Becoming a full-time athlete is simply part of the progression to achieving your best. By full-time I mean that this isn’t just a hobby for you, something you dabble in when the fancy strikes you. Not you. You have invested serious capital and time, purchased high-tech equipment, and changed how you eat. Everything from your work schedule to where you want to live is analyzed from the perspective of who you are as an athlete. It makes sense, after all, as that’s just who you are: fit, organized, and in control of everything.
But not everything is simple and easy in Endorfun-ville. There are times when, believe it or not, things don’t go exactly as planned. Life has a way of doing what it wants, when it wants. Your rear derailleur explodes on a winter ride; your kids won’t sleep at night; you are so sick you think you have have H1N-10,000. It’s enough to divert even the strongest athlete from their chosen path.
But having such moments isn’t a problem…letting them define you most certainly is. Here are a few tips to keeping yourself mentally on track when life throws a (or many) curveballs your way.
Quantify Your Fitness … Endurance athletes are walking examples of health and wellness. Yet miss one workout and they act like the biggest couch potato on earth, as though that one skipped session has set them back a few years…or pounds. Use benchmarks to quantify your “fitness” instead of whether or not you can workout on a given day. If you weigh 160 today and don’t workout….wake up in the AM and still weigh 160 are you less fit? More fat? If your bike functional threshold is 250Watts, and you miss a bike workout, do you wake up and think “My FTP must be 246.3 now I missed a day!” Of course not…your FTP is still 250, done.
Missed Workouts Are Opportunities… If you don’t get today’s workout done, that just means that tomorrow’s will be that much better. If you can’t workout today b/c you are just sick as a dog, then you have an extra hour in your day to do something that’s been on your to-do list forever.
Tackle Problems Like Your Dreams… The single worst thing you can do when sick or injured or down is to just throw in the towel. Personal experience and actual studies have shown that positive thinking and engaged action can make something like a cold, or a bump calf muscle, disappear in half the time. You approach every workout like a puzzle to be solved; it’s how you live your life. Applying the same focus and attention to your body when it needs your help will only help you get better, faster.
Share Your Challenges… Last, but not least, talk about what you are going through. Putting your situation into words (or emails or tweets) helps you to really grasp the true nature of your situation. It also gives your friends and support network a chance to give you a hand up…odds are you are not alone in your current predicament.
Please share any tips you find useful in the comments section below!
Hi, I'm Patrick McCrann. 
