Mental Training

Whether or not we like to admit it, or make time to address it, our mental fitness plays just as big of a part in our race results as our physical fitness. If you're not mentally prepared to express your fitness in a race, there's no amount of workouts we can do to overcome that.

What (mentally) holds you back from expressing your fitness in a race? Here are some examples:

• fear of failure
• concern about what other people think 
• unrealistic expectations of yourself
• impatience with your progress
• too much focus on long term goals, and overlooking short term goals
• too much focus on outcome goals (not under your control), rather than performance goals
• being constantly distracted during your workouts (music, tv, thinking about your to-do list), so that when it comes time for a race, your brain doesn't know what to focus on
• thinking too far ahead (within a race), and not being focused on your current task

How can you address these issues in your race preparation so that you can limit any negative effects that they may have on your race? Here are some examples:

• journal about your progress, acknowledging small victories
• meditate regularly to reduce stress
• schedule time for mental training in Training Peaks
• schedule a regular check-in with me to help hold you accountable
• create a short list of mantras that you can repeat during workouts to help put you in the right mindset
• visualization
• positive self-talk, specific to what you need to overcome
• focus on the sensations of training (pain and discomfort) so that they don't come as a surprise when you feel them in a race