BUILD YOUR MIND
LOCKDOWN AND CANCELLED RACES AREN’T CONDUCIVE TO MAINTAINING MULTISPORT MOTIVATION. THANKFULLY, THERE’S LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL WITH OUR GUIDE TO BOOSTING YOUR MIND AND BODY FOR MULTISPORT
Cancelled races aren’t ideal for maintaining multisport motivation, so here's how to boost your mind and body until tri racing returns
Your body drives you to the line, but your mind makes you cross it.” The words of 2014 Ironman World Champ Sebastian Kienle. “Some sessions are stars and some sessions are stones, but in the end they’re all rocks and we build upon them.” Undefeated Ironwoman Chrissie Wellington.
Triathlon is ripe for motivational mindset quotations. Some are inspiring, some might seem trite. But whatever multisport poet lies behind the words, there’s an irrefutable truth – that your mind holds the key to unlocking your triathlon potential.
Think about it. When your pace drops and you feel you can’t go on, the finish line hones into view and you miraculously unleash a Brownlee-esque sprint. Thirty seconds previous, you could hardly breathe. Now you’re running faster than at any time in your race. Why? Because your mind dug deep… and your heart, lungs and legs soon followed.
Strengthening your mind has never been more prescient than the current day, where coronavirus has run rough shod through the race season and training. All planning has flown out the window. And ahead…? Good question. What does lie ahead? And how can you plan without an end goal? What motivation is there without the thought of a new race t-shirt doubling as a pyjama top? Plenty, as it transpires.
You just need to read on and tap into the wise words of our motivational multisport gurus…
OVERCOME DISAPPOINTMENT
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance – the five stages of grief. Or the five stages of overcoming triathlon cancellation. You’d trained all winter, lost weight, raised fitness and had finally invested in that three-grand bike. And what for? Deep disappointment, followed by a nightly bottle of red and a pipe of Pringles. Not so fast. We all need context.
“At first, I was down – my whole world and life had flipped on a dime, as they say. But then it was about picking myself back up and moving forward. There were definitely wobbles; that’s when I really leaned on my wife, family and friends to help me through the tougher times.” That’s Tim Don. Don’s story is welldocumented. In the build-up to the Ironman Worlds in 2017, the Brit was struck by a truck in Kona and broke his neck. Our lockdown experience isn’t comparable with Don’s near-fatal accident, but overcoming unforeseen hurdles is. That’s where you need to look
in the mirror and reflect on what drives you forward.
Types of motivation
“Are you intrinsically or extrinsically motivated?” asks Ross Edgley, sports scientist and extreme athlete who, in 2018, became the first-ever person to swim around Great Britain. “Victoria Pendleton was purely extrinsic – it was all about winning gold. But then you have running greats like [Eluid] Kipchoge and [Emil] Zatopek who are intrinsically motivated. They just loved the process of running. To quote Kipchoge, ‘I just want to run a beautiful race’.”
Why does this matter? Extrinsic – when you’re motivated for a reward such as a medal or praise – is thin on the ground at the moment; intrinsic – when we’re compelled by things that are personally gratifying – isn’t. So athletes who nestle in the latter camp can console themselves with the process; they can seek inspiration from improving a facet of performance, like dismounting your bike. If the extrinsic motivation of winning gold drives you, arguably this is a tougher situation. But not impossible.
The easing of lockdown means openwater swimming and longer bikes and runs are back on the menu. For the extrinsically-motivated athlete, the return of socially-distanced training equates to a chance to see tri friends, so seek out group efforts. And set yourself carrots to chase. So if you run, say, three times a week for the next six weeks, you’ll treat yourself to a new tri-suit.
Ultimately, whatever your motivation, see this time as a chance to refresh and recalibrate. “Triathletes tend to be type-A personalities and sign up for challenges all-year round,” says tri psychologist Josie Perry. “In the winter it’ll be crosscountry and off-road duathlons; the spring’s about half and marathon running; and then it’s over to tri. Usually, the only break is down to injury, which is mentally torturous. Now, there’s no resentment, because no-one’s racing.”
As humans, we like certainty. Arguably, that made the beginning of lockdown more palatable – we knew we had to stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives and turbo train. But as infection and death rates dropped, that message became more nuanced, more open to interpretation. Some sectors of society opened up, some didn’t – namely whether a 2020 tri season will be possible.
“And that’s a problem for goal-setting triathletes,” says Perry. “If someone said, ‘Okay, that’s it – no triathlon this season and we start again in April 2021’, I think people would be okay with that as you know where you stand. But at the moment you don’t know whether to train hard or not; you don’t know if you’re being lazy or sensible. Thankfully, you can realign your goals and maintain motivation. Let me explain.
“We have a pyramid. At the top, we have your outcome goal. This might be qualifying for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. Then you have performance goals – the level that you must reach (for instance, finishing under 5hrs) to achieve your outcome goal. Then you have process goals. This is the training required to reach your performance goals. This might be, for instance, increasing your stroke length by 10cm when aiming for a 30min 1.9km Ironman 70.3 swim.”
Control the controllables
In essence, you’re controlling the controllables or, as Edgley puts it, the idea of stoic sports science. “It’s all about being in charge of your emotions in adverse conditions, taking back control and being creative. You can’t swim as much? No problem. Do bear crawls up the stairs or start rehabbing your shoulders by hanging from a bar five times in 30sec intervals. Or train your big toes. Triathletes think I’m mad when I say that but, when you’re running, the propulsive forces come from the big toe. Are you doing calf raises or not? Build that proprioception, that kinetic awareness in your feet, and you’ll run better.”
Your goals can also include a spot of competition. Countless studies have shown we dig deeper in a competitive environment, especially when leading or chasing an athlete of similar ability. That’s where online platforms like Zwift have enjoyed a surge in popularity. But there are other virtual races in tri and single-discipline sports that send you outside, racing against the clock and then uploading your time for a global positioning. They give you a goal and a post-effort talking point, though, as Perry says, they might not be for all.
“The lockdown’s been different for all of us,” she says. “If you work in the NHS, you’re probably working more hours than ever before and are under huge stress. We’re not in the same boat so, for those who are under immense strain, comparing themselves could be detrimental. We must understand our individual situation plan accordingly.”
It’s about being in charge of your emotions in adverse conditions, taking back control and being creative. Can’t swim? Rehab your shoulders” – Ross Edgley
What to you is resilience? To Tim Don, it’s “grit”; to sports psychologist Vic Thompson, it’s “one’s ability to manage challenges”; to Ross Edgley, it’s coping with a decomposing tongue during The Great British Swim. That’s extreme, but Edgley’s resilience is legendary – so much so that he’s devoted an entire book to it, The Art of Resilience (see the next issue of 220 for more).
“It’s a direct quote from the book but, to me, resilience is suffering strategically managed,” says Edgley. “Running with a pebble in your shoe, for instance, isn’t resilience – it’s stupid. Resilience is proficiently managing progress in both training and racing.”
Which is all well and good, but how do you forge a mindset that’ll not only cope
with cancelled races, but also absorb pain deep into your next race (whenever that may be)? “It’s about raising your triathlon IQ,” Edgley explains.
“It’s knowing when to dip into anaerobic reserves sparingly so as not to bonk; it’s about having a well-planned nutrition strategy as resilience struggles when hungry; it’s about eating the right foods to make your immune system more resilient; and it’s about interval training, as studies show this is the best training to build mental and physical resilience.”
Four key questions
To Josie Perry, it’s about asking yourself four key questions: what you’ve learnt from lockdown; what you’ve missed; what you haven’t missed; and how lockdown has made you stronger. “Resilience is very personal but your answers to these will shape your future,” she says. “If, for instance, you’ve nailed every run and turbo session without fail, it shows that even under stress, you’re dedicated to what you’re doing. If like me you’ve realised you love the social side of racing but not the competition itself, then maybe you should do more Parkruns instead. I’d set yourself one of these questions every time you head out for a run, as our brains are more creative when running.”
Perry also says that lockdown has given triathletes a chance to look beyond their athletic identity; to bake, craft or draw. “This’ll hold you in good stead the next time you’re injured,” Perry says. “You’ll have another activity to turn to and ease the stress.” That activity should feature mindfulness according to Dr Martin
Paulus, a member of the Laureate Institute For Brain Research. “We’ve found that mindfulness training helps you to train the same resilient areas of the brain that are so strong in not only elite athletes but top military, like Navy Seals,” Paulus says.
“It helps individuals and athletes become more aware of feelings and learn to temper their reactions to them. That’s useful because studies have shown that non-resilient people simply don’t pay attention to their body’s signals.”
Perform under stress
Paulus and his team at the University of California discovered that this Buddhist teaching improves cognitive performance during stressful situations, leading you to make better decisions. “That helps when deciding whether to have an energy drink, or increase or decrease pace,” he says. If you’re looking to take this moment of self-reflective resilience to a further empirical level, you can complete a mental toughness questionnaire to spot – and work on – any gaps in your psychological armoury.
The MTQ48 assessment is a popular tool to measure mindset based on four scales It’s not necessarily sports specific but, as you can see from the four Cs listed below, it does measure traits that are important to triathlon performance. These four Cs break down as…
Control This means having a sense of self-worth and describes the degree to which an individual feels in control of their life and circumstances. A mentally tough triathlete with high control will usually just crack on with it, no matter how they feel and work calmly through emotionally-charged situations.
Commitment This boils down to goal orientation and ‘stickability’. A mentally tough triathlete with high commitment can usually be relied upon to set goals and do everything they can to achieve them.
Challenge Relates to the lengths individuals will go to in search of breaking their boundaries. Mentally tough triathletes see challenges as opportunities and relish the chance to learn and grow.
Confidence The self-belief an individual has in their own abilities. Even if they don’t parade it outwardly, a mentally tough triathlete will score high in confidence and draw the inner strength to deal competently with most situations.
The MTQ48 assessment costs £54 and can be found at aqrinternational.co.uk