Work on one page at a time

When you’re reading a book, you read one page at a time. You don’t read half way down a page and open the book somewhere else and read a bit of that one, then return to the original and continue. To follow the story in the way it was written, you start at the front and work your way through, one page at a time.

The same thing happens when you have learned to race well. The athletes who race well, have “only one page open at a time”. They’re focussing on what they’re doing at that moment. They’re aware of where they have to go, they’re aware of what’s left, but their attention is directed at “right here, right now”. 

I’ve met a few athletes who would be world champions if I could put someone elses head on their shoulders for a day. When some athletes race, their thoughts are scrambled. Their mind jumps from subject to subject. It’s as though they’re reading a book, whose pages are being blown back and forth in the wind.

It is possible to train the mind to focus on one main direction, “one page at a time”. There are always going to be other thoughts flash into the mind, but the skill is to let them come and go. Always returning to the “page you’re on at the time“.

An easy way to learn this skill is to practice away from the sport. Practice while you’re at work. Practice while you’re watching TV. Just start out by shutting out distractions. I’ve found an easy way to practice is, when you’re cutting up vegetables, you think only “of cutting up vegetables”. When you’re laying bricks, you think only “of laying bricks”.

If you examine the detail of what you’re doing, it becomes easier to focus on what you are doing at that moment.  You start to live in the moment.

If you work at your computer with too many pages open (especially a dinasour like mine) things just don’t work properly. It does what you want reluctantly, slowly, you just don’t get things done efficiently. If you close down the unecessary pages it speeds up and works well.

The same thing happens when you’re out there in a long race. If you could record the thoughts which flash through your mind during any one minute. There could be hundreds. Very few of these thoughts are going to make your race more successful. In fact most are going to slow you down.

So if some thoughts are going to slow you down and some thoughts are going to make you go faster, it makes sense to control the content. We have to lock in on the productive thoughts, fill our mind with them and let the others slip by.

Usually the most productive thoughts are almost no thoughts. 

On the bike, counting revolutions to the top of the hill or to the next sign. Counting revolutions usually causes you to produce more power. Try it on the trainer if you’re able to measure power output.

On the run, feeling the ground with your feet, pushing the ground back with each stride. Counting foot strikes to each inward breath and each outward breath. Real simple stuff.

Just like cutting up vegetables for a soup or stew. Real simple thoughts, at this time, on this page.  

If you learn to work on one page at a time. It will become easy to race at one page at a time.