One of the things I enjoy most is doing what I can to inspire and motivate people to be healthy and fit. It is an amazing sense of gratification when I am able to play even a small part in helping someone get more out of life. Something that needs to be said, however, is that people who enjoy motivating and inspiring others sometimes need to be motivated or inspired as well. It is very difficult to be super-motivated 100% of the time and this past weekend was a good example of that.
This dip in motivation was due to a variety of things: constant training over the past few years, long weekends that led to low energy levels throughout the weeks, and a general lack of sufficient sleep were just a few factors that weighed heavy on my "motivato-meter". These things are fairly common in ultra-distance event training, however, and it's how we react to these challenges that determine our readiness for these events. This past weekend inspired some thoughts that I'd like to share about these challenges and how they might apply to life, in general. (Disclaimer: you don't have to be an ultra-distance athlete to get something out of this, so read on.)
Physically, you are capable.
In an event where you spend more than 8 hours running, biking, swimming, or all three, everyone has moments where they don't think they can continue, physically. When everything hurts and all you want to do is lay down and sleep, you are, often times, moments away from a second, third or eighth wind. It never feels that way, but I've experienced this many times: the exhaustion and the feeling that you can't continue, and then suddenly, you can feel the energy returning. The human body is capable of much more than we realize and sometimes the best thing to do is to keep putting one foot in front of the other without thought to how slow or fast you're going.
This applies so well to life, doesn't it? Sometimes, we feel that we need to stop and that our efforts are futile. But when have you ever heard of someone that had a nice, linear, smooth transition from beginning to success? And if you have heard of that happening for someone, how normal was their situation? The truth is that the normal path of life is not a nice smooth road, but one with peaks, valleys, and plateaus, and the only way to get from a valley or plateau to a peak is to struggle up the hill. You'll never experience the satisfaction of looking out from the top of a mountain if you don't hike the trail first.
Your mind can be your worst enemy.
This is more applicable to training for a race, although many experience this during a race as well. Training for an Ironman or a marathon/ultra-marathon is a long, strenuous process that requires dedication and a time commitment that can equal that of a second job. It's difficult to get up every morning and lace up your shoes and go, even if you're tired and you'd rather sleep. But the voice you hear in your head saying, "go back to bed", is just that: a voice in your head. It's a voice that can be ignored and silenced.
The biggest challenge many people face when they decide they want to get into shape and change their life for the better, is their mind. How many times have you decided you wanted to fit into your favorite shirt or jeans from years ago, or that you wanted to slim down or buff up for the summer? We all make these promises to ourselves but most people fail to deliver. This is because any change requires effort and often times that effort does not feel worth the reward.
Here is an example: You decide you want to workout for an hour a day and that you want to get up earlier to do it before work. However, you stay up late every night watching TV because after a long day at work, all you want to do is sit back and relax (Why not? You deserve it, right?) Getting up early is difficult enough as it is, but even more so when you stay up until 1AM. Most people decide that they need to rest after a hard day at work and/or refuse to give up their favorite TV show and so they fail to get up early and do their workout, and nothing changes. Instead of cutting out that TV show (or recording it), forcing yourself to go to bed early so that you can get up and do your workout, and making this change that you want, you forsake your goal and you continue wishing you could change.
It's all in how bad you want it. If you want to reach the finish line of an Ironman badly enough, you will get up every morning and put the time in to train for it. If you want to lose that weight and get those washboard abs, you'll stop watching so much TV and you'll put the time in at the gym and change your eating habits so you can get there. But these goals and changes only come if you want them bad enough, because "sort of" wanting them won't achieve anything. The only thing standing in the way of you and your goals is your mind.
You can turn a bad day around.
This is not easy. In fact, it may be harder than the other two points, above. If you wake up motivated, it's easy to get out there and do whatever it is you do. If you feel good during a workout or race, it's much easier to get through it and it will probably go by quicker. But what do you do when you don't wake up motivated? Or when you feel like crap during a workout or race? Or what about when you aren't even working out and just feel cranky? Everything gets more difficult when these things happen. Getting through a workout, a day at work, a commute, or a race is so much harder when your mind weighs you down with negativity.
It's very difficult to "flip a switch" and feel better instantly. It's very difficult to ignore whatever you might be going through and just feel positive. People who do that, often times end up bottling all that up and then it hits them even harder. What you can do, however, is accept it. Accept that you feel tired or cranky. Accept that your workout might suck and that you don't want to do it. Accept that this race won't be your best. And once you've accepted it, move on. Put those negative thoughts behind you and decide that there is a better experience to be had. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, though: this is very difficult and requires practice. Even those that are able to do this can fail at it from time to time. But once you have experienced it once, it gets slightly easier to repeat.
The acceptance portion of this is crucial, however. Once you've accepted that you are having a hard day, you can now move passed that and adjust your attitude. It's not flipping a switch. It's a process that allows you the clean slate you need to make your day/workout/race better. It all depends on you, though. You know, better than anyone, what makes you feel good. So practice this and see if it works for you, and hopefully it will help.
In conclusion.
So there you have it: three thoughts that came as a result of a difficult training weekend. If you're wondering, I did a 16 mile trail run on Saturday, followed by a very difficult 20 mile run on Sunday. I went into the weekend feeling crappy and unmotivated, so I needed to apply the second point from the get go. The physical portion applied to the 20 mile run on Sunday and the third point applied to a handful of situations during the 20 mile run, as well.
The point is that even those of us who do our best to motivate and inspire go through our own struggles. This, hopefully, gives you an idea on how I deal with those struggles and maybe it will help you! Now go out there and kill it.
By Johann Warnholtz
Very true, great observations. Thanks for sharing.
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