Push through the pain

How many times have you woken up in the morning and said to yourself “how am I going to get my freaking power and heart rate up in today’s session”…or you even worry about it the day before to the point that its given you that sick feeling in your stomach…worry worry worry where does it get us……. but we all do it.  Why?

Well we are competitive and we want to reach our goals.  In the back of our minds we know what we need to do and we certainly know when we not ticking the boxes or when we are. The decider is will you do what you need to or will you not.

If you get yourself an experienced coach who knows what he’s doing he will know exactly what you can achieve.  He won’t be asking you each day how you feel and adjust your program, he will know how you feel 4 weeks before you even feel it. It’s so critical that you get this right first then the next step is this mental side of things…. the morning or night before that tough overload session that makes you improve.  And yes its going to freaking hurt at some point, but remember its you that set the goal post high right?….

So how do we do this? We are say in the 3rd week of a 3 week building block and that’s the one the counts and of course the one that hurts the most. For me personally I get anxious on the key days the hard short bike or run day the long race pace bike or run set day and don’t ask about the swim I’m always as tired as hell but that’s another story but actually same principle.

I suggest you do two things, you spend 30 mins warming up as slow as you like, forget everything, the watts, the times, the pace and people running past you.  Just let your body gather itself and be ready for the next part which is bound to include pain.  Yes that word pain but as coach Grant Giles recently said when your feeling pain its usually after the moment that your head decides what it will do with that pain, get on with it and process it positively or crack because your a piss weak piece of shit lol…… ok not that strong but you get the idea.  In that warm up you will start feeling looser, lighter…do some efforts some stretches and start the meditation process of the goals your hungry for until you are ready to say right “lets do this”

The beginning of efforts in a 3rd week is always not pretty, but come to expect that and accept it. As you build into it, your head, with a bit of luck and cunning on your own part, will come good.  You break down the session and just chip away at every part, say 1 hr on the bike… break into 15 min segments or 24k race pace run break into 4 x 6k…use all the tools you got like chasing someone or some caffeine or anything that works for you ,no drugs of course bad people. On my dam tired days in Mallorca I “hang” at the bottom of the mountain for my next rabbit and chase like a greyhound, do or die to get my watts, works every time .

Most of our training is mental/psychological and so is our race its no different, this is the difference between who does well and who does not.  If you know how to manipulate yourself when times are tough your half way there!  Happy training people