Mental Toughness (Part 1 of Toughness, Goals and Doubt)
Staying mentally tough for me is all about knowing where the finish line is. Right now, the big Ironman finish line is almost 7 months away which seems way out there. But between here and there I have a lot of little finish lines to cross.
The little finish lines start with the day's workout. Then it's about finishing the workouts for the week. Then it's about finishing the workouts for the 3 week period so I can have 1 week of easy training. Then it's about getting my long run up to 2.5 hours. Then it's about getting my cross-country skiing up to 5 hours (since biking in the winter isn't going to happen). Then it'll be about getting my long bike up to 6 hours. At some point in there I need to do a fair amount of swimming so I can comfortably swim over an hour straight. When I look at it like that, it's suddenly easy to see why I have to stay focused and motivated for the next seven months.
Today I finished my long run for week 3 (of 32). It was an hour and a half run, up from an hour fifteen last week, and I felt great. I think about a lot of things while I'm out there. In fact, I usually can't think of one single thing for any significant length of time. Even if I set out to think about one particular problem or topic, I usually get distracted within two or three minutes. Sometimes I get distracted by the terrain, or the weather, or my form, or I just space out. I never know what's going to happen, but I can usually count on one thing. In almost every workout I do, I think about the race I'm training for. I think about how I felt the last time I did the race, I think about my pacing and nutrition for race day, and sometimes I think about how mentally tough I need to be when it's time to race. Today it was pretty cold out, so I hope that makes me tougher. I've done long runs and long indoor rides at midnight, mostly because I procrastinated, but I hope that makes me tougher too. In a way I'm looking for any way I can to prove to myself with each and every workout that I have what it takes to race.
Often, in the week after a long race, people will ask me, "Did you want to stop?" I'll let you in on a little secret. Most people, unless they're having a terrible day, don't want to stop. More than anything else, they want to get to that finish line. The real temptation is to back off. Just a little - no one will know. Just enough so that it doesn't hurt quite so much. The truth rears its ugly head when you're going "as hard as you can", and you hear someone coming up from behind trying to pass you. Suddenly, you go just a little faster, and you realize that you had it in you all along. There's no magic formula that will tell you if you're truly going as hard as you can. You just have stay completely focused each and every moment of the race. For me, that means crossing the little finish lines mile by mile in the race, and remembering exactly where the big one is.
So here's to crossing a little finish line. Today's one hour and thirty minutes of running doesn't seem like much when the run portion of Ironman will take me somewhere around four hours. But I celebrate this little victory just like I'll celebrate when I pass the first of twenty-six mile markers on the run. Until then, I'll be practicing my mental toughness.
The little finish lines start with the day's workout. Then it's about finishing the workouts for the week. Then it's about finishing the workouts for the 3 week period so I can have 1 week of easy training. Then it's about getting my long run up to 2.5 hours. Then it's about getting my cross-country skiing up to 5 hours (since biking in the winter isn't going to happen). Then it'll be about getting my long bike up to 6 hours. At some point in there I need to do a fair amount of swimming so I can comfortably swim over an hour straight. When I look at it like that, it's suddenly easy to see why I have to stay focused and motivated for the next seven months.
Today I finished my long run for week 3 (of 32). It was an hour and a half run, up from an hour fifteen last week, and I felt great. I think about a lot of things while I'm out there. In fact, I usually can't think of one single thing for any significant length of time. Even if I set out to think about one particular problem or topic, I usually get distracted within two or three minutes. Sometimes I get distracted by the terrain, or the weather, or my form, or I just space out. I never know what's going to happen, but I can usually count on one thing. In almost every workout I do, I think about the race I'm training for. I think about how I felt the last time I did the race, I think about my pacing and nutrition for race day, and sometimes I think about how mentally tough I need to be when it's time to race. Today it was pretty cold out, so I hope that makes me tougher. I've done long runs and long indoor rides at midnight, mostly because I procrastinated, but I hope that makes me tougher too. In a way I'm looking for any way I can to prove to myself with each and every workout that I have what it takes to race.
Often, in the week after a long race, people will ask me, "Did you want to stop?" I'll let you in on a little secret. Most people, unless they're having a terrible day, don't want to stop. More than anything else, they want to get to that finish line. The real temptation is to back off. Just a little - no one will know. Just enough so that it doesn't hurt quite so much. The truth rears its ugly head when you're going "as hard as you can", and you hear someone coming up from behind trying to pass you. Suddenly, you go just a little faster, and you realize that you had it in you all along. There's no magic formula that will tell you if you're truly going as hard as you can. You just have stay completely focused each and every moment of the race. For me, that means crossing the little finish lines mile by mile in the race, and remembering exactly where the big one is.
So here's to crossing a little finish line. Today's one hour and thirty minutes of running doesn't seem like much when the run portion of Ironman will take me somewhere around four hours. But I celebrate this little victory just like I'll celebrate when I pass the first of twenty-six mile markers on the run. Until then, I'll be practicing my mental toughness.