During my last meeting with Bob we started with a long talk about pain. In previous sessions, Bob told me that when you are in the Zone, there is no pain and i did not question him until i really started to reflect on how i experience pain in training and racing. In fact, I often use pain as an indication that i am going hard enough in training. During some sessions, my specific purpose is make use of and acquire better skills for dealing with pain, so i am prepared for race day. AND, on a couple of occasions, I felt sure that i was feeling pain and also in the Zone. This sparked a long discussion between myself and my mental training mentor on the question of pain in the Zone.
We talked about good pain versus bad pain. Good pain being that nice burning you get in your legs or your lungs when you are working right on the rivet, in that place that tells you that you are doing your very best. Bad pain could be caused by injury or could be the outcome of losing the Zone and giving in to the negative voices that will inevitably fill your head when you lose focus.
A few things stuck with me after our discussion. Bob said, you need to shift your metaphors, reinterpret the wall, learn to love it and enjoy it. He talked about euphoric pain (it all sounded a little too S&M for my liking, but i knew what he meant!). As with so many things in life, it's all a matter of perspective.
From here our conversation shifted to the issue of fatigue. Bob told me that tiredness is natural, but fatigue is a learned behavior (Aha!). We used some visualization techniques to "clean up" the past and unlearn fatigue. I learned to brightened up the memories that were clouded with pain or fatigue so these experiences will stop effecting my current experiences. In the 2 weeks since our last meeting I have been using any down time i have to clean up all kinds of bad performances and experiences and change them in my mind to things that will make me stronger and better today.
In the last few minutes of our meeting Bob talked a little about how i look at my competitors. If you can see them, Bob said, they have already beat you.... ummm what? Of course i can see them, you just asked me to bring them to mind! Slowly but surely, I was able to see that my competitors need to blend together in my mind and not one of them should stand out as an individual, because the one who does is the one who will beat me. Bob helped me understand that i am the leader of my race and they are just pawns in my performance game.
As soon as i got off Skype, I tested Bob's theory by choosing the most competitive female in long course triathlon and trying to make her disappear. And poof! She was gone. As i've said to anyone who will listen since then, I made Chrissie Wellington into a girl i have never met! Of course, i know on a conscious level that Chrissie is a woman who has smashed records, won world titles and basically left a trail of destruction in every race she enters (amongst the men too!), but i was able to let go of all the emotional ties i had to her performances, including awe, fear and disbelief. Now Chrissie is just a girl i have never had the pleasure of meeting.
What i have taken with me since our last meeting is that i can clean up any past experiences, feelings or thoughts that are effecting my current reality by simply brightening the memory in my mind's eye and imagining myself in the Zone during that time. Something as simple as improving the weather during memories of fatigue has really changed my perspective on past and present. Times when i used to feel burdened with the weight of training tiredness have become brighter memories of times when i did the work required to succeed in my sport and i can bring all those miles with me into my next race and my next season. In this way any bad memory can be cleaned up whether you used to be fat, or in an abusive relationship or you once lived life of crime. Its very freeing indeed.
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