“CHAMPIONS WRITE THEIR OWN STORIES AND PROCEED TO DO ALL
THOSE THINGS THAT MAKE THOSE STORIES COME TRUE.” (from "The Way of the Champion", Jerry Lunch, Ph.D)
I love this quote and love the interesting, difficult, life changing
task of connecting our mental energies to best support our goals and
dreams. Even the strongest among us have
self doubts, fears and obstacles to overcome and I am amazed at how much mental
training WORKS as well as makes the training and racing process meaningful.
I have known so many instances when athletes that I coach
fear their workouts, have expectations of their training that lead to a feeling
of not wanting to get the work done due to fear of not producing some number or
personal standard that they feel they “should” be at. This is true for performance training, weight
loss, race days, training choices…. as well as general LIFE. It makes a world of a difference if we allow
self - damaging thoughts into our mental circulation, or if we catch them and
learn to disregard and replace with self – affirmations/ our champion heart/
champion story.
I am not above this myself.
I struggle. I am human, we all
are, even when we KNOW these things, it is a process of work and mental
discipline. Our discipline is not just
in the physical efforts of training, but in the mental efforts and focus that
we live day in and day out. I struggle
in my training in various situations. I
show up at the pool after a few months of focused swim training, still looking
around and judging myself compared to other people, mentally telling myself to
not get in that lane because those people look like “real swimmers.” Which reminds me of various stories I have
told myself over 20 years of running and doing triathlons- that I don’t “look
like a real runner,” only to see someone who has a body type similar to mine go
on to either WIN or be top of the race!
I am reminded over and over of the reality that I cannot put a limit on
my potential because of what I perceive to be a correct body type, etc…but it
is my tendency personally to feel inadequate, short and stumpy arriving at
packet pickup next to those who I feel have long, lean, defined endurance
bodies! I know I am not alone, and it is
this thought pattern that limits us, this self- written story that is based on
fears and doubts.
How much are we selling ourselves short in life? Sometimes it is good to be asked this hard question. Do you sell yourself short in how you train? When I create training programs (and my own
training program)—I not only look to where the athlete is NOW, but… where do
you want to be? What pace is your bucket
list pace? I began running at 9-10 min
pace and couldn’t go faster than that. I
have run Annapolis 10 Miler now- a known hilly and hellaciously hot/humid race
in 6:50’s average. I wasn’t sure if that
would ever be possible for me (since I’m “not a runner” sometimes in my mind?!!).
My paces didn’t start dropping
significantly until I realized for my own training plan to create workouts to
train me to the level I WANTED to be at.. not always WHERE I WAS. Granted, you cannot just will yourself there
mentally, but you can allow that far off place to be attainable by aiming high,
by pushing yourself at times to failure… which doesn’t FEEL GOOD! But it takes going PAST THE LINE OF WHAT WE
CAN DO… in order to become what we are maybe not right now… In every training program I write, I ask
myself: what are the workouts that I/the
particular athlete either 1. Thinks they cannot do, or 2. When
they have these completed, they will KNOW that they can rock this race. When we begin our training seasons- let’s ASK
BIG THINGS FROM OURSELVES! LET’S WRITE
OUR CHAMPION STORY, LET’S THINK LIKE A CHAMPION, IMAGINE OURSELVES AS A
CHAMPION, TRAIN LIKE A CHAMPION, LIVE THE CHAMPION LIFESTYLE FULLY.