Doubt

There comes a time (and of course, it happens more than once) when that nasty outlier named Doubt creeps into every athlete's mind.

No matter how good you are, how much in shape you are, or how fast you are, Doubt lurks in the back of everyone's head on certain days or certain workouts. OMG, you say, there is no freaking way I can (a) do this, (b) be ready for this, (c) finish this, (d) get there from here.

Half of the preparation for any race or event is mental. If you allow Doubt to come along with you as a guest rider or swimmer or runner, you are going to have a devil of a time finishing your race (or workout). Doubt is the stepchild of Lies, and he loves to sit on your shoulder (as if you needed that extra weight!) and tell you that you are simply incapable.

Banishing Doubt from your workout and race isn't easy. I know that at least twice a week I find myself saying "I can't .... (you fill in the blank--swim any faster, bike any faster, bike in a strong headwind, run uphill, etc.)." The minute I say it, I believe it. And my workout suffers because of it.

Patient Spouse is excellent about telling me to get rid of the negative thoughts and sayings. If something gets hard or I don't do as well as I want, then I can say: "this is hard. And I'm going to really, really make some progress doing it." Or "I'm biking pretty slow. I know I can speed up by just concentrating on my cadence." Or "the swim is pretty long. Good, because I gonna OWN this swim!" You get it. Sounds stupid when you say it out loud, trust me, but it really works. Don't kid yourself into thinking your brain can't kid itself, because it surely can.

On Thanksgiving I had a hard run. It was in Houston, and it was 82 degrees at 7 a.m. and about 340 percent humidity and the trail we went to was ALL little rollers of very steep nature (so much so that you couldn't ever enjoy a downhill because you were looking smack at the next steep uphill). I had 8 miles to crank out and I thought, boy, am I going to tank this run. Then I shook myself like one of my dogs and said to myself, I am going to KILL this run, by golly. And I ran 8 miles in less than a 12 minute mile doing run 8 walk 2 and never missed a beat.

The next day we biked 31 miles in a very stiff and strong north wind. I was disappointed in my speed--at one point I was biking at 12 mph into that wind and was yelling at myself -- literally, out loud--that I needed to bike 15.5 mph average on this 70.3 to make the time cut off and that I was a stupid weak biker who would never get any better. Well, I ended up averaging 14 mph for the ride, which isn't great, but then again, it was a strange trail where we slowed down or even stopped a lot for turns and entrances and people, and then there was this giant headwind for a lot of the ride. So I needed to go a bit easier on myself as I know in my heart that I am steadily improving on my bike every time I ride. I let Doubt come sit on the back of my back and it made a great and fun ride into something unpleasant.

Doubt is always there. It's our job not to let him into our program. We can politely show him the door and remind him that all of our hard work and training really does pay off, and handsomely.

Give Doubt the boot. I did.