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?
Remember: who you are as a triathlete, while racing, matters.
And I don’t mean who you are in the sense of where you come from, how old you are or how nice your bike is. What I mean is who you really are…to yourself.
If someone were to walk up to you in transition moments before heading to the swim start and ask, “what kind of racer are you?” How would you answer? Are you confident? Aggressive? Calm? Certain? Nervous? Anxious? Excited?
“Mind over matter'“ means using willpower to overcome physical problems.
Those physical problems could show up as hitting another hard race pace interval or resisting an urge to eat another cookie. Or any number of other ways!
Willpower is only necessary when you haven’t gotten your brain on board with what you want.
It needs convincing.
I spent 6 days swimming, biking and running beautiful San Diego, CA. That’s my idea of a vacation! But I also spent those 6 days hanging with new friends, learning new things, doing more volume in 6 days than ever before, fueling my body with high quality foods, and pushing past mental barriers I didn’t even know were there.
When we’re dialed into our training, we focus a lot on perceived exertion, watts, pace, heartrate, FTP and all that good stuff. They’re important measures of our effort and progression as athletes. If we want to get better at cycling then we periodize the training to ensure our bodies adapt to new levels. The same is true for swim and run training.
The same is also true for our minds.
