I’ve spent much of my adult life around mountaineers, off-shore sailors and ultraendurance athletes. These pursuits attract people seeking escape (most of us never truly realize from what).

For me, the serenity that I found through exercise has been extremely useful in transforming my internal life.

Seeing as most of us carry the pieces of the past with us, I though that I would write down a path towards emotional freedom.

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At some stage in my adult life, I decided to take responsibility for myself.

After years of trying to heal specific issues in the past, I came to the belief that my odds of success were remote!

So I decided to release the past by not continuing its pain into the future (via my kids, spouse, pets and co-workers).

To make it easier for me to release those that hurt me, I remember that the pain they shared with me came from something before them.

As a parent, seeing others as kids can help create compassion for the pain they carry around and seek to share.

Repeat as necessary.

Last week was the first time, in a very long while, that I’ve been able to remove any distractions, agenda or goals from an exercise-focused trip. Normally, I’m guiding and it was a lot of fun to be back on the athlete side of a camp. I’m going to do more of these trips as I missed the freedom they provide.

Earlier in the week, I gave a talk at a camp hosted by Tri-Dynamic. The talk was focused on Mental Skills for Racing and I shared how I train my mind to create my life situation. Daily, each of us lays down emotional imprints that create the way we perceive the world.

I built my mental skills for athletic performance by getting my head straight in daily living. Consistent performance requires:

• Conditioning the mind – to the way training and racing feel. As we gain experience with the sensations of preparation and racing, the emotional content of pain and fatigue is removed.
• Calming the mind – so we are able to see the way things are, maintain our technique and conserve energy for the relaxed concentration required to perform. 
• Restoring the mind – regardless of our physical fitness, we will struggle to perform when emotionally exhausted. Exercise is a source of emotional energy but only up to a point. Be careful of feeding disfunction (via anger, stimulants or fear) to keep yourself going well past what’s required for emotional wellbeing. Disfunction might get you through a season (or a championship) but it’s effects will linger, and impact, your entire life.

As I wrote last week, exercise tires the mind and it’s interesting to see what comes out when we go beyond ordinary levels of fatigue. Extreme training can lay bare what many years of emotional choices have done to our minds.

When tired, I have little tricks that I use to keep myself in check. One technique is to pretend I have an imaginary friend following me around, watching my every move and analyzing how I’m doing. What would this person say about me?

After riding over 1,000 kms this week and climbing more than 50,000 vertical feet – I’m no closer to what drives me to exercise but I had the opportunity to practice emotional control when physically stretched (always good for a parent).

Fatigue strips away the filters that we use to manage ourselves. I spent a lot of this week riding with a group of Israelis and a fighter-jet pilot. They coped very well with fatigue and I contemplated what was different in their approach.

Acceptance – one of the Israelis confided in me that he didn’t enjoy descending at high speed in the rain. However, he wanted to race well. He acknowledged his fear, let it go and accepted what was required to achieve his goal.

Perspective – if you’re an ER doc, a naval aviator or a combat veteran then the implications of a “bad day” are serious. It’s taken me more than a decade but I’ve been able to greatly reduce my mind’s tendency to manufacture drama out of thin air. I credit my three-year old daughter with turbo charging this aspect of my emotional development!

Reality – I’ve seen emotional meltdowns where athletes are overwhelmed by their fears. These situations are emotionally charged and I feel a powerful desire to flee individuals with chaotic minds.  When there is no escape, remember that tiny gestures of assistance can have a calming effect and help someone re-establish their ability to think clearly. At a minimum, showing compassion will give you peace-of-mind that you’re not part of the problem!

Related to the above, our hotel’s owner made the observation that she liked taking care of athletes because we are about more than overindulging. Inside, I smiled because I’m not so sure.

When the filters come off, what do you see?

Are you sure?

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PS – the best part of Italy is the Italians! They have a unique capacity for unreasonable optimism as well as taking joy in being nice to whomever is in front of them. As a guy that tends to detach from people, they are a good influence on me!

As an athlete, there are two transformations that have had a powerful influence over me:

• Slow to fast
• Fat to fit

Most everyone that I come in contact with has a belief system that faster, and fitter, is always better. We rarely see people making the decision that they are fast enough, or fit enough. More common is a realization that the drive to become fast & fit has become unhealthy and people leave their sport.

Collectively, we give honors to the fast and fit – so they must be good things, right? Like most things, it depends. 

These honors, and the feelings associated with them, lead many of us to make external traits part of our internal identity. Because ethical strength and internal health are hidden from view, there are risks associated with devloping core beliefs surrounding the goodness of winning, low body fat and a year-round tan.

I put the photos up as they speak for themselves. While I am different, I’m also not different. My external appearance, and abilities, have transformed across the years but my internal life has been much more stable.

Triathlon has be a vehicle for physical change but it has also provided an environment for self-discovery. What are our true internal drivers? They might include:

• Respect from our peers
• Proving we are worthy of love – the deeper version of “I want people to like me”
• Self-esteem
• Full blown exercise addiction – every single aspect of my life improves with frequent moderate exercise

It’s worth considering our deeper motivators because time, and our bodies, will set a limit on how long we can base our identity on winning, beauty and speed.

My peers that age the best have ultimately come to realize, and address, their internal motivators.

For me, that’s the true value of athletics.

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing one’s self is wisdom

– the Tao Te Ching

Last week, I went to sea level and absolutely blasted myself for four days.  Most days had moments of true-max training, which is something I usually avoid.

Most athletes expect a physical payoff from extreme overload.  However, the physical differences between top athletes are marginal.  The performance benefit comes from capacity to persist and the ability to think clearly under duress.  Emotional maturity, mental conditioning, performance psychology… whatever the name you give it… you can’t become spiritually resilient in a textbook.  It happens in the field under progressive duress.

At a training camp, I can keep myself together in public. So the opportunity for self-discovery comes through my internal dialogue.  When I put myself back in my normal routine, I’m tired and my guard is down.  It’s probably why a lot of us are tougher on our families than we are with our co-workers!

When the noise of my life returns it’s interesting to listen to my response.

• I need to get away more.
• I need to cut obligations.
• They need to change.

Cutting obligations tends to be a good idea for performance enhancement but I can’t escape myself and control is an illusion.  So the value comes from understanding the emotional triggers that are driving my internal dialogue:

• Criticism from people I respect – triggers more work
• Under performance within my team – triggers a desire to withdraw

Those are my own versions of fight/flight – consider your own.  My habits have served me well but our automatic responses can be self-limiting in high-performance situations.  Specifically, I need to work smart, not more.  As well, I need to remain engaged with my personal mission.

When I realize that I am auto-responding there are three questions that I ask myself:

• Am I sure? I ask this because stress fogs my perception.
• What is my desired outcome?  Be willing to trade “being right” for “being effective.”
• Is this response what I need to get my outcome?  When pushed, I default to being right, rather than being effective.

As a coach, I ask athletes these questions a lot.  To be fit for leadership, I must live my own answers.

When you feel hurt, or angry, pay attention.  There’s information there for you.

I rode around the Big Island last week and had a chance to run through my thoughts about the nature of sport.  Specifically, I was exploring why cheating gets us excited.  A few years from now the scandals of 2011 will fade but the challenge of living in a world with different cultures will remain.

When I find myself getting stressed about life, I ask myself, “What do I want from this situation?”  The bottom line with regard to elite sport is entertainment.  The emotional conflict starts to arise when I mix my goals from participating with my goals from observing.  As an observer of sport, more and more, I feel like we’ve been punked.

However, feeling like I’ve been stiffed doesn’t do a whole lot other than spoil an otherwise excellent day!  To sort through the underlying emotional cause of my ‘disappointment’, I consider the advice, “when you think someone has deceived you, ask yourself what you desired from them.”

There were a lot of life lessons that I took from my elite athletic career.  Two that stand out are:

• Work and persistence will make you better than you ever thought possible.
• Teach yourself how much is enough and how to say no.

Those two lines capture much of what’s required for a life with meaning.  If you add the Golden Rule then you have a straightforward code for self-improvement.  

That’s all well and good but cheating still irks me.  The only effective antidote is coming back to my lessons and staying focused on the life I want to lead.

As an advisor, I would add two additional points:

• Trust your own experience.
• Question reality.

The last dozen years in triathlon have taught me that the only information in which you can have full confidence is your own.  Even then, be cautious as methodology, devices and error will have an impact on results.

When you see others performing at a level that defies your personal reality, enjoy the performance but be true to your own situation.  

Performance that falls far from the mean is typically due to chance (genetics) or outside influences.  For this reason, base your approach on what you know is effective for you. 

Fill your peer group with friends that reinforce the life you want to lead.  Our character trends to a similar level of our inner circle.

Worry isn’t work (and work is far more important than worry).

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Today, I’ll share some ideas about an area where I have direct personal experience.  What it takes for regular people to go from ordinary to extraordinary.  Like you, I enjoy reading the blogs of top coaches and world champions.  However, your body might have more in common with my journey than what we might read in the magazines.

On Tuesday, I shared some thoughts on good vs great on the main Endurance Corner site.  One of the neat things about life is we never really know what is going to happen until we give it a shot.  For a guy that never thought of himself as an athlete, triathlon was a fantastic find.  Keep searching until you find your thing!

January is the month where we can come up with really silly ideas.  Two errors that I’m seeing a lot:

#1 – the desire for an “intensity block” // nearly always with an athlete that’s been sick, or injured, or both (!) in the last eight weeks.  It must be an occupational hazard that triathletes dream up crazy stuff when they are flat on their backs.  I’ve been there, myself.

#2 – requests for validation for training at higher heart rates // “because I’m rested.”

To those requests I’ll remind you that you can only sharpen the base that you’ve created (via @alan_couzens) and heart rate is a proxy for stress (via me).

If you want to improve then you need to be thinking strategically about what’s required to achieve your objective.  Mindlessly blasting yourself because you’re scared that you’ve detrained a little is a complete waste of time.

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Let’s review the physical requirements for athletic success:

• The ability to apply force in a sport specific manner
• The capacity to sustain the application of force
• The skill to perform the activity quickly

In Joe Friel’s performance triangle, he calls these force, endurance and speed.  Remember that force needs to be specific; and speed is quickness, not velocity.  

To those three I would add – durability – the capacity to sustain load over time.  To enhance our durability, in the winter, we can:

• Avoid material weight gain
• Improve whole-body strength
• Limit losses of lean body mass – it might not matter in 2011 but it sure will in 2031
• Adopt a high frequency, moderate intensity, run program

You’re going to be tempted to recover your late season fitness.  However, if you chill out and focus on the basics then you are guaranteed to get back there.  The only thing that can screw you up is illness, injury or burnout.  If you can simply stay-in-the-game you’ll return to last season’s performance.  It’s normal, but irrational, to expect that it’s all gone unless you take drastic winter action.

By rushing, you’ll be right back to your “decent” fitness far too early and limit your ability to breakthrough to a new level.  

Do you have any (!?) idea about what’s required to achieve your goal performance?  Most of us know more about what (we think) it takes to win Ironman Hawaii than to achieve our own goals.

I’ve known for a long time that I needed to be able to output 275 watts for four hours (swim/bike/run) to get under 4 hours for a 70.3 race.  That was a key consideration for what drove my training in 2009/2010.  

Do you know what it takes?  Are you putting the pieces in place for what it takes?

Ask the questions because spending the winter seeking to bump your FTP by 7% might be a complete waste of time.  You’d probably be better off with a few really big swim weeks; or getting strong; or improving your run technique; or just about anything else that’s liked to the fundamentals of IM performance.

Work in a way designed to improve the specific result you want to achieve.  I do a lot of general preparation because it is the best way for me to absorb load and prepare myself for the sessions required for success.  It’s also really safe – I get tired, I bounce back, I repeat the process.

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On Tuesday, I did my first benchmarking test of the year.  The results are above, and typical for when I’m de-trained.  The test is simple, start at a low power level (125w in my case); use 5 min steps; and make step height small enough so you get to “see” each intensity zone (15-25w for most of us).  Note your average power and max HR for each step.  Also note your breath and effort markers as intensity increases.

In-season, I’ll get an extra 25w for each step of the test.  For example, I’ll have a max HR of 120 bpm at 200w (rather than 175w, last Tuesday).  

Each time I test, it’s a little depressing because I have lost so much performance.  If I wasn’t used to this process then it would be tempting to put in a layer of highly intense training to recover my “lost” top end.  Frankly, this is where your ego, and your powermeter, screw you up!  If you are chasing last season’s numbers then your consistency will suffer (especially if you’re a big unit).  If you have been sick or injured in the last eight weeks then you are haunted by the performance of last season and over-doing-it.  I guarantee it.

It’s clear to me from perceived effort that all my zones have dropped 30-40 watts… …and I had a week long training camp in Tucson to start off January, as well as riding across Florida in December.  

I’d probably be down 50 watts if I’d stayed in Boulder the whole time.  FWIW, I dropped 50 watts across the board when my daughter was born in 2008.  Interestingly, they all came back over the following 18 months and I had the fastest bike splits of my life in 2010.

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In 2011, my main goal is Ironman Arizona.  An average power of 240w will get me a great result.  I know that I’ve had good results with power outputs in the low 220s.  That knowledge places the test in a different light.  “Raising my roof” merely makes me tired.  For Arizona, what’s going to make me fast is the seven bullet points above – specifically the capacity to roll 200-260w of output for nine hours.

Ironman is about the depth of our fundamentals combined with the total load that we can handle.

Our best competition knows what needs to be done.

Do you?