Chicken or the Egg? Attitude or performance?

As a runner, I've begun to realize that attitude is everything. My attitude affects every aspect of my running, from the time on the stopwatch to the delicacy of my form. Generally my attitude is pretty positive about running; it's something I enjoy and although I just joined my school's cross country team this year, I have become one of our team's JV runners.

Recently, I suffered from a minor head injury. A trip to the emergency room and a few stitches fixed up the large gash on my head, but I had to take a few days off to regain my strength. Eager to run again, I tried to quickly jump back into my workouts and even ran in a meet after only a day of recovery. That was the worst race of my running career without a doubt. During and after the race, my attitude was sour. Not only was my attitude terrible, but so was my time. The same event occurred at yet another cross country meet a few days later. At the end of the race, I was left disappointed and unsatisfied with my time. I couldn't help but question which came first, my bad attitude or my bad time? I had never faced this problem before considering my success earlier in the season. 

The thought stuck with me for a few days, even up until my workouttoday. However, today's work out felt very different. I felt incredibly accomplished afterwards and during my run, I was happily humming along to my favorite Jack Johnson song. This was my best run in a while. After today, my suspicions about my attitude versus my performance were proved correct: the two are obviously linked, but which causes the other? Prior to my experiences this week, I would have said attitude is a prerequisite to performance but lately, I'm not so sure. This is similar to the chicken before the egg situation. What comes first? This applies not only to running but to life, can our attitude severely alter our performance or is our attitude based off of performance?