Do you just feel like crying

When we’re training hard it’s tough to fit everything in. Enough sleep, cooking healthy meals, getting everything ready for the next day, cleaning up. Everybody is pushed to their limits at the moment. Right when you think you’re going flat out, you might find a little bit more pressure is added.

If you crack, have a little cry, lose direction for a moment, snarl at someone close, don’t worry about it. It’s normal.

When you run across that line and Mike Riley calls “Your an Ironman”, he doesn’t just mean you’ve swam 3.8km, cycled 180km and ran 42km, he means you’ve done the whole journey. The early mornings, the three attempts to get out of bed to train. He means you have survived the six months to get here and then done one big day to finish it all off.

I’ve often said to athletes in the squad, the Ironman is not a one day event. It’s a six month event, finishing with one big day.

Right now it’s about six weeks to IM NZ and about eleven weeks to IM OZ. So no matter which one you’ve chosen. Whether you’re a talented pro or a first time Ironman competitor, right now, I’m pushing you close to the edge.

I’m watching the feedback I’m getting, whether it’s by e-mail or visual. The feedback helps me to know how close to the edge you are.

I can tell when I read an e-mail from an online athlete, whether they’re smiling when they write it. There’s something in a way a person chooses their words that gives it away. Sometimes it’s the way that comunication slows down or stops which gives me a clue.

The athletes in the squad who I get to see regularly can’t hide their body language. Sometimes it’s the way they walk, sometimes it’s the way they look when I read out the workout.

One of the symptoms of being tired is self doubt. Don’t feel like your the only one feeling it. The most talented athletes in the world have moments of self doubt. When you get this feeling, welcome it. It’s an opportunity, an opportunity to overcome it.

On race day you’re going to be tired at some time. Most likely you’re going to be very tired. When you’re very tired you’ll feel self doubt creep into your mind. You’ll hear “weak you” speaking in your ear. Telling you it’s too hard, you can’t keep this pace up. You can’t go on.

Are you going to listen? Did you listen in training? Did you beat self doubt when it tried to get you to sleep in? Didn’t you beat self doubt when it told you, you can’t make that time base? Did self doubt tell you you shouldn’t train three days out from a less important race?

If self doubt caused you to make decisions in training, then you have given self doubt, the strength to control your life.

Everytime “weak you” or self doubt challenges you, and you win by over-ruling the doubts. You become stronger and self doubt becomes weaker.

Winning makes you stronger, it becomes a habit.

The major battle you face on race day, is not against your competitors or the course. The battle is with your own mind.

Now, right now is when you lay the foundations for winning that battle on race day. Any fool can train when they’re fresh but races are not won early in the day. The Ironman is won late in the day. When the mind is tired. The body is exhausted. That little voice inside your head is starting to “talk you down”. That’s when the habit of making the right decisions is the most valuable tool at your disposal.

Many of the workouts at this time of the preparation are designed to be 70% for the mind and 30% for the body. If you can find a good reason to not complete one, you’ll very likely find a reason on race day, to take your foot off the accelerator.

Every Sunday morning when the alarm goes off. Don’t get up to improve your cycling or your running. Any fool can do that.

Get up to go out and build the inner athlete, an athlete with a mental strength so tough, so resilient, that nothing can stand in his/her way of getting what they want.

So if you feel like crying. The greatest athletes have felt just like that. If the voice inside your head tells you, you can’t keep going. The toughest athletes in the world have felt like that.

One very important thing to never forget.

The greatest athletes in the world are people just like you. They have all the same doubts and fears. They are just more skilled at handling them.