I have always been highly competitive, especially in individual sports. Perhaps it is because I just love going fast, and nothing makes you feel as fast as when you come flying past your fellow competitors (the only thing that is comparable is racing downhill on my mountain bike). I was (am) a speed junkie (and not the amphetamine kind).

After many years of not participating in competitive sport, I did something really crazy, or so most of my mates thought so – I entered a sprint distance off-road triathlon. Now you might think that for  someone who was on the wrong side of 35 who had never done anything close to an endurance event, the idea winning would be far from mind. Not me. Winning was out of the question, but that did not stop me from competing with my training partner (who is equally competitive) or even simply competing with arbitrarily times I sent for myself.

Every event was approached with the goal of beating some person or time. I gauged my success, and enjoyment, not on how I swam, biked or ran but on the outcome. Needless to say, with little endurance racing experience my performance was so far below my (largely unrealistic) expectations I rarely came away thinking ‘I enjoyed that’ (a sense of achievement yes but not always feeling that I had fun).

Fast forward two years to last Saturday. I had now progressed from sprint distance to full triathlon. With months of preparation behind me I was ready for the challenge. I kept telling myself that the finishing time or position was irrelevant. Bear in mind that I generally come near the bottom of the field (I comfort myself knowing that I was built for speed not endurance). I kept telling myself that was important was the sense achievement; I was about to do my first full triathlon. Yet, as the days grew closer I could not escape a gnawing feeling in my gut. The previous events had not not exactly been easy. I had an awful sense of foreboding.

Two days before the event I went to my physio and she asked me what I enjoyed most about the event. ‘The finish’ I answered. Well, she was not too impressed. After some discussion she said I should stop being so competitive and focus on enjoyment and on becoming more experiential. ‘Do experiential people ever win?’ I answered and then followed with ‘Ouch!’ as she dug her fingers into an especially tender muscle. Okay, okay. I give in. I shall try and focus on the enjoying the event rather than worrying about times or positions. She sent me away with one simple instruction. I was to report back with one thing I enjoyed about each leg of the triathlon. One simple instruction… one major change in mindset.

Race day. I keep focusing on ‘relax and enjoy the race’ which is quite different from my usual ‘I need to finish the swim in x minutes, hit the half way mark on the bike at y time so that I can get to T2 at z time’ and so on. Standing my at the water’s edge waiting for the gun (horn actually) and I am actually looking forward to the swim (how odd).

With the blast of the horn we’re off. I immediately settle into a comfortable pace breathing every third stroke. Amidst trying not to get too far off course I start thinking ‘what on earth am I going to tell my physio?”. I settled on “I love the sound the bubbles make as I breath’. Strange but true. I really am enjoying this.

Out of the water and into T1. Feeling very fresh and comfortable I head out on the bike. My training partner caught up and passed me in the transition – I was too busy putting on sunblock – it would the last I saw of him until the end. I remember that swim is my strong point. Sadly it is not the place where triathlons are won or lost (but then I am not racing today I remind myself). On the bike I focus on keeping an easy cadence and not pushing myself into the red. I am being passed left and right. But I am winning another race – or rather battle – to not fall into the trap of chasing of competing. The bike course is tough, really tough, and I would be lying if I told you it was all wine and roses. With long sandy climbs there are times when I want to curse the person who designed the route. But then I remember; I need to report back to the physio. Riding through some awesome single track sections I start to notice the beautiful views and rock formations. Okay. Tick.

Entering T2 there is a distinct absence of activity. I am well down the field. Most of the bikes are in and not too many people around. I could stop for a beer and no one would notice. Slow change into running kit after nursing a blister and into the last leg. I start walking and thinking ‘I’m gonna walk these last 10kms’. It is not long before I approach the first water stop. Well one cannot walk into a water stop, I must get my legs moving and start running into the water stop. After drenching myself with water to keep cool I am back on the trail. I decide to run 100 paces and walk 10 or 20. Had I thought ‘I have 10km to go’ I think I would have walked the whole way. For the next 9km my thoughts are focused on counting paces. It proves very useful in pushing me to run just a little further before I am rewarded briefly with some rest. I did walk the steep climbs though and then enjoyed running the downhills, but for the rest I kept to my run long and walk short strategy. But what am I going to tell my physio? I realise that I enjoy the quiet solitude of the trail run, only broken by the sound of my running shoes crunching on the gravel, the lonely bird call or the occasional fellow competitor (this is one of the benefits of being at the bottom of the field). And then there was the view. After one very, very long climb I reach the top and can see right across the valley. In the distance I see the finish. Almost there.

I finish strong and feeling great. No aches or pains despite being on the trail for almost 5 hours (40 minutes behind my training partner who is feeling tired and sore). I am blown away – I really had fun. I have moved from competing to experiencing.

And all thanks to one simple task!

As the time grows closer to the Argus Cycle Tour I see more and more cyclists on the road “miles in the legs” in preparation for the big day. As much as getting time in the saddle is important, consider spending some time preparing mentally for the race.

Here are six things to consider when preparing mentally for the Argus. Think about what you usually do, both physically and mentally, before you race. Think about what has worked well for you in the past and those things that have tripped you up.

1. Think about the night before the race. What helps you perform best on race day, and what could potentially trip you up. Not getting a good nights sleep is one thing that has tripped me up. The upshot from that was that I used to get agitated if I could not fall asleep.  I always try and get my kit and bicycle prepared the day before and try and relax long before I hit the sack. I put these questions to my cycling friends and here are some of their suggestions (indented throughout):

“Go and lie down 1 hour before you normally would this brings the toss and turn forwards into your normal awake time“

“I used to struggle to sleep the night before a race until somebody told me that the night before the race was not as important as sleeping well on the night two nights before the race. Doing everything the night before raises the adrenalin for me which stops me from sleeping. I do all my race prep two nights before. Since I have been doing this I tend to sleep well on both nights before the race”

2. Think about the morning before the race? Do you have a routine? What is it? Many athletes have pre-competition routines or rituals that keep them focused on the race ahead rather than worrying about where they put their cycling gloves. Think about what state of mind you find gets you to your best performance. Some people need to be calm before the race and try and avoid getting too hyped up. Other people need to get psyched up and thrive on lots of excitement. Many athletes use music to help them psych up or psych down.

“I think back about the training effort that I have put in and that way re assure myself that I have done enough to ENJOY and have fun! Remember not to set too much of a high expectation to avoid disappointment! This can be soul destroying”

“Just remember to also have fun!!”

4. Think about the start of the race. I am often calm until the beginning of the race and then my heart rate goes up and get those butterflies in my gut. These are physical “symptoms” of your body getting ready for competition. The trick is not to label these as symptoms of anxiety but rather sypmtoms of excitement. Anxiety can derail your race.

“I find chatting and having a great laugh before the race and enjoy the environment you find yourself in is a great way of relaxing“

5. Think about the race itself. Do you have some idea of how the race is likely to go? If it is your first Argus and if you have the chance, consider driving the route before the race. Think about how you might tackle each section. It is always good to approach the race with confidence and a positive attitude towards all aspects of the route – you might loathe hills (as I do) but rather imagine yourself moving strong and steady up the hill rather than focus on how you always struggle  – but you should also prepare and practice for when things are not going well and you just need to knuckle down and get through the tough parts. I really do loathe hills but I have found that a simple mantra to be extremely useful in getting me through the rough spots. On the Wines2Whales stage race I spent hours and hours chanting “and one and two, and one and two” (in keeping to my cadence) to myself; blocking out thoughts of burning legs and the desire to stop and rest.

“Take each km, section or hill as it is on its own if you think ahead to much you find yourself holding back and waiting, saving yourself for the tough sections? Just ride and enjoy. I found using my average speed as the perfect way of keeping on track”

“When the legs are shouting at me I shout back “This is NOT a hill!”

“If I think about the race too much I find I get overwhelmed; instead I retrace my life and try to remember every single person I ever met … and … if the race isn’t over yet I work out whether the car registration numbers I see are prime or not”

6. They say that failing to plan is planning to fail, but equally you need to also be prepared to change or adjust your plans. What happens if you are late for the race and all your planning is out of time. Think about your “Plan B”. What are the critical things you must do if you just have 5 minutes to prepare? And what happens if you arrive early or the race is delayed? How are you going to keep yourself relaxed and yet primed for the race when you have an hour to kill.

Physical preparation is essential for enjoying your Argus cycle Tour, but just spending some time thinking about the race and planning not just the logistics but also how you might think before and during the race can lift your performance.

Thanks to my cycling buddies for your input.

You devote of hours and hours to training your body but how much to you spend training your mind?

More and more, athletes and sports teams are turning to sports psychology and mental game coaching to give them the edge in training and competition.

Sports psychology is a discipline within psychology that studies how mental processes influence athletic performance while mental game coaching is the practical application of Sports Psychology; helping athletes develop the necessary mental skills to improve their performance.

Mental Game Coaching can help you with:

• Goal Setting: deciding want they want to achieve, setting realistic goals, and working through the steps that must be taken to achieve them.
• Visualisation: creating vivid mental imagery of their goals, the mental rehearsal of training, race strategy, and planning “in-game” thinking.
• Optimal Intensity Regulation: finding their individual zone of optimal performance (IZOP) zone (e.g. through psyching up or psyching down techniques and “Flow” Training).
• Concentration: having the appropriate level and focus of awareness and maintaining focus during training and competition.
• Self Talk: Stopping negative thoughts and focusing on positive thinking before, during and after competition.

Remember, sport is played with the body but it is won with the mind.

For a long time I have searched for a reason for our teleological nature that went beyond a simple evolutionary psychology explanation: our hard wired drive to perpetuate our gene pool, our need to satisfy basic needs (food, shelter, sex). Goal oriented humans would have had a better chance of survival. Without a goal oriented nature we would not hunt or gather. But in the developed world at least, those basic human needs are generally taken care of (at least basically). A simple evolutionary explanation does not suffice.

In his book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi suggests that our prime goal has moved from basic survival to the desire for happiness. Yet we are no happier than our ancestors despite the trappings of the modern world. Happiness cannot be found in materialism. Happiness, according to Mihaly (and I tend to agree) is found in the state he calls flow. Much like Eckhard Tolie, flow is living in the “now” but is different in that Eckhard focuses on egolessness and Mihaly focuses on matching talent and challenge.

Much has been written on flow since Mihaly introduced the concept (although the fundamental idea is not new). Continue Reading »

In an interview with the American Psychological Association, sports psychologist Dr. Shane Murphy talks about what it takes to be an Olympic athlete. The last question asked by the APA was “What does it take to do your very best when the pressure is on? You talk about being in ‘the zone’. Is that how athletes master the psychological skills that allow them to deliver their best in competition?” Dr Murphy’s response is quoted below… Continue Reading »

Grabouw Xterra 2010

You may have guess that I am more than a little obsessed with the perception of fatigue. Having completed the Cape Argus Cycle Tour this weekend and having had a taste of being in the saddle for 5 hours, and then looking ahead to the Wines2Whales 3 day mountain bike stage race in November, you can imagine that the topic is very relevant for me, and hopefully for some of you other crazy folk out there.

Picture this, you’ve been riding for three hours and you’re tired, you can feel the burn creeping into your legs, a sure sign that your body is producing more lactate than it can metabolise. You know that if you carry on at this pace you’re not going to make it. And you begin to wonder, how on earth to the professionals do it? Is their perception of fatigue the same as yours or are they immune to feeling the burn. Continue Reading »

source: www.sportsillustrated.co.za

I have talked about the perception of fatigue. In my previous post I mentioned that Professor Tim Noakes states that “the brain, when it senses that the athlete is overstretching him- or herself, sets off a series of sensations that the body translates as symptoms of fatigue. The brain does so to protect itself, the heart and the rest of the body. “Its main function is to make sure you don’t get into trouble in whatever exercise you’re doing”.

I just completed my very first Cape Argus Cycle Tour, with a wind resisted time of 5 hours and 17 minutes. For the most part I felt stronger than I had expected, but there were times when all I could think of was “when will this end”. I have to wonder at what point my brain was correct when it told my legs, “hey slow down”. It is incredibly difficult to know how far to push yourself. Athletes who have down years of endurance training seem to develop an accurate sense of how far they can go. For those unschooled in endurance sports it is a process of trial and error. Continue Reading »

Continuing on the topic of mind over matter, and specifically in relation to exercise, I am reminded of some work done by Professor Tim Noakes several years ago. Professor Noakes challenged a long established belief that fatigue originates in the muscles (when the muscles run out of oxygen, glycogen or ATP), or when there is too much lactic acid. This model was called the “Limitations Model”. Rather, Noakes and his colleagues proposed that fatigue originates in the brain (I can now hear all coaches saying “you’re not tired, it’s in your head). According to Noakes, “fatigue is a complex emotion affected by factors such as motivation and drive, other emotions such as anger and fear, and memory of prior activity” (read more here). Continue Reading »

Over the Christmas holidays I’ve  been doing a fair amount of training in preparation for the race I’ve entered. Despite getting up before dawn during my holidays, I found I was highly motivated, full of energy and putting in some personal bests on various rides and runs. That stopped on Monday, my first day back in the office. Continue Reading »

Nassim Nicholas Taleb describes his book, “The Black Swan“, as a book about confirmation bias. The black swan is very rare, and if you had never seen nor heard of a black swan you might be inclined to say that they do not exist. In an effort to make sense of the world, we create schema, or mental images of how things are (and should be). Furthermore, we tend to search for information that confirms our schema. Let’s say that my schemata for dogs is that dogs are vicious creatures liable to attack at any time, then I am probably going to attend information that confirms my prior belief. For instance, when reading the newspaper, I would attend to an article about a dog attack a small child, but ignore one about a dog saving a child from drowning. You see, attending to any information that runs counter to my dog schemata, then I would create what psychologists call “cognitive dissonance”, and dissonance creates a feeling of unease. Continue Reading »