This is the week of the Master’s Golf Tournament. Occasionally, it is also Boston Marathon weekend, and I remember hunkering down in a Boston hotel room watching Sunday at the Master’s while resting for Patriots’ Day.
There is a statistic called scrambling that I saw on the telecast. Scrambling is the percentage of times a golfer makes par after missing the green in regulation. For instance, if a golfer misses the green on the second shot of a Par 4 but chips and putts to hold par, that’s a successful scramble. Scrambling measures a golfer’s resiliency – their ability to achieve the desired result when things go off plan.
When things go off plan.
How often does that happen to us in our races or training? I cannot think of a race or training block where things went 100% according to plan: injuries, missed water stations, untied shoes, porta potties…That’s when negative self-talk can happen and destroy a race.
Scrambling – the ability to achieve a desired result when things do not go according to plan. Seems like a good statistic for us runners too.