There was an interesting discussion recently on Strava sparked by someone who’s training for an Olympic-distance triathlon. His race date is approaching but his motivation is waning. What if it’s not fun anymore? he asked. How do I keep going?
I think there are two important issues to consider here. The first is burnout. It happens, particularly if you never take rest days or recovery weeks to allow yourself time to recharge and have a bit of a break. No matter which distance you’re training for, rest is an essential part of the process. Even if you don’t think you need it—you do. It’s not just for your muscles.
The second issue involves managing expectations. Who said it was going to be fun all the time? Even if you have your dream job, there will be days when it sucks. There will be aspects of the job that won’t be fun. I spend my mornings writing. I love writing. It’s the thing I was put on this planet to do. There are many days, however, when writing is decidedly not fun. When it takes me four hours to get down a thousand words and I’m not even sure those words are any good. When I realize the novel that I worked on for a year is fundamentally flawed and I need to start again. But those are the days when it’s most important to show up.
In writing, I have always believed the good days are a gift, and you get that gift by putting in the time during the bad days. Training is the same. I love running almost more than I love writing. But sometimes I have crappy runs. Sometimes I don’t feel great, or my legs feel like concrete, or it’s too hot and the run doesn’t go well. Whatever. I still do it. And I still show up the next time.
Mental training is a key part of endurance—in anything, but particularly in Ironman training. Sometimes I think that’s why my coach scheduled strength training for a while as the last workout of the week on a Sunday. Like, wtf? I don’t want to do that. But I did do it, every Sunday. I saw it as equal parts mental and physical training. It was the last thing I wanted to do—therefore, it was especially important to do it.
Nobody said this was always going to be fun. It isn’t. Sometimes you hit a wall with distances. I had to go through so many hard 15km runs before they started to feel easy. But I kept doing them anyway because I know the only way through the hard stuff is… to go through it. My running partner and I set down a solid 28km run yesterday. A lot of it was fun. But all of it? No. By the time you hit 23km, you’re not having fun anymore. You’re challenging yourself to do something that’s hard and uncomfortable, and while it might not be fun, there is value in doing hard things.
This process can be tough. But it makes you tough, too. It makes you resilient and able to put your head down and do whatever you need to do.
My favorite rule from the Velominati is rule #5. Toughen up (well, they express it slightly differently). Get the job done. Yes, there are days when it will be hard, but once you’ve done that hard thing there’s no better feeling in the world.
And take breaks. Have rest days, recovery weeks. You can’t go hard all the time.
Leave a Reply