Staying Positive

When training and racing it’s important to ‘be kind to yourself’.

What do I mean?

If things are not going as well as you want them to, stay positive. Don’t beat yourself up. Stay away from negative self-talk. Focus on the bigger picture. Learn some of the lessons from our post about ‘Becoming A Great Athlete: What Does It Take?”

Here are a few specific things to think about:

Part of the Process

Remember, fatigue is part of the process. You are not going to feel good on every session. In fact, you’re probably not going to feel good on a lot of sessions. If that was the case, if we did feel good on every session, why would we taper? Why would we try to freshen up to produce a good performance. We wouldn’t need to would we?

Training, the process of getting fitter, faster, stronger is a process. As we’ll discover below, it’s not a linear or entirely predictable process either.

A recent example for many of us happened a couple of weeks ago in the pool.

During the Monday Swim Squad session, everybody felt great, swam fast, loving life. We pushed, and swam strong. On Wednesday’s session however, we could hear “I feel sluggish” or “I’ve got no speed” or “I had nothing today” coming from many swimmers. They didn’t become worse swimmers, going backwards, they were just fatigued from Mondays efforts and didn’t have the same ‘snap’.

It is all part of the process.

Positive Talk

Stay positive. Think about what has gone well, what is going well, what you are feeling good about. I was reminded of this when I read some comments on TrainingPeaks from one of our athletes recently.

“I was listening to an audiobook which had a chapter about positivity and how positivity can change your perception of something. I’ve heard of this before, Serena Williams writes positive comments down and repeats them to herself. I’ve been trying to do this with my run, think of the bits I enjoyed in each run and that how my run form feels better with more running. And remembering this into my next run.”

“I was listening to an audiobook which had a chapter about positivity and how positivity can change your perception of something.“

For me, it’s all about mindset. How you view yourself and the sessions that you do. “I hate running” or “I’m not a good runner” are not going to do much for you. Positivity, re-framing, looking at the progress, the potential, the small wins. That is what will do it.

So, for this athlete, we’ve deliberately increased her run frequency and volume, now running four times per week. This shift in mindset and increase in volume is doing wonders for her run. Now, instead of dreading the run, she is much more positive and is getting so much more out of it.

Context Is Everything

When sessions don’t go as planned, or you feel a little bit flat in your session, think about your wider world.

• Is everything in your life relaxed, stress-free and smooth?
• Do you have some busy work things going on?
• Has your sleep been good recently?
• What about your eating and drinking?
• What about other life stresses?
• Were you rushing around prior to the session?
• A little distracted with other things going on?

All of these things impact your training and racing performances – positively and negatively.

So remember to think about training – your progress, how you feel – in the wider context of life.

Embrace The Pain And Discomfort

Part of the fun of the sport, and part of the reason we do this sport, is to push ourselves beyond what we are currently capable of. Doing that is not easy. It will involve some discomfort, some pain, some struggle. Embrace this struggle and know that you will be a better athlete because of it.

A session being hard – mentally or physically – is often a good thing. Maybe not in the moment – when you question life choices – but certainly in the longer term.

Remember this when you want to climb off your bike and throw it into a bush!

Appreciate Yourself & Your Surroundings

Even if everything else is going wrong, try and appreciate what you are doing and where you are doing it.

“The hill climb is a real struggle today.” Move your head away from the Garmin on your handlebars and look around, take in the views. Breathe.

“I can’t hit my run pace!“. The run pace isn’t what you want it to be today. Look around at your fellow club mates, all ‘enjoying’ the same struggles, and appreciate where you are, what you are doing, who you are doing it with … and smile.

I was racing an Ironman, Vichy I think, and I did not feel great. I had pushed too hard on the early hills and was feeling a bit sorry for myself. I crested the top of the final hill on the super hilly section, and started the descent. Wide sweeping roads, corners and bends that you could take at pace (even with my descending skills) and suddenly I was smiling again. This was fun. I was having a great time. In that moment, I was loving life.

Stay In The Moment – Don’t Catastrophise!

I suppose this one links to the point above. In the above example, I could have felt sorry for myself, looked ahead at the rest of the race with dread, wondering how I was going to rescue this race. Instead, I stayed in the moment and had a great time!

For many of us, the Ironman run is often the place where we lose our heads, think about how long is still left to go before reaching the finish, letting the enormity of it ruin the present moment … and then mentally giving up and walking.

Instead, and it’s easy to say sitting here, we should be staying in the moment, thinking about what we can do right now to make things better. Do I need to eat? Do I need to change my posture? Can I increase my cadence?

I wrote about this in a previous post.

This is part of the post I was thinking about …

“My reaction to the fatigue and the increased effort it was taking to run at my pace was to keep believing in myself, to dig a bit deeper, to be sensible with nutrition (including an emergency Snickers!), to smile. I decided to enjoy the moment, not be swallowed up by it.

I slowed a little going up the hill to the turnaround but then increased the pace coming down into town.

The decision to take on the run was liberating. I felt in control. I was passing so many people. I was actually racing. The last few k’s in an Ironman, when I’m usually on the floor, and I’m racing! Unbelievably, the last 10k of the run was my quickest of the race!”

Just because things aren’t going quite to plan, don’t give up!

“Ok, the 6 minute kilometre pace is out of reach at the moment, let’s aim for 6.30’s” – rather than “I can’t hold my pace, my race is ruined, I’m going to walk“.

Do what you can in the moment. Don’t think about what is still left to do and how much it’s going to hurt.

The same applies in training. “I can’t hit 200w on the bike today, I’m getting off”. Instead, drop the power to 180w and crack on!

Remember, It Won’t Last

A bad session, a bad day, a bad week, a bad month – it won’t last.

A couple of months ago, one of our athletes was struggling a little. Everything feeling a little bit harder than it should, not making the ‘expected’ progress. At the time, she was quite pragmatic about it, telling me that “progress isn’t linear” – which is absolutely spot on.

Fast forward to this month, and it’s a different story. Pace is fast, endurance is strong, power is rising. Her comments now … “I feel great. Everything feels easy”. The secret to this? She stayed consistent, stayed positive, doing the sessions even though they didn’t feel great at the time.

That ‘bad patch’ didn’t last long. She persevered and is now seeing the results.

Since this post was written, this athlete has had an unbelievable season. Smashing races, setting PB’s, climbing the podiums regularly. Isn’t this athlete glad she just kept showing up, persevering, despite the ‘lack of progress’ at the time?

Don’t automatically think “I’m rubbish” or “I’m going backwards” or “I hate this sport” after a few bad sessions. Consider the seven points above and remember to be kind to yourself in those darker moments!