Use your imagination

Can you imagine yourself standing on the podium accepting your prize, looking out over the hundreds of people in the audience?

Some of us are aiming at finishing a certain race respectably, some are aiming at winning their category in that race. Some dream of qualifying for Hawaii. Some squad members will realise the dream of racing in Hawaii for the first time in four weeks. Some of our Hawaii squad dream of either winning or at least placing in their categories in Hawaii in four weeks.

Whatever of those goals is yours, you must be able to imagine it happening. You have to be able to see it before it will actually come to being. These things don’t just happen by accident, you will them into being.

That imagination which you’ll be using is the greatest tool you’ve been given. If you see the Sydney Opera House, one of the most beautiful buildings in the whole world. That building once only existed in someone’s imagination. Same story with the Eiffel Tower, probably the most photographed structure in the world, once only existed in someone’s imagination.

The imagination can be used for much greater benefit than just picturing what will one day be real.

On the journey to completion of that dream, the imagination can be used to make the job a little easier.

Picture riding into a head wind, a wind so strong it could break your spirit. Those of you going to Hawaii in a few weeks will learn that such a wind does exist. It’s a fact that when the winds are bad in Kona, the Pro’s times are a few minutes slower, but many of the age groupers times are an hour slower or more. To me that suggests that the Pro’s are less affected mentally than some of the slower athletes.

My experience is, the wind has more of an effect on your mind than on your body. Sure you have to push yourself through it, but it’s more likely to crack your mind than your legs.

Using your imagination can help. If you’ve ever seen a concrete saw, it can cut through the toughest concrete, the same saw can cut through granite.

* It does it by being hard - the blade has industrial diamonds all round the edge.

* It does it by using high revs – by spinning at high rpm, the diamonds wear away the concrete bit by bit.

* It’s relentless – it just keeps grinding it’s way through the concrete, it never loses focus, it just does the job.

* It’s water cooled to prevent the blade overheating, it always has water running on the cutting edge.

Now, you could ask what does a concrete saw have in common with a triathlete?

If the triathlete, using his/her imagination, takes on the attitude of the concrete saw. Imagine you’re hard, like a diamond saw. Be relentless, never easing off the pressure on the wind. Use high revs to wear a path right through the wind. Be water cooled, stay hydrated. Like the saw operator, imagine the completed cut right through the wind.

Before you know it, you’ll be through the toughest part of the course and you can start imagining that your cranks have a power of their own, and all you have to do is keep adding a little bit of pressure to keep them spinning around. Or you can imagine your cranks are a fishing reel, and you have the top of the hill hooked and you’re reeling it in. Every revolution drags the top of the hill closer. 

The same type of mental tricks can be used in the run segment. If you imagine you’re running on a big treadmill. The whole course is a treadmill. It’s set at a certain pace. If you stop running, you start going backwards. If you keep your pace up, the course just disapears under you. All you have to do to get to the end, is keep the same steady pace going and never stop. Most Ironman marathons are not that fast. You really don’t have to run fast. You just have to keep going, never stopping, and your dream time will be there at the end.

On the Hawaii course, there are yellow signs all the way through the run. At most parts of the run course you can look up the road in front of you and see a yellow sign. Imagine if every one of those yellow signs had a magnetic attraction to you. Each one pulled you ever so slightly toward them. All you had to do was keep running.

There’s no end to what we can do with our imagination. Those of you racing Hawaii this year. Imagine me drinking Mai Tai’s while you’re out there on the lava field.