its all in our heads....

I am consumed by the fact that I believe that most of this challenging race is in my head - yes, obviously I need the discipline and the required amount of training - as it is in life where specific skills are required to complete certain tasks, but so much of one's success in this life is in your own head. How you percieve certain situations - fearing or thriving in a situation, determines your success with that situation.

If I view IronMan as "phew, thats a long distance", that perspective will affect my training and race result. When I first started running; running 2 minutes, then walking 2 minutes, running again, walking..... I dreamed of being able to run 5 km (3 miles) without walking, now I wonder if my 8 km run would not have been more beneficial if it was 10 km instead! I also don' t run less than 8km as I don't think that it will benefit my fitness. My mindset changed .... my reality has grown. The distance still measures the same, but my perspective, my mind has changed.

I am reading 'The Triathletes guide to Mental Training' and I was actually surprised to read that the top athletes also feel tired, feel pain, get demotivated - the difference (apart from the obvious athletic ability) is the way that they respond to and manage these problems. I remember reading how a mountaineer, after climbing Everest, wrote "you don't conquer Everest, you conquer yourself by climbing Everest. You conquer your fears, you conquer your self belief, you conquer your own limitations". That always stuck with me.

I cannot help believing that a huge portion of the time that I take on race day can be attributed to my self talk - is it positive or negative, can I overcome the pain in my body, the tiredness that I will feel, with my mind.

An old cliche, but "you can achieve what you can believe", is so much more exciting when its taken out of the 'theory file' and is applied to a meaningful goal, like IronMan.

How I respond to the pain,tiredness and other challenges that face me on race day could make a difference of hours on the day. 3 hours is 17% of the race time it could be the difference between 17 hours and 14 hours, or worse still; doing all he training and competing but missing the cut-off and not being able to finish. 17% is all in my mind..... if you were aiming to lose weight, could ou imagine losing 17%? Could you imagine earning 17% more? Getting 17% higher mark on your next test? ....its all in our heads.......