Pushing your Limits and Mental Barriers

Last week you received a challenge to go out on an Epic ride, a ride that is beyond where you think your current capabilities lie. Did you take this challenge? What did you learn about yourself? How did you push your abilities and improve?

If you didn't, go out and try it this week. Don't worry about how far others are riding, just push past where you have been in the past. If your longest ride is 5 miles, do 7 or 10. If your longest is 100 miles, try for 110 or 120. If your focus is not long rides, then extend your short hard intervals slightly longer, or add another interval to your planned set. The point is to take where you are currently sitting with your personal records and push them just a bit further. This is how athletes grow and progress, one small but important step at a time. 

One of the great opportunities we have during base training is to incorporate these long, epic rides to not only build our muscular endurance and fitness, but to test our minds when we are tired and sore from an extended period on the bike. 

Epic rides are such a great opportunity for mental growth. When your body is extremely tired and you are focusing on the technical skill of a trail or road section your mind becomes singular in thought, meaning that the fleeting thoughts you may typically have running through your mind about day to day stuff quiets down. You are able to focus on a singular thing. The attitude of that focus is very important, and it can mean failure or success to your ride. May I suggest some thought practice to keep yourself disciplined and motivated during your tough efforts:

• Think about your past successes. Where have you exceled? Where have you overcome difficult circumstances and come out on the other end a better person? Lean on these past successes to fuel you through your current effort.
• Envision the end of your challenge. How will it feel to sit in the shade, absolutely exhausted and tired, but amazingly satisfied at your personal effort. 
• Consider what you are working for and why it is important for you. Keep that goal in mind as you are suffering. If you put in the work it all will be worth it in the end!
• Remember the only competitor in your head is you. Always drive yourself to be better and perform with excellence. Keep yourself honest in your efforts.

As totally awesome mountain bikers in training, we’ve spent the last 20 weeks training our bodies for hours each week, always seeking a competitive edge. We’ve discussed the mental aspect of our training shortly, but I want to take a deep dive this week into mediation and mindfulness. Mindfulness meditation, in the simplest of terms, is one approach to training your brain and becoming a more well-rounded athlete. Living more mindfully in our fast-paced society can help you with everything from performing better during training and racing to simply improving recovery and focusing on your task at hand.

Apps like Calm or Headspace can help you to start a mindfulness practice. Through practicing guided meditation you can learn how to accept the idea of simply slowing down to open more space for mindfulness. With some practice you can learn to do this practice anywhere, not only with your phone app, but during your day to day activities, at home, school, or especially on your bike. 

Benefits of Meditation

Researchers report that meditation induces a host of biochemical and physical changes in the body collectively referred to as the “relaxation response.” The relaxation response includes changes in metabolism, heart rate, respiration, blood pressure and brain chemistry.

The power of the brain is magical if we are able to harness it! Below are some of the documented benefits of meditation.

• Lower blood pressure
• Increased focus and clarity
• Lower heart rate
• Slower respiratory rate
• Decrease anxiety
• Lower blood cortisol levels (cortisol is your body’s stress hormone)
• More feelings of well-being
• Decrease stress
• Deeper relaxation and improved sleep quality

Through meditation, we can actually rewire our brains to enhance positive traits like focus and decision making while diminishing the less positive ones like fear and stress. Meditation isn’t about changing your personality or turning off certain thoughts. It’s about practicing awareness and listening to your interval voice. You’re learning to observe emotions without judgment to have a better understanding of self and those around you through acceptance.

The benefits of meditation come with practice, just like anything new. I suggest starting out using a guided meditation video or app that is relatively short in duration. 5-10 minutes is a great place to start. There’s no perfection in meditation practice, but just like any exercise, frequency and consistency are key! Find a comfortable place to sit undistracted with optional soothing surroundings, like a candle or diffuser. Make your meditation space a place truly welcoming to return to frequently as you grow in your practice.

Just like anything new, it may take time to embrace the unknown of your quiet mind. You may have sessions that you simply don’t feel connected or grounded. Keep showing up with an open heart and peace will fill those unknown spaces with abundance.

 Last week we spoke a bit about our WHY for riding bikes. This week lets dive into our WHY for racing bikes and how to prepare ourselves mentally for racing. 

While riding for fun is amazing and awesome, here are some reasons to seriously consider racing your bike (all great reasons and spoken by professional amateur racers, AKA other Pocatello Pioneers):

• I love the atmosphere at races. There's a ton of excitement in the air and it's cool to hear the cowbells and see everyone cheering for everyone else

• Chilling in the PitZone with the team is super fun on race day

• I find a gear I didn't know I had on race day. I can always ride faster in a race than in practice.

• Camping in the mountains on race weekend is awesome. Hammocking is the best!

• Even though I get really nervous before races it goes away as soon as we start riding

Now for those who already know they love racing lets talk about a few tips that can help you sharpen your skills and move you up the pack of racers.

• Take some time before the race to sit in silence (yes, I know that's a huge ask for some of you) and visualize every step of the race, from call-ups to the start through the race track and through the finish line. Run through your head what you will do if you crash or get a flat. Envision your race as if you are already doing it. This is called Visualization and it's a super tool for helping race performance. (bit hint, the pros do this too!)

• Accept the fact that racing is hard and it's probably going to hurt a bit. Embracing and learning to enjoy that pain is the best way to channel it on race day. 

• Remember that sometimes unexpected things happen. Crashes, dropped chains, losing your seat or breaking your seatpost (happens more than you'd think) can derail your race. Don't let it ruin your day. Try to adapt and roll with the flow. You're not getting paid to race at this point, so does it really matter if you have a mechanical? Just focus on what you CAN control, and that's your effort and your attitude. 

• Last, but definitely not least, remember who you are racing against. You can't control who shows up on race day or the effort they put in. All you can control is your own actions and attitude. The only person you are racing against is yourself!! Let me say that again, THE ONLY PERSON YOU ARE RACING AGAINST IS YOURSELF! Accepting this opens up a huge door for racing at your best and helps to curb those pre-race jitters.