Psychology plays such a huge role in sport.  Whether you are competing against yourself (aiming for your first finish or mastering a distance), competing against the clock (going for a certain time) or competing against other athletes (trying to win).  In many ways, our own mind is often our worst enemy.  Fear of the swim, anxiety about getting a flat tire, losing focus, not having a reason to push ourselves are all examples of how our minds can play tricks on us and cause us to deviate from our desired path.

Brian Mac has a nice overview of the key psychological factors that apply to any sport and most certainly apply to triathlon racing.  I like how he identifies four main psychological attributes that are needed to perform well in a race:

Some of us are really good at one or more of these attributes while other may be reasonably good at them all.  Each attribute impacts our race differently depending on how good we are at managing it.  Some of us may even have a major hang-up with with one of these attributes.  Having these "issues" does not make you "crazy", in fact, they make you normal.  Every athlete has room to improve in all of these areas.

I'd like to chat about confidence in this particular article since to me it is the most important one to consider and can influence the other attributes.  Without confidence in what you are doing, you will have trouble concentrating on the tasks at hand because you will be distracted, you will have trouble controlling your race because you will make decisions based on fear and you will have trouble committing to your decisions since you will have doubts.

I had been in sports for a long time before I got into Ironman racing.  And I had many successes in other sports as well as short course triathlon racing.  I pictured myself as a confident athlete and felt confident in what I was doing.  Slowly though, as I struggled in my second, third and fourth Ironman, I began to lose confidence.  And, I was not even aware of it come race day.  

Early on I really struggled with my Ironman nutrition on the run.  I always ran into stomach cramps or stitches that prevented me from running to my potential.  Walking or jogging because of a cramp was very frustrating.  Gradually I did get better at handling them and finding better ways to hydrate and fuel.  However, I really lacked confidence on the run.  As a result, I started eating and drinking less and less.  Even so in training.  Subconsciously, I was solving my cramping problem by eating less even though I always planned to eat/drink more to maintain my energy properly.  As you can imagine that did not help my racing at all.  I then had problems with bonking and slowing considerably.  And, I still had some stomach issues.  So, things got worse instead of better.  

It all came down to fear.  I did not want to eat or drink because I was afraid of stomach problems.  Even though I knew I had to eat and drink a certain amount, I ignored its importance because I was afraid of the consequences.  And, this fear, was a clear lack of confidence come race day in my nutrition.  The good news was, the more problems I had, the more I worked on a solution even if I did not recognize that fear was playing such a big role.

This is where "practice makes perfect".  That is, experience is your best friend when you lack confidence.  There is nothing that works better than putting ourselves through the experience successively.  That builds confidence.  And, it does not have to be a race or even a short race to build it.  Most of our experiences happen in training.  Even moreso than in a race.  Thing is, we don't value those experiences as much as we do a race.  But, we should.  And for two reasons: 1.  Any experience is important and helps us get prepared, otherwise we would not train, 2. If we are aware of the value, we can plan our training specifically to overcome certain fears, which in turn, adds in more value to the training.

Coming back to the fueling example.  After banging my ahead against the wall a few hundred times, I finally figured out I really needed to practice in order to improve my handling of nutrition.  The only way was to simulate racing and force my stomach to get better at it.  On all my long rides, I started simulating what I would drink and eat on race day.  I'd pack multiple bottles on my bike and follow my plan.  Then I would do a short run afterwards to see how my stomach was doing as another check.  Likewise and more importantly, I started packing all the water and fuel I would use in a race on my long runs.  I'd go into the long runs with an empty stomach and eat what I would only eat before a race (and time it the same as well).  This forced me to start eating/drinking at the 10minute mark of the run, just like I would in an Ironman run.  Then, I had to follow a stringent plan of water/fueling in the long runs or I would fall over.

I won't lie.  It took a lot of practice.  But, eventually I got a lot better at fueling and hydrating.  It also gave me a lot more opportunities through trial and error to find the better drinks, concentrations and salt amounts.  Mentally, I got a lot more confident in my fuel plan.  That still was not enough though.  I still had a lingering fear.  Although more confident, I still had the urge to skimp on my plan and get overly anxious at the hint of a cramp.  Although experience played the largest role in overcoming the problem, I still had to come up with some coping and decision making strategies so I would make the right decisions in the race and not give in to the fear.  

To this day, I still get prepared.  I still practice the plan before races.  I need to.  Each season, I mentally need to get prepared because that fear still exists and physically my body needs to get used to the fueling.  If I don't, I run into more problems than I want to on race day.

...keep going."  Winston Churchill.

I just posted a blog and video of Holland Reynolds struggling to finish a cross country race due to dehydration and mild hypothermia (she was fine after the race by the way, just one of those days).  

Not to be left behind, Kate Bevilaqua struggled to finish Ironman Western Australia under 9:20:00.  But, there was no way this woman was not going to finish especially since she was winning.

Just another great example how we can persevere and push ourselves when any type of challenge or obstacle stands in our way.