes. On a 3x3 puzzle you may make 4 move per second, but on a 8x8 puzzle your pace is slower.

One part of using one's energy wisely is to know what is essential and what is not. Keep focusing on what matters and ignore the rest. On a big puzzle you can use some time to see whether you can order the tiles in an especially efficient manner, for example by forming "worms" of tiles that you move across many rows or columns. This analysing of the situation and finding the best way to handle it can be compared to keeping an eye on what the other competitors do on a long distance run. On short distances and small puzzles there is less room for this kind of tactics. Before one can practise focusing on the essential one needs to get used to the habit of being mindful of that there is this choice to be done. This habit can be trained by playing this game.

Prepare mentally for success

Many athletes are afraid of losing, but there are also many athletes who are afraid of winning. In a competition they are doing brilliantly as long as the outcome is unclear, but as soon as it starts to look like they are going to win, their performance collapses. Whatever the psychological reasons in a specific case for this might be, one way to cure that fear is to get used to the idea of being successful. This can be achieved through mental training and through experiencing success.

Some of the achievements you can earn in Sprint Marathon Puzzle are the local, national and world elite achievements on different distances. Earning them gives you the inner mental experience of success. Even though swiping the screen of a tablet or a mobile phone has physically very little to do with running, the things that happen in one's mind while doing it may be very similar. And the mental training is all about the mind.