I’m a fan of the intense mental strength of what you might call extreme sports. Watching the last Winter Olympics I was intrigued with what the competitors were thinking before their event. One wrong move and it’s not only a disappointing result, but a chance of serious injury. It was unfortunately brought into the minds of the athletes with the tragic death of Georgian Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili. The courage to slide down the track afterwards and then also perform at a world class level is an amazing level of focus.
It’s these sports that sparked an interest in the mental side of the sport for me. In triathlon, the chance of serious injury or death is a lot lower thankfully, it can happen though and I’m an example of that.
The mental side most people know about is visualization; it’s a great place to start and has many benefits. The only problem I find is when I visualize it’s of positive experiences and when things go bit pear shaped in a race, you’re not prepared for it.
I like to coach by experience, so in the last year or so these are my mental stuff ups and successes
City of Perth Olympic 2011 – Penalized for passing in a green zone
This happened early on the bike and was told it was just a 4 minute penalty. So for the rest of the bike I slowed and didn’t overtake. I was mentally affected and failed to ride to my potential on the rest of the course. I was annoyed and negative; it did turn around as I eventually became positive and aimed to get something out of the race by having a good run. Into T2 and I was DQ’d but it didn’t bother me and I continued on and had a good run.
I needed to positive earlier!
Albany Olympic 2011 – Bike mechanical, crash and misdirected
Onto the bike and I was riding well. Around a corner and hit a bump in the road, my rear wheel moved and locked up on the brakes. Annoyed (common theme here = grumpy racer), I made a quick stop and re-adjusted my wheel. Back on and away, I dealt with and moved on quickly (an improvement from Perth). A couple of KM’s down the road, I hit the road as I took a roundabout too tight in wet conditions. I was over it….
Checked my bike, all ok and I was away again. I rode well to the end and then was misdirected by a marshal (traffic stole he’s attention at the time) and did well to not crash in the wet again coming into T2. Over it and was slow through T2.
Getting better at turning around a negative quicker, but the amount of mishaps did build up on me on this day.
Busselton 70.3 2011
This was “The Race”. Pressure, I’d stacked a lot on myself. I’d set myself to ride 2:08 and get back into the lead pack. A faulty valve on a disc I’d borrowed for the race meant that 10km in, I was on the side of the road with no spare, race over!
I was surprisingly calm, I knew the tyre was new and gave it a quick check, nothing obvious. My finger brush by the valve and felt air, I can fix this. Gas bottle and inflator connected, but wouldn’t fit on the valve, again I’m thinking race over. Thankfully it was quickly replaced by a thought of not being ready to give up. Emptied my gas bottle and connected the inflator over the valve and then connected another gas bottle. Tubular was now inflated and I just required some cool composure to take the inflator off without snapping the valve. Got it off, with a fairly big bend and was able to close it almost completely. It would have to do.
I stayed positive and it kept my race alive.
There is improvement or progression in this, just like the physical training. It comes with experience, but visualizing a few mishaps, like flat tyres etc will help when it does happen. I’m definitely not perfect yet, if you read my last post. T2 wasn’t too quick…
While I was out of action in 2009/10 I actually missed the positive / negative battles that go on during a race. It’s the wrong approach, the quicker you can think positively about a situation the better. Whether it’s your competition catching you on the run or you’re starting to struggle, you have to find a positive. Get in the habit of positive self talk during the race and take confidence you can finish off races well from your training.
Final tip
Enjoy training and racing
Mikey
PS Tyson's mental process walking to the ring, Scared to death to a god in 50metres http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9MtJ164XJIDon't worry, I'm not going to start staring people down at races
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