Sticks and Stones and Mental Training

By Max Wunderle

I had the pleasure of traveling to San Diego last week to watch the Ford Ironman California 70.3 race.  Outside of ending in one of the greatest finishes in triathlon history (USA Olympic hopeful Andy Potts edging 2006 World 70.3 champion Craig Alexander by 3 seconds!) I witnessed other behavior that got me thinking about the ‘fifth’ discipline of triathlon—the first four being swimming, biking, running and nutrition—mental training.

Although the race was in ‘sunny’ San Diego, the conditions were anything but balmy.  The water temperature was 60 degrees, the air temperature was about 45 degrees and the wind was howling out on the overcast course.  I spoke to many athletes after the race who mentioned that their days had started cold, but quickly got warmer as they were able to get into strong grooves and raise their heart rates appropriately.

While I wasn’t racing, I was asking myself why over 2200 athletes had brought themselves to this race.  Sure, the pros were here to start their season off right with a podium finish and some much needed cash.  There were probably another 200 or so amateurs who had signed up for this race to chase one of only 20 Kona (Ford Ironman World Championship) slots available.  Another 300 or so had probably targeted this race to attempt to get a Clearwater spot (Ford Ironman World Championship 70.3).  But what about the others?  Why were so many hardy souls putting themselves through this pain and agony?  The ‘what’ part of this question had been answered—they wanted to do a ½ Ironman race.   The ‘why’ part is something completely different and very personal to every competitor who drew themselves to the starting line.

We all know people who are, to put it bluntly, driven.  No matter what they do, they can focus on a task, goal or topic and shut out everything around them.  Their drive is insatiable and seems to have a life of its own.  Whether we look at a child who plays a video game hundreds of times to get to a new level, or a grown adult pounding golf ball after golf ball in order to ‘groove’ their golf swing, there are those around us who don’t seem to need coaching or suggestions on focus, determination and perseverance.  For the rest of us, developing or enhancing such a skill set can be an enigma.  After all, if my desire is non-existent or wanes under stress, how can I coach myself that this goal or desire is something worth fighting for?  To truly understand such an issue we must first start at the very beginning.

Before prescribing any athletic training, I ask each of my athletes what their goal(s) is/are.  Understanding this very base question and answer provides the entire foundation of any training plan or coaching.  Why would you coach someone on how to run like Carl Lewis when they simply want to complete a 5K?  In contrast, offering swimming lessons to Mark Spitz might not be the most practical use of his time either.  So, once a collective understand of a ‘what’ goal is established, appropriate guidance around nutrition, training and race preparation can begin.  What is so often forgotten in such a dialogue is the why.  I understand you want to do a marathon, but why do you want to do it?  It may seem like a throwaway question, but if the individual setting such a goal doesn’t have a driving desire to fuel their ‘what’ goal, their road to success can be fraught with potholes--potholes that cannot be seen until they are knee deep in them.  

I am making a point about desire and will power as there is nothing more important in solidifying any form of commitment that will be put under stress.  When you twist an ankle, forget to feed or hydrate properly, fall off your bike, swallow water, start missing predetermined pace intervals or simply don’t feel ‘good’, what will keep you going in a race?  The more you think about this now, the more prepared you’ll be when unanticipated events plague your road to success.

I want to share two examples that demonstrate the scale of desire and how it can be harnessed and executed.  Firstly, the one that will draw at your heartstrings.  I recently had the pleasure to spend time with one of the top amateur half Ironman racers in the country.  During our conversation, we started talking about drive and desire.  He had been very successful in his triathlon career and I was interested to understand why he continued to put so much heart into his racing.  His first answer was straight forward and anticipatable, he simply wanted to see how successful he could be.  I understood this angle, but I was more interested in how such a blasé desire could drive him to perform so aggressively.  In particular, how was he able to dig so deep during the run portions of his triathlons and block out all the pain?  He then shared with me one of the most moving stories I’ve ever heard from any athlete.  His youngest child was stricken with health problems that eventually resulted in the child’s spleen being removed.  Additionally, his child also had to take antibiotics in the morning and the evening—as an 18 month old.  Furthermore, the child wasn’t able to leave the house at all for extended periods of time. 

Once his health began to come back, the child was finally able spend short periods of time outside.  His child spent such time racing across the yard in sheer ecstasy to simply be outside, to simply run across the grass instead of staying sedentary indoors.  This athlete went on to share that his child became a completely different person in enjoying such a simple pleasure.  His face lit up, his heart raced and he was in pure heaven in enjoying the ability to run free.  This is the vision that this athlete brought to all his races.  So when the pain came during the run, this athlete called on the mental vision of his child running through his yard and asked himself, is my pain really that bad?  His child would die for the chance to spend so much time running outdoors and this athlete suddenly had a different perspective on his ‘pain’ and instead relished in the sheer opportunity to put himself in a position that his child cherished so dearly.

This type of power to harness such emotion is not something that many of us can call upon.  However, we can learn from it and create milestones and motivations of our own to ensure our own race day success.  Should we find ourselves in a position of incredible physical stress or emotional challenge, there are several tools we can use to break down our position.

Perspective.  Why am I doing this?  What is my ultimate goal and what will it accomplish for me?  This is a very personal angle, but one that can hone our focus and ensure we stay on our intended path.  Repeating our mantra and reminding ourselves why we are in a marathon, trying to finish our first sprint triathlon or completing a 5K can provide the necessary motivation to fight through the pain.  Racing for a cause is also a great motivator.  There is nothing like being a charitable lightning rod to fuel your fire.  Most races have preferred or primary support partners that are always looking for racers to help advocate their cause.

Humor.  Believe it or not, finding humor in the environment around us can free our minds from the channeled vision of pain and suffering.  Maybe a competitor ahead of you has a funny run stride or the bike they are riding is from the 1970’s and looks like it will break down at any minute!  Race uniforms are always good fodder.  Some folks may be in the latest lycra unisuits with flowers and posies all over them, while others clearly they forgot they had a race today and put on their spouse’s shirts, shorts, or whatever.

Competition.  Even if you are the race leader, someone is always beating you (the clock, for example).  Therefore, when things get tough, another motivational option is to focus on the tires, shoes or feet ahead of you and simply tune out everything else around you.  Just as many women going through labor are coached to create a “focal point” upon which to eyeball when painful contractions come about, the value of focusing on another competitor and boiling the race down to just that individual can help us shut out the pain.  Focusing on another individual forces us to stop thinking about our own agony and allows our mind to turn to other visual stimuli. 

Sticks and Stones.  When people ask me about the 140.6 miles of Ironman or the 26.2 miles of a marathon, I don’t ever think of those distances.  Instead, my memory conjures up images of sticks, stones, marks in the pavement, debris on the side of the road and other minute milestones along the path of such races.  By boiling down massive distances into 2 or 3 yards or feet at a time, we allow ourselves to feel the success of achieving hundreds of milestones in any given race.  If we allow ourselves to think that we are actually running 26.2 miles or get depressed with thoughts of huge miles to be raced, it can be very depressing as the task ahead may seem daunting.  However, if we remember that ‘every great journey begins with one step’ and repeat this kind of mantra, we are able to celebrate the successes of making progress on a much larger scale. 

Unlike the other aspects of endurance sport training, mental training can be the most personal and difficult to hone.  Because motivation can be so personal and so fleeting, we may have to call upon all four of the suggested areas above in some races or rally around only one.  The only way to test our internal mettle is to replicate stress (mental or physical) in our workouts.  Whether we call upon certain motivations to get us out of bed for an early morning workout, run the extra 2 miles in our long run, or to ride our next climb in a higher heart rate zone, testing our mental toughness in practice sessions can help us build up mental tolerances for our race situations.  So, the next time you feel flat in a workout, or ‘too tired’ to finish, remember the situations discussed above to make sure you have the mental wherewithal to finish strong. 

Happy training!

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