If you look around a race course you’ll notice that triathlon draws in a certain type of person, especially long course triathlon.

We’re eager and committed.

Hard working and driven.

Focused and relentless in the pursuit.

Most of us exemplify these qualities in many other areas of our lives. And at first glance these qualities scream high-performing goal achiever.

So if these are character traits we embody, why do we quit when things get hard?

And let me be clear…sometimes its a full-on quit in a workout or race, sometimes it’s walking more than we really need to, it might be backing down the effort/pace, or maybe hitting that "completed as planned" button in Training Peaks when you never actually left the house. Yes, every single one of these constitutes a quit. Because every single one requires sacrificing the planned execution.

Let me also be clear…I’m not talking injury, accident or emergencies. I’m talking shit quits. The ones we regret immediately.

We’ve all been there before…in the late stages of a race when it feels nearly impossible to get to finish line. The 3 remaining miles might as well be 20. The effort becomes too much to manage and walking seems like the only smart choice. So you walk a little more each aid station and then you walk between aid stations and then before you know it, walking becomes the default.

The instant gratification of walking won out over the commitment to the goal.

Why?

Why did you even set the goal when you knew you’d likely to give up on it?

Why the self-sabatoge cycle?

It's simple really.

Because your brain is wired to use your physically demanding effort to trigger a basic fight or flight response. Your brain and body are trying to figure out how to handle the stress reaction. Certain parts of your brain think you’re in danger and when it's up to that part of your brain to decide, it will always chose to give up the effort.
Important note here: it may hurt when you're racing and barely holding onto pace, but this is not life or death.

You can spend years swimming many meters, biking many miles and running many miles. Until you learn how to condition the more evolved part of your brain to be in charge more than your primitive brain, you will always quit.

You may feel more justified at times than others, but it’s still a shit quit.

The only way to stop quitting is to start being honest with yourself.

No judgement. Pure honesty.

“Yes, self. I know I could have held pace on those last 3 miles, but the pace was fast and I was scared…scared of blowing up and scared of failing.”

Honesty means you don't blame the weather or your coach. It means you go inside, find the truth and then practice being honest more often.

Because making up stories about why you quit does not serve your current self or the future athlete you want to become.

When you are honest with yourself, you build trust and integrity. That trust and integrity becomes the lifeline of follow through and commitment.

What if you gave up the need to give in to instant gratification?

What if you accepted it would be hard and didn’t decide ahead of time the level of hard you could handle?

I believe you can handle it all.