Mindset is Everything in Endurance Sport
Build yours as a priority
Hello! I’m back from my 2 week hiatus due to a busy racing schedule, plenty about that to come! But for today, let’s talk mindset.
The more I participate in & coach others to success in endurance sports the more I realise that athlete mindset and psychological resilience is what gets people to the finish line. Obviously physical training is an absolute non-negotiable and you need to put in the hard yards to even be worthy of the start line of something like an Ironman distance event or even the marathon for that matter. What matters is your attitude to things when they start going wrong, and trust me, even in something many of us consider “short” like a marathon things can & do go south, quickly.
Athlete psychology is becoming one of my favourite areas to learn about, develop and better understand as I think it’s the key ingredient that allows an athlete to hit their goals but more importantly train effectively.
Why is mindset so important?
Well, the short answer is that having a solid mindset is the difference between an athlete who makes their training session work on a very busy schedule and the one who repeatedly misses sessions when life gets busy. As you can imagine, this translates directly to a successful training block and as a result a higher likelihood of a successful and enjoyable race or event.
A more nuanced answer is that mindset and psychological resilience in an athlete is what I find determines their ability to recover well, be disciplined in training sessions and more importantly group activities as well as having the tools to overcome big obstacles during a race and still hit that finish line. Importantly, sometimes the right thing to do is actually DNF and that one takes the most courage and resilience of all.
What I’m getting at here is that counterintuitively, mental discipline and resilience is the ability to know when to keep it easy when you want to drop the hammer, when the next action is detrimental or beneficial. If you need to call something quits because it’s dangerous or whether this is the time to dig deep and push on. It’s not just the Hollywood version where you “overcome at all costs”, quite the opposite in my experience. It’s being able to go on a group ride with friends and keep the pace easy because todays ride was an endurance session even when the group leader is pushing the watts. Discipline is about knowing what the plan is and sticking to it when you actually want to deviate, it’s holding back when you want to drop the hammer in a track session, if the session is at 10K pace that’s what you run, you don’t pretend your 10K pace is 3:30/KM just because you can hold that for 2 laps even when your friends are pushing the pace.
It’s easy to push through and go too hard for a session, at least in my opinion and some people like to think going full gas for every session is “tough” or “disciplined”. I’m here to tell you that it’s exactly the opposite. That’s a lack of discipline in my experience, and I am a big culprit of being the guy who drops the watts on an easy ride and then posts on Strava “easy Z2 ride” - I hold my hand up there that ego does sometimes win out. It’s silly and it doesn’t benefit you, most people can usually see through this too, so even though it looks like a humble brag it’s transparent show boating. That’s not to say never go harder on easy sessions, if you have some gas in the tank, use it on the climbs, burn a few matches on the flats but remember that you need to primarily stick to the sessions intention, if you are going to push on treat it like a race simulation and push on when you would in a race to create an adaptation.
That’s maturity and intentional practice, psychological discipline. You will keep injury at bay, be able to leave it all on the table on race day and more importantly you will become a more confident athlete. You no longer need to prove anything to anyone in your training and racing because you have mastery over yourself. After all, the only person who you need to prove yourself to is you and building that mindset will set you up for success and longevity in your sport.
How to build a bullet proof mindset?
Practice, practice and then practice it again. I know, pretty un-sexy, right? But it’s like anything that has the potential for mastery, you have to put in the hard yards and keep consistent. I’ve written about embracing the long run for mental fitness before, and this is just one type of practice that can make you a more resilient and intentional athlete. However, there are loads of things you can do day to day that translate into mental discipline and resilience in your sport too, the best part is that the relationship is bidirectional! You build your mental discipline in and out of sport and it benefits you both in and out of sport, pretty cool, right?!
Here is a quick list of my favourite & easy habits that you can try out to build that mindset:
Sauna - Regular sauna sessions that are 15 - 20 minutes are a great way to build mental toughness and discipline, especially if you combine it with breath work! No phones, music or audio books allowed, you need to sit with the discomfort!
Breath Work - Learning to breath well and intentionally has a bunch of benefits, I highly recommend Breath by James Nestor but even just 4 in 8 out for 20 cycles will teach you to slow down and be present.
Intermittent Fasting - Bit of a buzz about this one in the fitness world, but my thoughts are that it teaches you to delay gratification. Especially if you’re a foodie like me!
Running without Music or Audiobooks - I like running with music and books, but I try to run without them, especially on longer runs to really get myself tuned into how I’m feeling, what my body is telling me and to some extent embrace “the suck” if I’m not feeling great. Because the more used to that feeling you get, the better you can manage and tolerate it.
Swimming, cycling or running slower than you usually do - This one feels counterintuitive, but from what we discussed before this is a great way to build discipline around keeping to the sessions purpose. I often run with my partner to force myself to take it easier and be patient, it helps me remember that an easy session should feel easy and that’s a good thing.
These are just some of my favourites and things other athletes have suggested to me that I really like. They all have something in common, they force you to do something that you would instinctively avoid. It’s taking the road less travelled so to speak, each time you do it, you grow your capacity to hold back on your urge to take the easy option or allow yourself to overdo something. It’s just like reps in the gym, you're building your self discipline muscle and the bigger that muscle the more confident you will be to keep yourself accountable.
Be accountable to the most important person
After all, the only person you have to prove anything to is you. You’re the only one who suffers on race day if you didn’t taper, you’re the only one who suffers if you get injured and miss your race, the buck stops with you and therefore you need to be most accountable to you. Especially true in endurance sports. There is no team to keep you in the game if things get tough and you want to quit, you just step off the course and quit, no-one is stopping you. Conversely, there is also no-one to stop you doing something stupid either, you need to be the one who pulls you out if things get dangerous and know when quitting is the right option.
Once you break through the mental barriers that tie us to external approval you will experience a different kind of challenge. You will start to experience endurance sport in it’s most pure form, it's a conversation with yourself, it’s the act of showing up for you, no-one else. You start to change your mindset to something more bullet proof, because you are no longer doing anything for external validation, accolades or approval. You are testing yourself and embracing the present.
Once this clicks and you give yourself enough evidence that you can overcome tough challenges, you can make good decisions under pressure and that you are proud of who you are and your choices. Then and only then will you experience the magic of longevity in your sport and true continuous improvement.
Mindset is everything and it will be the greatest investment in your sporting and non-sporting life combined.
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I hope you’ve found this article useful! If you’re stuck in your endurance sport journey or want to explore taking your training to the next level, check out my free quiz below to help you better understand your own goals. We can even have a chat if you want to explore this topic further!