Mind Over Matter – Part 1 (I let the hill beat me)

I had a terrible day on the bike today. 

I coach endurance athletes, and every athlete I’ve ever coached has experienced a bad day here and there, and I generally tell them to not worry about it, that it was likely just “one of those days.”  And that’s usually the case.  They’re typically bad to normal within the next day or so. 

I don’t have bad days very often, so while I can coach my athletes through it, I struggle.  I experience the same questions and concerns that everyone goes through.

I often do hill repeats on Mondays at a hill that takes me between 5:15 and 6:15 to complete, depending on the wind, and today the plan was to do 8 hill repeats.  I typically average about 330 watts on these efforts, and my heart rate is usually 170+. 

I got off to a bad start.  My legs felt heavy and flat as soon as I got on the bike and began my warm-up.  So right there I started to mentally prepare for a bad day.  The first time up the hill I was awful.  My wattage was slightly over 300 and my HR was in the mid-150’s.  So I was a good 10% behind where I should have been.

So I came up with all the usual excuses, including:

• It was cold today
• It was windy today
• I did a hard workout Saturday
• I did absolutely nothing Sunday so I felt like a slug today
• Last week was recovery week, maybe I recovered too much

And the list goes on.  I’m sure you can relate.

So I had “checked out” for the first 7 intervals, and I had given myself permission to do just that.  

I then got upset with myself and told myself that I WILL reach 330 on the 8^th and final hill

climb.  And guess what?  I rode it hard, averaging 331 watts and my HR reached 171……so it was right where it should have been.

What’s the take-away lesson from this?  I talked myself into feeling sorry for myself and gave myself the OK to have a poor ride – until I told myself this was unacceptable.  

In other words, once I told myself I WOULD do it……I DID IT.  Don’t accept anything less than a full effort from yourself.  While there are days when you simply don’t have it, don’t cave into the temptation of going easy.  Be mentally stronger than I was today……it’s often a case of mind over matter!

I’ll expand on this in tomorrow’s post, so don’t miss it!  How do you overcome your obstacles?  Add your comments below, then GET OUT AND RIDE!