Part 2: Bobbing for Wisdom

During my first session with Bob we mostly talked about theory, what the Zone is, how to know if i am in it or not and how it can help me be a better athlete and coach. I really had a handle on what we were trying to accomplish, and in all honesty, felt like we were building on skills that i already possess. Now, after our second meeting, i am aware that i have a long way to go. New experiences and terminology were flying at me so fast that i am not completely sure that i really got my head around all of it!

Bob has a large toolbox filled with tricks to help change my unconscious mind and ultimately, always bring me back to the Zone. The first thing we did was an exercise called Fusion in which we integrated negative memories with positive ones, effectively taking a bad memory and making it good. Or, in Bob's terminology, we take a Zone experience and apply it to a no-Zone experience.

I was asked to think of a time when someone had effected me negatively so i chose an occasion on which someone had said something negative about me that made me feel bad. Then I thought of 3 times when i had good experiences with that same person. After that i was told to "fuse" the good and bad experiences and was amazed by what happened next. Almost immediately, my unconscious mind began to give me reasons why the person in question said the negative things that he did. I didn't have to try to understand him, i just did. Even more amazing was that the whole process was entirely unconscious. And over the last couple days, whenever the person in question comes to mind, i find myself feeling endeared to him, completely unable to feel hurt by what he said.

I have always been a believer in the power of the mind and my previous attempts to change how i think about something could be called "the-little-engine-that-could method", i think i can, i think i can, i think i can. Or likewise, i love hills, i love hills, i love hills, etc... And this method does work as long as you can control your mind enough to keep the positive thought train running and the negative one in the station.

What i learned from Bob is that there are easy methods that we can use to change our minds on the unconscious level that will actually stick! In another example, we used a similar approach with my Si joint injury. Once i got my mind to imagine a healthy image of my lower back, i couldn't even conjure up the injured image. My whole mindset about the injury has changed and I now see it as an opportunity to teach my body to function properly again. I now see that i can use my mind to do this.

This effectively means that changing our perception about something that is holding us back can be done swiftly. The challenge then is to recognize those things and change them one by one. I am excited and curious to see how Bob and I are going to build on this during the coming weeks.

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Subaru Victoria Half Iron Race Report

Well now that's a relief.

I needed to have a good race. I needed to know i could sleep the night before. I needed to test my fitness and I needed to finish my first triathlon since Rosalee was born. Thankfully i managed to accomplish all these things on Sunday. Winning was just a bonus. Check, check, check and check!

For the most part, my own personal race was won before it started. I slept. Not a lot, but some. When the alarm went off i knew i had definitely been under and a huge smile spread across my face. I get to race today.

If i am honest, i knew this race was make or break for the rest of the season. Clint and I and our families have made many sacrifices so i can train as much as i do, and if i hadnt slept again, I am not sure what we would have done next. It would have gone from a small problem to a big problem very quickly. I am so relieved that things went the way they did.

Onto the race. I had a solid swim, a solid bike and a solid run. Nothing special, just solid. I wasnt sure how my bike and run fitness would hold up in a half ironman, but the pieces seem to be falling into place. Another relief.

I am hugely grateful to so many people, now more than ever because the opportunity to race comes at a greater cost when you have an infant daughter!! Most of the sacrifices come from my husband Clint, who also writes the smart training program that i need to balance my training with motherhood and coaching. Clint's mom Pearl had Rosalee for the whole weekend, allowing me to get some rest before the race. It couldnt have happened without Pearl.

Thanks to Zoot who have continued to support me through my pregnancy and now during my comeback to racing. ProCityCycle set me up with that beautiful Trek Speed Concept which is so aero it takes care of the descents and flat sections practically on its own. I just have to point it in the right direction. Thanks to Shelley, babysitter extraordinaire! And also a big thanks to Paul and the Lifesport gang who are so great about taking care of the pros at their races, who always make sure we have a little money to fight for as well! Also want to give a quick mention to Bob from Sportexcel. Though i have a lot to learn, after only 2 sessions, Bob's advice helped keep me in the right mindset for most of the race, or at least made me conscious about what my mind was doing while i was out there!

Additionally, i want to give huge kudos to Rachel and Christine (2nd and 3rd place finishers). Rachel, who is also coached by Clint, stayed with us this past week and besides being her usual helpful and smiley self, also put in a solid training week leading up to the race. And Christine, who i know was not having the best day, challenged me (as she always does) on the bike course, which kept me riding strong. It was great to share the podium with these girls.

And last but not least, thanks to Rosalee for being the best baby ever!!

Moving forward.

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Week 1; Bob's Building Blocks

So I had my first session with Bob on Wednesday. As I mentioned, Bob is not a trained sports psychologist, just a guy with an idea, a system, that helps athletes, teams and coaches achieve their potential. In our first session we discussed how that system works, and how it will help me achieve my goals in the triathlon world and in life in general. After that, we talked about how i can identify when i am in the right place for optimum performance and when i am not. I am told that over the course of the next 6 weeks i will be learning strategies that will help me be my best self at all times. (These are my words not his!)

Bob likes to talk about The Zone. This is a phrase used in sports psychology to describe the mental state of being completely in the moment. It is also sometimes referred to as Flow. It is a single-minded immersion in the moment that can help us harness our very best performance. Bob's goal is to help athletes achieve The Zone not just once or twice in their careers, but all the time, every day.

I personally prefer to apply different language to Bob's "Zone," to talk about a sense of centeredness, or of just being being. A place where swimming, biking and running flow out of me and my best performance just is. The concept is the same (i think!), but the semantics are different. Imagine a kid playing a video game, he is the game and the game is him. Like the Buddhists and their non-duality.

Traditional sports psychology starts with goals, makes plans and works towards achieving The Zone, maybe, someday, eventually. Bob wants me to start with The Zone first and let everything else take care of itself. The challenge is to stop thinking and to live from that place. To live as if my goals have already been achieved. So my decisions on a day to day level become unconscious. I no longer have to fight the urge to eat the chocolate cake, i simply don't eat it because i want to be lean and fast. The idea is to take the thinking out and live unconsciously at my best. Yoda comes to mind "Do or do not. There is no try."

So, over the next few weeks, Bob and I are going to build a series of strategies to help me get into this state of centeredness and also to help me get back there when i fall out. We identified some of my "blocks" and are going to explore strategies to clean them up. They are as follows:

I have lots of tired, overtrained bike rides to "clean up"

I am still bothered by my SI injury and feel tight in the back

I have a problem with sleeping before races

I never have enough time in my life and always feel behind on my work

We discussed my goals of racing well in Hawaii and of racing consistently over the next few years. If Bob can help me with all this then truly he will have rebuilt my mind. For now, my homework is to learn what cues, feelings and sensations let me know that i am in The Zone. I am also supposed to take note of what takes me out of The Zone. Here's what i have learned so far:

1. When I am in The Zone i feel relaxed in my shoulders and core.
2. When i am not in The Zone i carry tension across my shoulder and if i am training or racing, my limbs feel tight and sore.
3. I have some skills that help me get into the Zone during training, like focusing on technical cues and controlling pain with my mind.
4. I have more of these skills for swimming and running that for biking.
5. Thinking too much is the first thing that takes me out of the Zone. In training and racing this is often related to what others are doing, for example, if someone overtakes me and i start thinking about them instead of myself.
6. If the pain in training is too intense, my mind starts to wander and pulls me out of The Zone. Usually i start thinking about my athletes, planning programs etc... This way, my mind can convince me that i am doing something "useful" when i should be focused on myself. My mind can be very crafty when it wants to be.
7. I am much better at getting into The Zone swimming, biking or running than i am in everyday life.

Thats my summary for this week. We have a big job before us, me and Bob.

OHM!

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Coming Soon: Adventures with Bob

In the course of my triathlon career I have done bits and pieces of mental training. Starting with the work i did with Russell Martindale, a graduate student who was working on his PhD in Sports Psychology while i was pursuing my own PhD at the University of Edinburgh. This was followed by a bunch of book-reading and note-taking over the course of the next couple years. In 2006-07, i would plan specific visualization sessions into my schedule. Now, as i begin my post-baby comeback to triathlon, I am pleased to say that i will be working with a new mentor on the mental side of things, Bob Palmer from Barrie, Ontario.

Bob was a teacher and martial artist who stumbled upon a technique for optimizing performance in his own athletic career and life and is very keen to share than technique with other athletes and coaches. Bob is not a trained sports psychologist, just a guy with an idea that he feels passionately about and wants to share with as many people as possible. In my experience, people with great ideas and the drive to make change are often the best people to have in your corner.

Bob and I will be doing a 6-week program together called The Ignition Series. Each week I will be blogging about my experiences with Bob, what am i learning and how it is changing my perceptions and my performances. I feel that my first meeting with Bob is what helped me stay so calm when i punctured in St. Croix 70.3 and I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish together over the 6 weeks.

To learn more about Bob, check out his website here: www.sportexcel.ca

Watch this space for the six-part series "Adventures with Bob"

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Disappointment

"Ok seriously, enough with the camera already. I'm cute. I know. Get over it. I am trying to focus on playing here."

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Today i find myself in Houston airport in transit between Rio De Janeiro and Vancouver. In the last 5 weeks i have spent 5 nights on planes and last night was the best one. i am getting the hang of it. How to position myself, the seat and pillow comfortably so that i dont wake up with every bump, neck bent and contorted. Its always nice to see progress, even in the simplest of tasks.

Since DNFing at IM Brazil I have had to deal with disappointment on many levels. The main disappointment is that my hopes of going to Hawaii this year are squelched. It was a long shot but now its pretty much impossible. This actually has an upside in that now i can plan my comeback to racing with a little less urgency and a little more smarts. Also on the list of disappointments are; the loss of income, the 9 days spent away from Clint and Rosalee when she is only 6 months old, and last but not least, the disappointment in myself for deciding to end the race. (Now before all my extremely kind and well-meaning friends jump in with various reassurances and reasons i should not be disappointed in myself, give me a chance to explain why i feel this type of disappointment is actually a good thing. This is not a pity party.)

First of all, the main reason i did not finish the race is because I did not sleep the night before and was thus, not coping mentally with the task of racing a full Ironman. And when i say i did not sleep, I mean, i did not sleep. At all. Not 5 minutes. Not even 30 seconds. This has happened to me before. It happened at Ironman Brazil in 2009. It happened in St. Croix 4 weeks ago. In 2009, I managed to finish the race, but it was the most painful of my career. In St. Croix, I was actually feeling ok on race morning, still positive and ready to go. But it was not a full Ironman.

This time, i managed to stay positive through a long night of tossing and turning. Even when the clock said 3am i was still thinking "i can have an hour nap and be good to go!" It wasn't until I got out of bed at 4am and started getting ready for the race that i really lost the desire and will to put myself through it. A cup of coffee helped me shake the gloom for a short time but it only lasted about an hour and by the time the gun went off i was already looking for an out. This is a terrible feeling. When i look back on it, i see that in one night my hopes and aspirations for the race just slipped though my fingers. At the time I just carried on regardless, but in retrospect, I feel like i was robbed.

I felt tired for the whole swim but my time was good enough. The first part of the bike was a bit of a comedy show... combine the fatigue of not sleeping, the adrenaline of racing, a girl with sub-par bike skills with a technical course and someone is gonna get hurt!! I was very aware how slow my reflexes were and had close calls with multiple potholes, cones and even another competitor when i didnt see a dead turn coming up and almost plowed into the back of him.

So back to my "good" disappointment. I know that in similar circumstances other competitors would have finished the race. I can think of multiple examples, heck, I managed it 2 years ago in the same race!! Every decision has consequences and one of the major ones in this case is that i didnt get the satisfaction of finishing. In 2009, I finished the race and was pleased, but i didnt have the result i wanted. This time i feel disappointed, but i get to start training again tomorrow. I dont have to recover from a full Ironman physically, but i have to recover mentally. I don't think there was any right or wrong decision in either of these cases. Just 2 choices, neither of them good, each with a different set of consequences. So there are 2 aspects to what happened on Sunday, the part that was out of my control and that leaves me feeling robbed and the part that was in my control, the decision not to finish the race. Both are disappointing.

This may sounds weird, but i will own the disappointment and i will take it with me to fuel future training and racing. I feel like i earned the right to be disappointed. I almost kind of like it. I like it because it reminds me of who i am, of the fact that i am taking great risks for rewards that are few and far between. I am disappointed because somewhere inside me i truly believed that 6 months after giving birth, I would be able to compete in an Ironman race on a professional level. If i didnt believe it in the first place, I would be neither surprised nor disappointed when it did not work out. The disappointment becomes a reminder of who i am and that i am definitely, on the right path. So i will own it, take it with me on my way, let it fuel me and use it as a reminder of who i am and what i am trying to accomplish.

Thank you to all my supporters, to ProCityCycle and Zoot, to my friends and family, my athletes and the tri community in Victoria. Big thanks to Amy, Chris, Marilyn, Giancarlo and Shawn for all the laughs this past week. And also huge congrats to Amy, Chris and Giancarlo on jobs well done. Roll on!!

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