How to Use Visualisation to Improve Downhill Running
Visualisation techniques offer many benefits to athletes. They can help improve motor skills, boost confidence, and reduce anxiety. For trail runners, a key anxiety-filled moment in a race can often be a tricky descent. To manage this and help improve descending skills, we recently welcomed team sports psychologist Dr Josie Perry on our monthly calls. We learnt how to create a script and run through it to better manage tricky parts of races.
Poppy running to 2nd place at the 2025 Arc of Attrition by UTMB 50 miles © @evandavies.photos
We know that the best way to develop a skill is to practice it, by actually doing it. But the second best way is to “cheat” through visualisation. This helps us teach our neurons to make the right connections and, the more we do it, the more we can physically enact it when the time comes.
Dr Perry says: “Our brains are amazing in that they can learn to do something without physically having to do it – this is known as functional equivalence.” If we imagine something well enough, recruiting all our senses to it, our brain will be able to make the same connections as if you’ve physically gone through the same scenario.
Moreover, visualisation is really helpful when we are looking to practice something slightly dangerous – such as a technical descent – or when we simply cannot get there to practice it in person. Regardless of whether you’ve experienced a downhill you fear already, or just seen it in race films, or heard about it, you can recreate it in your imagination, adding your senses into the scenario. Write this down in a script that you can repeat over and over, until it makes you reduce nerves and feel better prepared for that part of the race.
Here's how Dr Perry advises runners to put together their visualisation script:
Think of the specific place – imagine yourself either at the top of your descent or in the few metres before it
If you’ve been there before, recreate the location in your mind; write down what you can see, describing at least three things in detail
If you’ve not been there before, use the information available to you from race photos and videos or from accounts you may have heard from others
Next, focus on what you can hear when you’re at the start of the descent; this can be the noise of the people around you, nature sounds, your breathing etc.
Think of what you can smell: during a seaside race, it may be the salty air; on a humid day, you may smell the mud and wet leaves; you might even be imagining the sweet smell of your gels or the food from an aid station!
What can you taste? Would it be the last bit of race nutrition you’ve had perhaps?
What can you feel? You may be wearing gloves or feel the rocks underneath the soles of your shoes; on a technical descent, you can visualise the feel of rocks and roots in your hands as you use them to help you come down.
Catalin running in the Lake District © @steveashworthmedia
Once you’ve established the details that help recruit all your senses, start seeing yourself move through the descent:
Focus on positive wording: don’t think about not looking at your feet, but rather think about looking forward. Don’t confuse the brain with negative imagery – instead, imagine how you would do the descent perfectly if you had the opportunity
It also helps to think about words that fuel positive thinking and even bring in mantras and elements of poems or songs that make you feel confident, optimistic, or focused
Remember that, for every negative message our brain likes and latches on to, we need five positives to counteract it. So you’ll need to work hard to write a very positive script, even if that feels a little over the top
Use technique cues (Dr Perry calls this “coach on your shoulder”) to help enhance your focus and relax
Tell your body how to relax in very specific wording: instead of saying “relax,” say “drop your shoulders, unclench your hands,” for example.
The end result of this exercise should be a script of about 700 words that you can either read out to yourself (in which case, write it in the first person) or have someone else read to you and record (write it in the second person if this is your plan). Repeat it several times and notice how your confidence and physical reactions change when you think of the descent. On race day, if you’ve practiced it over and over, the helpful mantras and instructions should come to you naturally.