Life happens …. blah blah blah. To cut to the chase … run the race so you can do the VERY BEST THAT YOU CAN. Hahaha. The Army had it right.
BE ALL THAT YOU CAN BE!!
FINISH LINES NOT FINISH TIMES
1. Attitude is everything. Try really hard to not down on the race, yourself or what not. Just leave it at home. It is what it is. No amount of judgement or criticism is going to help. The only thing that will help is to keep a positive attitude. DO THE BEST THAT YOU CAN.
I had a 50K after my 2nd Ironman that I really didn’t want to do. I did but didn’t. It was mostly due to some personal things going on, but I really didn’t train at all between the Ironman and the 50K. I got the silly idea to take a picture during each loop of this 50K. Which turned out to be on a 0.8 mile loop. How funny is that. Well … even with the Kansas winds, I took my pictures at each loop. Had fun. PR’ed each distance and got a sub 6 50K. Keep your mind right, thats a big part of doing your best.
3. Say your mantra, over and over. What this means is, use that phrase that always gets you through. Over and over. Don’t stop. This will help you stay in the game and do #1 well. I am a fan of “I am stronger” as a mantra. I have used that for 2 Ironman. It’s a lovely practice. A form of meditation and can really enrich your life. I strengthened this mantra by repeating it for the entire marathon at Ironman Texas in ‘18. It was a full moon. So beautiful. So when everyone was walking, I was making up time by running and following my plan. Repeating my mantra until I finished up!
4. Do not let your mind win, put your foot down and do your best. It sounds easy. It’s not. It’s probably one of the things we as a society do not so well across the board. We whine. We make excuses. We tell ourselves …. this is really hard, I’m justified in walking or whatever. When if you dug down a bit deeper you would find more.
5. Don’t be afraid to cut things short, walk a bit or whatever. So with all of these things being said, do give yourself GRACE to rest and go easier if you need to. If you are not prepared, and need to adjust your expectations, then do it. Do the best that you can for that day, that moment, what life has handed you to manage. Sometimes doing your best means walking and winging to yourself instead of being hard on yourself and forcing yourself to perform past what you are prepared for.
BALANCE GRACE AND GRIT
