From: Jason Gootman, MS, CSCS & Will Kirousis, BS, CSCS
Tri-Hard Endurance Sports Coaching
USA Triathlon and USA Cycling Certified Coaches
Certified Strength & Conditioning Coaches
www.tri-hard.com
“Man, that race was all mental.” This is a common utterance after a triathlon,
especially an Ironman. It takes a lot of mental ability to race well in one of the
toughest sports known to man! Thoughts alone will not get you across that finish
line and will never make up for well-developed physical abilities, but because of
the strong mind-body connection, thinking well allows you to make the most of
your physical abilities. You’re putting in all kinds of miles, doing all kinds of hard
workouts, so put that same dedication into getting your head in the right place to
race your best.
Calmness
You are calm when you have a quiet mind. This is the most fundamental mental
ability and opens you up for all of the others. As our world gets busier and
busier, this is becoming more and more difficult to foster. Developing calmness
is about learning to allow your mind to stop. Calmness is very important in an
Ironman because of all that’s going on around you (e.g., chaotic mass-start
swims, hectic transition areas, screaming crowds on the bike course). When you
are calm, you are free to take in energy from these situations, without getting
thrown off your game. When you are not calm, you can lose your nerve. Maybe
you get angry in the swim and tense up, wasting valuable energy early in a long
race. Maybe you get too excited by the crowds coming out of T1 and convince
yourself you can ride those two miles per hour faster than you really know you
cannot, writing a check that you won’t be able to cash a few hours later. Maybe
you lose your wits in the transition area and forget to take your sunglasses, your
hat, or some other important item with you. Staying calm in chaotic
environments will allow you to execute your race to the best of your ability.
Calmness Exercise
Do this exercise a quiet place where you are free from distractions. Do this
before bed or anytime during the day as a nice break from work. The more you
practice this, the calmer you will become.
1. Lay on your back in a comfortable position.
2. Next, repeat a series of 10 full breaths. Inhale through your nose. As you do,
feel your abdomen rise. Breathe in fully. As you inhale, say to yourself “breathe
in” to focus on your breathing. Hold your breath for a four-count, saying to
yourself “1…2…3…1” (the last “1” being for your first breath). Now exhale
through your mouth. As you do, feel the mental tension leaving your mind and
the physical tension leaving your body. As you exhale, say to yourself “let go” to
focus on the release of tension. Repeat for 10 breaths, trying to increase your
sense of calmness with successive breaths.
3. Practice this often, trying to become calmer and calmer. Bring these feelings
of calmness with you into your race.
Intuitiveness
You are intuitive when you can readily tap into, trust, and act upon your instincts.
Should I speed up my pace? Slow down? Do I need to make adjustments to my
race nutrition? How fast can I handle this corner? These are some of the many
questions that will come to you during an Ironman. In many cases, your intuition
is the home of the best answer. There is a time for reasoned, analytical thought.
Interpreting how you are holding up at a certain pace, or sensing how fast to
handle a sharp corner or descent in the heat of a race, are not two of them.
Drawing on your intuition allows you to make in-the-moment decisions that will
greatly impact your race. Over-analyzing on the other hand, can spoil your day.
Intuitiveness Exercise
Do this exercise all the time. Incorporate it into your life.
Listen to your own statements to others or your own internal self-talk, listen for
the word “but”. For example, in the early goings of the bike leg at a training race
before your Ironman you might say to yourself, “I should slow down here, but if I
can hang onto this pace, I will have the best race of my life.” Or “This gel really
seems to be bothering my stomach, but I know Jill swears by it.” In these cases,
your intuition is talking to you. It is telling you exactly what to do, right up to the
part where you say “but”. After the “but”, your analytical mind takes over and
convinces you that your own intuition doesn’t know what it is talking about. What
you are to do is to practicing ignoring everything after the “but”. When you feel
you should act in a certain way, do it, ignoring everything that comes after the
“but” that will often follow. Use this in training and racing and in all of your life.
The more often you can go with your instincts, the more you will develop your
sense of intuitiveness. You will get louder messages from your intuition, you will
trust them more, and you will act on them with less hesitation. Practice this often
and bring a strong sense of intuitiveness to your race.
Positivity
You are positive when you are focused on the good things that are going on
around you, for you, and when you are optimistic about your future. You expect
good things to come your way. Being positive lightens your load significantly.
Good and bad things will happen to you in your life, in your days, and in your
races. Taking everything in stride, focusing on the good and on the
opportunities, makes it all a bit easier. In an Ironman, things do go wrong: flat
tires, upset gastrointestinal tracts, bad weather, to name a few. You can dwell on
these difficulties or you can keep your mind focused on what is going well and
what you can do to keep it going well. Being positive has a direct impact on your
body. Along with these other mental abilities, being positive releases physical
tension allowing you to move more economically.
Positivity Exercise
This is another exercise you can do anytime you want to. You can do it at work,
in most workouts, or in your personal life.
1. Take 10 pennies (or similar small objects) and place five of them them in your
right pocket and five of them in your left pocket (or similar place).
2. Now as you go about your day, workout, activity, etc., pay attention to your
positive and negative thoughts. Every time you have a negative thought, transfer
a penny from your right pocket to your left pocket. Every time you have a
positive thought, transfer a penny from your left pocket to your right pocket.
3. At the end of the day/workout/activity, see where you stand. Your goal is to
end up with all of the pennies in your right pocket as you learn to think more
positively.
4. Practice this often and work to bring positivity to your race.
Courageousness
You are courageous when you feel fear and you act anyway to do something that
is important to you. You feel the fear and you do it anyway! The kind of fear you
experience in sport is really “doubt” or “insecurity”. It is rarely truly fear, fear that
you are unsafe. Fear in sport is usually fear of failure, fear of success, or most
often, an odd combination of both. This kind of performance fear will always
show up when you are trying to do something very important to you and
something that is very challenging to you. The more you want it and the more
challenging it is, the more your fear meter will turn on. One big mistake athletes
make are trying to resist the fear or trying to push it away. Remember the “No
Fear” ad campaigns? Being fearless is portrayed as being tough. Nothing could
be further from the truth. No athletes, not even the greatest champions, are
fearless; they are simply comfortable with fear. In fact, the better the athlete,
usually the better they are at being comfortable with their fears. As we said, fear
is a natural response to doing something important and challenging. Tri-Hard
Sports Psychology Advisor Dr. Alan Goldberg, PhD, refers to this kind of fear as
the “doorman to success”. That’s right, it shows you the way to success because
when you feel its presence you know you are on the verge of breaking through to
a new performance level that you want badly and are on the verge of. Learning
to be courageous, to be comfortable with your fears, will help you immensely in
the daunting race that is the Ironman!
Courageousness Exercise
To do this exercise, you need about 10 minutes of free time, a quiet space free of
distractions, a sheet of paper, and something to write with.
1. On the top of your sheet of paper write “10 Scary Things I’ve Done”.
2. Now simply reflect on your life and brainstorm 10 things you have done in your
life that before you did them seemed really scary. They can be things you’ve
done as a triathlete, like learning to swim, doing your first ½ Ironman, etc. They
can be completely unrelated things like going off to college, moving to a new
location, going for a promotion, becoming a parent, etc.
3. After you have made your list of 10 scary things you’ve done, reflect on each
one. Recall the fear you felt. Recall how the fear felt physically. Recall the
uncertainty. Then recall how you took one step at a time and did it anyway.
Recall how you survived just fine and how it was not as scary as you thought it
would be. Finally, recall how good it felt to do this thing which scared you.
4. To finish up, write on the bottom of your sheet of paper: “Doing scary things
leads me to accomplishments that I really want to achieve”. Finally, say it out
load to yourself five times with full conviction. Carry this feeling with you into
your race.
Egolessness
You are egoless as an athlete when you are viewing your performance results as
merely a part of your process as an athlete. Your ego is running the show when
you think of yourself solely as the reflection of your performance results and how
you compare to others. Strong egos are the downfall of many Ironman racers.
Your ego can absolutely ruin your day out there. The Ironman is so long, so
hard, so unforgiving, that you need to stay within yourself and race your race.
But for the ego-plagued triathlete, all it takes is another racer in their age group
zooming by them on the bike to make them scrap their personal race plan
altogether. In addition, being obsessively focused on the outcome and
comparing yourself to others does not allow you to fully focus on what is the
biggest factor in your performance: what you are doing right in that moment.
Being truly egoless allows you to fully take on the ideal performance mindset:
1. Focus on you.
2. Focus on you right now.
3. Focus on you right now doing well (being positive) and having fun.
If you are focused on what someone in your age group is doing, you cannot be
fully focused on your pedaling stroke, on your breathing, on executing your racenutrition
plan—the very things that directly impact your performance. Keep your
ego at bay and you can focus your mind on racing well!
Egolessness Exercise
To do this exercise, you need about 10 minutes of free time, a quiet space free of
distractions, a sheet of paper and something to write with.
1. On the top of your sheet of paper write “5 Reasons I Love Triathlon”.
2. Now simply reflect brainstorm five reasons you love triathlon. They can be
anything. What do you most enjoy about being a triathlete and racing triathlons?
There’s one catch: None of your reasons can be about achievements or
comparing yourself to others. They all must be egoless reasons why you enjoy
triathlon.
3. After you’ve made your list, read it a few times to become more aware of your
reasons. In the coming weeks, anytime you feel your ego taking over your
thoughts, don’t try to push it away. Simply remind yourself all of the other great
reasons that you love triathlon.
4. Practice this often and you will develop a well-rounded, more egoless
approach to your sport. Carry these feelings with you into your race.
Stay calm out there, trust your intuition, be positive, courageous, and egoless
and you’ll head in the right direction to a strong performance!
To learn more about Jason, Will, and Tri-Hard Endurance Sports Coaching, or to contact them, visit www.tri-hard.com.
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