The Mental Toughness Test ...Do You Pass?

Welcome to another episode of the Get Fast podcast, brought to you by Trivalo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. You are joined, as always, by your hosts, Australian ironman champion and head coach of Trivalo Coaching, Gerard Donnelly and I and Jordan Donnelly. What is mental toughness? We've all been in a training or race situation where there is a decision to make. Are you going to be mentally tough and push through the pain or are you going to give in and give up? If you're like most people, you've probably done both pushed through sometimes and given up sometimes. So what does it take to be mentally tough? Why do we want to push through the pain? Why do we want to avoid quitting on ourselves? What does it take to have the champion mindset of a Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali? This is what we're talking about in today's episode. And I grill dad about his ironman and cycling triumphs in his professional career and post, and his strategies for being as mentally tough as possible. And what does it take for you as an athlete to train the mental side of you as well as the physical? Talking about mental toughness is always such a fun topic, and this episode was no different. As always, if you want to get our best free resources to help you train smarter and race faster, just go to getfastpodcast.com now let's get into the episode. All right, dad, today we are talking mental toughness and what a topic that is because your mental toughness can sometimes decide your results, can really decide whether you are successful in your goals or not, compared to the physical side, which we spend so much time training ourselves physically. And then when it gets to the race, it seems to be the mental side that determines whether we succeed or not. So to start off with, tell me about a time when you had to be as mentally tough as possible and how you got through it.

Such a great question, Jordan.

I've had a bit of time to.

Consider this, and I just can't even remember a time where the mental and the physical weren't together. And if physically I was fine and able to function in a race situation, which is what we're talking about, where it counts.

The mental.

The mental side of it was the weak side that frustrated me many times. If, if I was okay physically, what was preventing me from getting the outcome that I wanted was totally my mindset, and I've got a few examples of that. But when, when you asked me that question, the main thing that came to my Mind was in every time that I really had to dig deep and deeper than I'd ever dug before. Mentally was after I was physically exhausted. And so is that tough, being physically exhausted? Well, it's not physical toughness. It's just I had such a strong mindset about the event that I was doing that I pushed myself way beyond the physical capabilities that I had to finish the race. And I've got a few examples of one where I fell off my bike. And it was stretchford to dago race, which was 100k, I think, 100k scratch race.

Some really good riders in the race, and two of us broke away. And then I broke away with the 1:10k climb to go, which was an hour's worth of riding. Still quite a. Quite a steeped gradient. And it finished it, you know, just halfway up Mount Hotham, the backside of it. So really tough grading after. And it was a hot day, 35 degrees, something like that. And, you know, I'd done.

Executed everything I had to, and all I had to do was complete. Complete the event and I would have won the race. And all of a sudden started to feel really unsteady, whether I'd fueled incorrectly or whether I'd ridden too hard too soon. I hadn't executed well.

But I was racing.

So found myself in the lead with, you know, literally 10k to go and 5k up the hill. I was still going, okay. And then all of a sudden, I don't remember much more about. My brother was in the Frank. My brother was in the follow vehicle. And he described what I my next five minutes as the most bizarre thing he's ever witnessed, which is me falling off my bike, just come to a standstill, falling off my bike onto the road. He stopped the car, jumped out, tried to pick me and the bike up. I started walking up the hill, and.

He'S yelling out to me, what are you doing?

And I turned around and said, what.

Does it look like?

I'm finishing the race. And he said, do you want to use your bike or are you going to walk? And I was so not with it that I, of course I want to use my bike.

Bring it here.

And like, aggressively demanding. But that was a. Physically, I was just, you know, exhausted. Obviously, I got back on the bike.

I rode the next 4 or 5K, and I don't remember any of it. And apparently someone passed me in the last three or 400 meters, and I came across the line and fell off again. And I was in the ambulance for, you know, the next two or Three hours. I came second apparently, but I don't recall any of it. And so, so physically I'd push myself and mentally I was that in tune with the purpose of what I was trying to do, which was I'm going to win this race at all costs. And so I think that's a good example of how together they, they happen, not separately. And there's been examples where I've thought, oh, you know, there was nothing physically wrong with me there, why didn't I push a bit harder at the end of the race? I didn't get the result. And it was a real mental weakness that I was disappointed with in my own performance and really tried to focus, you know, not to let that happen too many times in my career.

That story you just gave does, is that an example of successful mental toughness for you? What is. Because we speak, we wanted to touch on what mental toughness actually is and we have spoken about, and Mitch Anderson actually spoke about this on a previous podcast where finding your limit. Is that actually mental toughness or is it stupidity?

Because, yeah, I think single mindedness was causing that, that outcome that I was so focused. And so the point of what we're talking about today is how important is mental toughness? Well, that was a great example of how there was nothing going to stop me from and it had to be a physical preventative action that was going to stop me because mentally there was nothing going to be put in my way that day. And I've got other examples of where I actually succeeded. You know, the Australian Ironman was one classic example where I swam, I don't know, 10th, 15th within 30 or 40k, I think Rick Pallister was the standout swimmer, I still remember, and I passed him 30, 40k into the race and for the rest of the day, which was another seven and a half hours, I was by myself. So mentally that was pretty challenging. What's happening behind me? I don't, you know, it's 1988, I don't have any data to, I don't have a power meter, I don't have anything except for I've been riding for four hours or I don't really have any speed or heart rate. So that's an example of how you can put pressure on yourself. What's happening? You know, am I, am I writing too hard? Are they catching me? Am I getting away from them? Yeah, and then getting off the bike and then running, getting information, saying you've got four minute lead and knowing the persons who are chasing me, their capabilities as runners compared to mine mentally having to decide whether I try and put more of a gap in to bluff them or just run my own pace and execute the way I know. So lots of mentally tough decisions have to be made and, you know, it's like the frightened rabbit, you know, oh, it's too hard, I can't do it. Well, those thoughts cross my mind literally every kilometer. You know, you got yourself in this position. Don't, don't throw it away. Now. These are, you know, this is what you've dreamt about. And they're the things that I think you need to be thinking about when you're challenged. When you're challenging it, you're challenging yourself. The mental thoughts you have are challenging you to cope or not cope. And they're the things that I would like to get the people we coach to feel.

There's going to be times where it's.

A in a C grade local club race where, you know, you've broken away and they're chasing you down and you've got to hold steady and, you know, use all the information you have been given.

What's your power?

You know, how can I, how can I execute? I've got 10 minutes to go, you know, think about those things rather than the pressure of they're catching me, I can't do it. They're the sort of things we want to talk about and, you know, toughness is not really the right term. It's mental control, I think your ability to control your emotions and put things in perspective and execute the things you can control rather than worrying about how fast the group's riding behind you or the person chasing you, you have no control over that. If you knew they were catching you at a fast rate, you can't do much about it anyway because you've already got your numbers. So understanding your mental toughness or mental control is really important in the outcome of almost every single important race that I've ever competed in.

So let's take a step back and compare the two examples that you started with and that is the cycling race and the Australian Ironman. Were you proud of the effort you put in of the cycling race even though you ended up in an ambulance?

Yeah, in myself emotionally. I thought, well, I've just proved to myself that I can't go any harder than that. That was further than I'd ever thought to, that I could push myself. And it taught me a lesson about, boy, you've got so much more that you can do. And when I can't remember aspects of the finish that tells me that I didn't leave any stone unturned. I had reached my limit of physical toughness and mentally I was so strong I never gave up at any point. Whereas it would have been easy to, you know, just line the road, I suppose.

Would you say that that single mindedness, even though it didn't result in a successful outcome in that race because you got past with how many 400 meters to go, but that is what led to successful results in other races?

Yeah. And certainly, you know, we talked about the Ironman in Australia, but when I went to Kona, I was faced with a similar, similar situation with the race unfolded at, you know, swam okay, swam really good for myself. Ended up riding through the field from about, I don't know, 20th out of the water to getting off the bike in fourth or fifth and feeling really confident that I could run because running was my thing obviously. And you know, 30k still going strong at that time. There's footage of the Wide World of Sport crew following me out on the Queen K highway asking me how I was feeling. And that was a really good example of how I was starting to doubt myself because instead of saying I feel great, I've got this. My first response was how far behind is the next person? So that after the race I thought that is a really weird way of thinking about things. I should have been thinking the opposite, that, you know, I'm in a top 10 position at Kona. This is where I want to be, this is where I belong. But I was so worried about, you know, getting past because I knew that I was starting to feel average. And on the way into town, I think, you know, at the 38 or 39k before you come down the hill, which is pretty tough running down that hill, which seems easy.

And I started to cramp up and.

It was not more than, I don't.

Know, a K and a half from.

There to the finish. And I lost 10 places, had physical cramp and mentally I was tough there to keep going. You know, the example of Julie Moss all those years, that was around that time, I think the year before where she crawled across the line and that was vivid in my mind how tough she was to, to physically keep crawling to the finish.

And when you've got a physical problem like cramp, it's a little bit out of your control. You know, mentally I was, you know, I have to finish this race and not lose any more spots but. But I still in a position where I had no control over it because every step I was taking was absolute agony. I was locked up in full body, cramped. Not just in calves, it was hamstrings, quads, calves, hips, back. And it's just not a good way to function. It was like agony every step. And it must have taken me eight minutes to run that last K, which was so disappointing getting to that position. But again, I. I look back and thought, well, I'd push myself, you know, to the physical limit. And mentally I kept going. So there's another example of, you know, in my history, I know that I have the mental toughness to do that, but it can, it can not work in your favor eventually if you're physically not. Not. You've gone too far.

And you say that a lot of Ironmans are like that. You. You would say that when I ask you, I've asked you this many times over the years, what are some of the toughest races? And you say, oh, Kona has to be the top. Then you say, oh, to be honest, every ironman.

Yeah, yeah. Every time you do an ironman, we did the. And it wasn't actually a full ironman. It was, I think it was 2k.

Swim, 130k ride with a.

With an hour's climb up.

We started at 30 degrees down at. It was in Reunion off the coast of Africa, and it was boiling hot. And then at the top of the climb, it was freezing. We were at a thousand meters. So we climbed for an hour and then came down the other side back to boiling hot and then ran. So it was a. I think it was 130k ride and maybe a 32k run.

So it was quite a challenging course. And it was the Northern Hemisphere triathletes vs.

The Southern Hemisphere triathletes. So it was a bit of a team thing. And certainly I, I found my limit again that day, but I actually didn't have any physical issues. It was just mentally just. Just trying to hold my position for the team. And I think the team aspect really helped drive me. You know, if you're just running for yourself or competing for yourself, you're just letting yourself down. There was another aspect to that. Mentally, I just did not want to let my teammates down. And I think I was.

Greg Stewart was the first athlete and.

I think I was second for the Australian team. And. And we were in the top five. And it was. I think it was the best six.

Athletes from each team contributed to the win. And we beat the Northern hemisphere, who had some fantastic, you know, Mark Allen.

And some great athletes.

So it was those sort of events that really just so many times happened.

Cropped up another event where you were just challenged beyond what you could ever imagine.

So going through those experiences in the.

80S and 90s and then coming to a marathon, just an individual marathon.

The difference, the marathon was still really hard, but compared to a triathlon Ironman, it just didn't compare. Of course you can push yourself to the limit in a marathon. There's been so many examples of that in Olympic games with people staggering into the finish straight. So, yeah, I'm not saying that that's.

Not possible, but it's just, you know.

The difference between two and a half.

Hours and eight hours is. Is significant.

So the ironman taught you a different lesson, did it?

Yeah, most definitely. Yep.

So what's the difference? How do you compare your mindset when it's a really big event like the Australian Ironman or Kona or you're competing for the southern hemisphere and there's a lot on the line and you can dig deeper because of that reason. Compared to you racing at your local crit race or a local triathlon, there's not as much to gain from the race. But you still. I know how competitive you are. You treat every race the same. But how does that differ?

It doesn't and it shouldn't. And if it does, then I think you're on the wrong track. You have to have. You want to win at marbles, you want to win it, you know, in the backyard handball competition, you want to. The mindset has to be, oh, this time I won't try. Next time I will. Once you start going down that track, you don't want to be practicing poor performance ever. And I can go so far as training sessions, and I've done this a.

Few times, and I've come out of the training session ride thinking that was weak. What I just did today, I'm not going to do that again. And I can see it in the.

Guys that we're coaching.

If I'm doing a bunch ride and I might be hard on them, but.

I'll be telling them straight out, you.

Had an opportunity today when it was really tough, and I know what your numbers are. And when I looked at your numbers at the end of the ride and saw your performance, you had so much more left, but you gave up in that. And I know the answer will be, yeah, but it's only a training ride. But perfect practice is what we're trying to achieve. And if you start mentally allowing yourself to have exceptions, then you'll have exceptions in the race. So whatever you do in training, you will replicate that in the race, good and bad. So such a good question you've asked.

It is so important.

There's days where you, you're not meant to be pushing yourself and testing yourself. They're the days to have fun and enjoy your riding. But the days where you're training and you're trying to actually get some improvement and some outcomes and test yourself against the better riders, they're the days when you want to practice that, you know, you get to a top of a hill, there might be. You've been on the hill for maybe two or three minutes at 130, 140% FTP and you're at your limit. Your heart rate's screaming, your legs are screaming, you see the top of the hill, it's so easy to go.

That's enough.

It's only training. But that's not what we want. We want you to go, come on, 20 more seconds. And how good will I feel if I test myself again, get to the top? I'm still with these lead guys and they sit up and I recover. Whereas the guy who's back there 15 meters, he's got dropped off, he has to chase. It's a worse scenario. So practicing those little times in such an insignificant time is where you get to use it when it's significant.

So where's the balance? Because I know you don't say to everyone you need to be pushing to your limit every hard session, but where's the balance in that? In knowing when you need to push to the top of the numbers that you can push and just getting through the session, which is still a hard session.

Yeah.

And you know, in our weekly program, we definitely have days where I'm asking people, on a certain day we might say, today's endurance ride, we have a local hill, it's the Arthur's Seat, quite an iconic climb. It's a between a 10, 15 minute climb or if you're Chris Froome, six minutes.

It's part of the Herald Sun Tour.

Over the years and we might do an endurance ride where we're riding good, solid tempo. But today we're going to have a crack up Arthur's Seat. And so everybody's aware of that. So there's, there's a day where we want you to have mentally toughened, tuned brain to say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna really execute a really hard day's training. And then another day might be just an ergo session where you've got to do Four by eight minute efforts. Well, you're being tested every single time in these sessions. And I give people a range in these sessions to be at the bottom or at the top. And you can decide. You've got so many decisions to make. How physically are you feeling today? And can I cope with being at the top of the range? Am I tired from a hard week or it's the third week of a block or the second, second week of a block? All these considerations, thought processes that you're trying to feel in relation to your physical. Physicalness of where you're at in that particular week or day. So the topic is, you know, how often are you challenged mentally? Well, you're challenged almost, you know, every time we do an intensity session, there's the challenge for you. Are you up for it today? And you know yourself when you're physically tired. And they're the days where I excuse people if you know that there is a time to not push yourself. And that's the question you're asking. Definitely there is a time. But you know, the difference yourself between I just don't feel like it or I'm really tired from that hard time trial that I did on Saturday. So I need to listen to my body and I need to take it easy today on this intensity session. I need to be at the bottom of the range or I need to actually not do the intensity session. It's not weak, it's not mentally soft. It's actually smart. And listen, listening to your body where.

There'S other times where you're.

You're physically not in trouble at all, but you think, oh, I'm just a bit mentally tired. Well, that can be a factor, but it shouldn't be. It should be something that you've got better control over because today you need to be training for the overall goal and purpose of the season.

So it's having the ability to be honest with yourself about whether your excuses or not your excuses, whether what you're feeling is valid or not.

Yeah. And understanding the feelings.

That's a crazy game to play because when you are that exhausted, of course you're gonna convince yourself that you're too tired. So.

Yep. And that's where it's really important to discuss it with your coach.

And, you know, there's a whole lot.

Of things we can use, and a lot of the guys that I coach, really, they really take control of the 1 percenters, and they're so in tune with their body, and they're the guys I love to talk to because I Can say, oh, Tuesday's session, you're a little bit lower than normal. And they'll come back with, yep, that was so hard to do. But how tough were they? I didn't complain. They went and did it. And, you know, resting heart rates are a ripper for gauging fatigue. And a lot of the guys don't pay enough attention to that 1 percenter that I asked them to do only once a week. But as you know, I do mine every morning. And, you know, without doubt, that will tell me a low heart rate definitely relates well to feeling good. Higher than normal heart rate almost. I try to have a conversation with myself before I take the heart rate. What does it feel like today? I think my heart rate's going to be a little bit higher today. And then I measure it and sure enough, it is. And there are times where I think, oh, it's lower than I thought. I felt a bit tired, but it says that I'm okay. So there are a lot of things that can contribute to making better decisions.

You also use the Training Peaks fitness and fatigue number as another bit of data which doesn't always tell the whole picture.

Definitely the performance management chart is really helpful only if you, if you input the correct data.

There are different problems with it, but.

You have to input the correct data.

For you to get reasonable outcome. And, and look, using yourself as an example, you had the 10k time trial on Saturday and we were using performance management chart to measure your fatigue levels and we didn't want you to do the race. We had it planned for Thursday.

We had this exact game last week where.

Yep. So Thursday was meant to be your time trial and your fatigue just wasn't coming down. So we postponed it, delayed it, moved it to Friday, then we moved it to Saturday. And the outcome was outstanding because we paid attention to your fatigue. And there's nothing worse than trying to execute a time trial with. With fatigue and what a difference with fresh legs.

I actually made that point to you last week. I said, I just. Honestly, my legs feel fucked.

Yeah.

But I don't know if I'm just. I don't know at what point I'm just still thinking I feel tired or I'm just nervous about the 10k time trial. Training Peaks was telling me I was tired, but I don't know if that was playing on me mentally and I was feeling more fatigued because I was looking at that number. So it is a. It's a hard game to know whether you're being honest with yourself or not.

Yeah. Definitely. And that's the, the value of being discuss it because I know you very well and you wanted to perform well and you know, we had set you a plan, a race strategy and in order to do that you had to.

Be running at your best.

So I think that was contributing to your decision making was I'm not ready, I need a few more days. And performance management chart was backing up.

What you were saying and we changed it, we made that decision and you know, it could have been, it could have been a disaster on Saturday. The weather was shocking, the puddles and not the best conditions and yet you still ran a PB and you know, broke 35 minutes for 10K which has been a goal for quite a while. So definitely good decision making with discussion with your coach allows for much better mental stability about how you're going to approach the session.

It does make a difference because after having those conversations, I did wake up on Saturday morning and I finally went, I actually feel good today. And it was such a mental relief to feel ready to do it.

Yeah. And definitely I was still happy for you to do it on Sunday. If you weren't feeling it, it was you telling me I feel good. I said great, let's go.

So on that note, there's a lot of people out there, a lot of the athletes would love to get this insight into you and a lot of our listeners I know, who aren't necessarily our coached athletes. But you are renowned as being incredibly tough mentally and you've shown it examples of one, getting to the Kona level of Ironman. But two, that that story you said at the start of pushing your body further than what it was probably capable of. But has there been a time when you've let yourself down mentally and when was that when you gave up mentally and you really regretted it?

Yeah, it's a long time over 50 odd years, George, to specifically pinpoint things, but I can tell you in general, when I was a little athlete I gave up. I think I was too immature and the pressure of competing at state and national level as a 9, 10, 11, 12 year old was far too great for my maturity. And when you line up for an 800 or a 1500 and you haven't lost for three years, you perceive pressure yourself even as a 12 year old. And by the time I was 13 or 14 I had had enough and I didn't want to run another race. And looking back I really regret that now. But there were so many good things that happened as a result of that. I started playing all Team sports and I had such fun doing that and it gave me a renewed zest for competition again. And we talked a little bit about it earlier, about running for Australia or racing for Australia. That's what it felt like, being a team member. And it wasn't, it wasn't just my performance that counted, it was the whole team and whether I could manage to get the team to play the way I wanted because I was so competitive. I hated losing, so I really enjoyed that. But it was that period I definitely felt that I was mentally very weak or the pressure got to me too much. I don't know whether I was mentally weak, but I certainly felt the pressure of continually having to win and I.

Didn'T want to let my dad down who'd spent so many hours training me.

And you know, we were doing interval training sessions as 9, 10 year olds in the 70s, well before, you know, most serious athletes were doing interval training. You know, our very first coach was a guy called Jeff Watt. He was a local warrigal optometrist and he's, he's not that famous, but his daughter is famous. She's the first cyclist of Australia to win a gold medal in the road race at Barcelona. Kathy Watt and Kathy's dad, Jeff was our coach in the running of the Latrobe Valley area and, and he'd run many marathons around the world in the 60s and 70s, well before his time and you know, 10th at Boston and we go to his house and we'd see all these marathon, Chicago, Tokyo, Boston that he'd gone to in the 60s and 70s. And you know, he wasn't a winner but his consistency and his work ethic were some things that he empowered our little running group of 9, 10, 11, 12 year olds and, and we were unbelievably successful little running group at state and national level. It was all through Jeff Watts tutelage where he really taught us and he was a tough, mentally tough runner. I don't think he was that talented, but boy could he push himself. And I remember one story, I think he came second in one of the international marathon runners and he was so disgusted with himself, so disappointed. And he said to the guy who won, congratulations. And he was such a humility type guy, congratulations, you know, but I think if we ran back I would beat you. And the guy said, well unfortunately Jeff, the race is 42.2 K and that's as far as I'm going. And that was sort of Jeff's mindset was, you know, I can still run and you know, mentally, he was so disappointed with not. Not winning that race when he thought he should have. But. But that's the thought process he had.

It's interesting. We've. We've been watching the Last Dance, Michael Jordan's documentary on Netflix, and it's similar kind of thing. He just wants to win so bad. He is. He's quite humble in defeat, but that doesn't mean he's not filthy and not visibly filthy when he loses. And that just carried across to his whole mindset and mantra of he just demanded himself to be the best. It's so, so motivating and it's so rewarding when you take that in yourself and commit yourself to a training program and get the most out of yourself, and then you get rewarded with PBS or successful results or race wins.

Yeah. And look, most people, when I was growing up, they would describe me as just obsessed with. With winning. And it's probably unhealthy, but that was just the competitiveness we had growing up.

With our family and our cousins.

And, you know, we had test cricket in the backyard. We had World cup soccer, we had grand final football. You know, all of those things was just instilling in the local area. We had probably 15 or 20 people playing cricket in the main street. We had, you know, you could only bat or bowl if you got someone out. So you could stand in the field for a night and not get a bowl or a bat. The only time you got to bowl was when you fielded the ball. So the competitiveness was there. That was the only way you could get a go was to be competitive. So it was survival of the fittest, really, at a young age.

So let's break this down. And you touched on this in the start. So I want to go back there in terms of your specific strategies for what are your mindset strategies coming into a race, leading into your race, that help you to be more mentally tough and ready for the race?

Right. That's so easy to answer. There's two things you can think about. You can worry about everybody else. All the conditions, the standard of athlete, you're against, the temperature. You can let all those things worry you, or you can focus totally on the things that you can control. And that is the difference, I think, between being mentally tough and mentally weak. You will let all those things affect your thought process from the minute you wake up to the start line. Oh, it's too hot. Oh, it's too windy. There's too many good people here. I don't feel so good. Why don't you start controlling what you can control, which is, I've trained so well to get to this point, I don't care what the conditions are. I am going to beat anybody in any conditions. In fact, the harder it is, the better it is for me because I know all these other people will be thinking about what I just said, oh, it's too hot, it's too windy. So I'm a real big believer in focusing on what you can control. And you can control so much of that day. Your emotions, your physicalness and your mental approach to your preparation. When you wake up, you know, the warm up, the start of the race, everything about that you can control. Then executing the race and following through, continuing to not worry about what other people are doing mid race, keeping aligned with your program, what your strategy is, what your race plan is and keep controlling the things you can control and be focused on that and not worry about. Like I said in some examples previous, who's coming behind me, it's just such an, not a positive thing to be looking at.

What about during the race? That's fun.

So definitely during the race, they're the times where it's most important is to be focused on what are you actually doing in every moment, every step. And I often tell the athletes that we're coaching prior to the race. You're the one who's going to control today. I've given you all the information and for me that was the best thing that any coach could tell me. And Jeff Watt used to do that. My dad used to do that. If you're as fit as you've ever been, you're in charge of the race, execute it the way you want to, don't worry about what other people are doing, react the way you think you should react to the moves they make. But if you're controlling the race the way you want it to go, then the outcome will be the way you want it.

And what about the part of the race when it is at its absolute toughest, when the pain is at its highest and those negative thoughts just start to come in and your body, your mind basically screams at you to slow down?

Yeah. And that's what we talked about earlier in those training days where you've let.

It go, let the guys ride off, fell back, you're going to do that in the race. So this is the time where I would go, this isn't going to happen to me today. I'm staying with this group. I don't care if it kills me to get this next two Minutes. This is the race right here, right now. Am I up for it? You bet I am. This is what I'm here for. I didn't drive all this way to come and just go back to the car and feel sorry for myself. There's so many poignant parts that happen in a club race, in a training session, in a major race, and they're all of equal importance because the way you carry on in training will be replicated in your local club race or your national or the Olympics or whatever event you're doing. You have the same outcome if you practice incorrect performance.

And your point is always so spot on in that it's not about avoiding pain or it's not about trying to hope that the pain is not there because it is going to be tough. You can't deny the fact that it's going to hit that point in every race. So if you're trying to avoid it and you're afraid of it each time, it's going to be a bad experience each time. Whereas if you know it's coming and you prepare yourself.

Yeah, that's really well said.

Embracing. There's a term that I use, and here it comes. This is the moment. Am I gonna curl up in the.

Corner or am I gonna embrace this situation? Yep, this is what I'm here for today, right now. And, you know, if you're thinking like that, it's. It's so confident boosting. I can do this. I know I can do this. And it's gonna hurt like hell, but if you're prepared for it, then you can cope so much better. Avoiding that, you know, those tough decisions is what really makes people weak. And it's not really them being weak. It's just they've made a weak decision, so physically they're capable of doing it. They've just decided that they're not going to. And, you know, you all know what I'm talking about when I'm. Everybody listening to this will have had those moments where it doesn't matter today. Well, actually, it does. Unless there's a physical reason why you can't, there is no reason why you shouldn't execute on those important days.

I think that's a great way to finish off. Is there anything else you want to touch on in terms of mental toughness and mindset that can help an athlete or help a listener?

Most definitely. Look, we've really talked about competition in this podcast and how important mental toughness is, but it doesn't have to be around competition. It can be. It can Just be your own personal competition. And we've talked about competing against others all the time in a, in a big stage. But the majority of our athletes, their personal toughness is against themselves. And when it gets really hard and their goal might have been just use triathlon, the goal might be a 12 hour completion time or it might be top 10 in their age group and.

Someone comes up on them with 4.

Or 5k to go in the, in the marathon and they're in 10th spot and that person's going to take their 10th spot. There's a poignant point in the race and that's a, that's a personal thing. Do I want to put myself out? I'm not winning the race. I'm at best mid pack, but it's the high end of my age group so there's no real win loss here. It's just a personal decision that you've made to yourself to improve. Your goal was to either get a top 10 or finish in 12 hours or just finish. There are three distinctly different goals, but they still have the same outcome that you have to make a decision about. And that's what I'm trying to get across here. It doesn't have to be a winning decision. It can be a self improvement decision where you did finish the event that you thought you might struggle to, or it might be a time that you've broken 12 hours or it might be a top placing in your age group. So they're all personal decisions that you can make that no one else really doesn't worry about that much because it didn't determine whether you won the race or not. But to you it is so important because you know, last time I let that person who passed me with 4k to go beat me into 10th spot. I've already let that happen once. The choice is do I ever let that happen again. I got to a point where I was, you know, going to be touch and go for 12 hours and I had a really, you know, bad patch and I didn't really put in enough and I ended up with 12:02. But there was a point there where you could have got 1159 or you're so exhausted from the whole day of the Ironman that you just didn't think you could finish and you had cramp and you'd run out of fuel and everything was going against you. But you have to decide whether I'm going to keep going on that journey and finish. And you know, that is a personal decision. That is still a mental decision. You have to make. And that's the thing that people have to understand. Your personal drive is just as important if it's between you and yourself or between you and the rest of the field for a stage victory.

And if you've set yourself that personal goal, it's probably going to be worth it.

And the disappointment if you don't make that decision when you finish, the regret you'll have is more disappointing, I think, especially if you've come from a long training base and tried to get to this point. And if you've made a weak mental decision, it is so much more disappointing than having a physical problem, you know, happen to you that caused you to not get the outcome. And, you know, they're the things that stick with me that I don't want to have too many of those in my palmares. I want to have countless opportunities where I've had tough decisions to make and made the right choice to just take that next step. And it's almost like playing a game of poker with yourself, you know, bluffing yourself into, I can do this until you do succeed. And the feeling you get knowing that you were really challenged personally by yourself and overcome the challenge and finished, or overcome and ran 11:59 or got the top 10 position in the age group, the satisfaction of achieving that when you were challenged personally is what the euphoric feeling is at the end of that event and makes you go back to the next race.

And if you did it comfortably, it wouldn't be nearly as rewarding. No, it's only so rewarding because it was so hard and you really had to go to that next level to overcome it.

Yeah. So I suppose, in summary, that that would be the main thing I want to get across to people. You know, the personal challenge is quite significant in some of the things that people come to me with help for in their athletic pursuits, which is. Which is fantastic because I can relate to it because I've experienced the highs and lows myself. And as we talked about from the beginning, you have such control over the outcome, and I think that can't be underestimated. You can prepare physically, and I can prepare you physically to the 100% readiness for your event. But if you neglect the mental side of it when you're going to be challenged, then you will be disappointed.

Well, it's a great topic. It's one that you could. We could explore for a long time. I'm sure we'll do a future podcast on it because it is so important, and it really, as we said at the start makes up half of the performance. You know, there's half of its mental and half of it's physical. Some great insights today. I think we'll leave it at that. If you enjoyed the podcast, please make sure that you leave a review for us. The reviews really do help us share it around. Tell your triathlete and cyclist friends about it. Please leave a review on the itunes podcasting app. We appreciate all comments on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, wherever, but the reviews on the podcasting app actually help the most. So please head there to do that. And if you want to get our best triathlon resource, our best triathlon resources, go to getfastpodcast.com Our best triathlon and cycling resources to help you train smarter and race fast. We've got our best tips and advice from all the expert guests that have come on this podcast. Thank you very much for listening. We'll see you on the next episode.