By far the biggest thing for me has just been reducing the event down and simplifying. "A triathlon" can be an intimidating event. "I'm just going for an easy swim, then a bike ride, then running a bit" cleans that up for me. We might get intimidated by the distances, but none of us are afraid to go for a run; there's no reason a race is any different. It's easy to get super caught up in your own head, but just remembering that we're just swimming, biking, and running really helps me out.
As a therapist who specializes in the mental side of performance development I love that you guys did this! The layer I would add to all of Deirdre‘s recommendations is to actually practice and train for mental adversity. It’s great to talk about positive visualization and positive affirmations or occupy your thoughts with XYZ but why not actually hone that skill in training. I always recommend having sessions here and there where you train to depletion to see what your dark space looks like. And throwing curve balls into your C races to force yourself to acclimate under stress. Even doing races outside your sport where you have less confidence. It can be so helpful to be a triathlete and go race with cyclists so you can experience the “I’m crap compared to them” experience. Like Lionel did with the zwift CVR. The important component is to make the plan overt to focus on mental fortitude. The same way you would set goals for pace, power, HR you set mental goals in training. Coping skills are very personalized and require trial and error. I’d say that for every block of training you want to dedicate 20% of your time to having some mental development skill you work on improving. In stories like the Championship swim change, I’d want Lionel not only getting confident swimming without a wetsuit but confident dealing problems. I’d surprise him with a choppy open water swim when he planned to be in the pool. Secretly plan to have his next rest day contingent on meeting a swim goal but then throw him a surprise where he has to wear regular clothes or can’t use his goggles. Something to stimulate that “I can’t let this affect me or else” problem solving. There’s so many others. Doing Threshold efforts and trying to achieve a lack of awareness of pain OR totally diving into awareness off the pain. Using sweet spot and aerobic sessions to find your recipe to get into Flow (mind drifting for good reasons).
I write down all my training sessions in a calendar. Before a race I look back at all the training I’ve done to prepare and find it helpful to know I’ve put in the work and have come prepared.
@@gtn wow, hey I love this channel, thanks for asking! Only the last maybe 8 years have I been doing triathlons, got a late start in life. Currently training for my 3rd full distance. IM Lake Placid this July! Watched this video while on the treadmill at work. You guys rock 🤘
That bit about breathing through nerves is totally true and it just saved me in an Olympic distance race a couple of weeks ago. I started in the swim scrum and it was very chaotic. I started to feel a little bit of panic set in, but I reminded myself to keep breathing steadily. Shortly afterwards, I calmed down and the field spread out. We're on the edge of panic out there and it's important to be able to keep your breath under control. Otherwise, things can get dangerous.
My worst part is swimming. I really don't like being among harms and legs spinning around me and making water boiling. As a general rule, I always race just to enjoy the moment with others and to improve myself. My base goal is always just to finish the race, be it a supersprint or an ironman. I try to put in practice what I experimented in training. I try to get better race after race, year after year. At my age it is quite an achievement just to maintain the level you attained the year before, so making it better is what I like the most. Other atheletes can be very better than me, but I simply look at myself
I'd like to hear about a more specific side of this topic - the psychology of racing against your competitors, especially at the pro level. How much do you deviate from your own plan based on how the other person is performing? Do you try to defeat them by suddenly opening a large gap in a difficult section? That kind of thing.
I just always tell myself "you're not throwing up yet, so you can go harder". haha Besides that tho, my first 70.3 of this season was a wreck: got achilles tendinitis 2 weeks out, caught the flu during raceweek and then during course recon the day before I managed to break my bikeframe.. I don't have to tell you that it just broke me mentally. However, the hosts of the homestay I was staying at fixed me a loaner roadbike and kind of pushed me to start the race the next day anyways. I just told myself to embrace the suck throughout the race and had a blast! Managed to finish in 4h20, putting down the 20th fastest running split overall. Looking back at it, it was probably the most fun I had racing in a long time. It really taught me to be flexible in all conditions. As athletes we sometimes just are so fixed on how things should go and try to plan everything, that when something goes wrong, we freeze.
Thanks team for producing this vid. I run my first Ultra in a months time and have found the psychological barriers quite a challenge shall we say. My target is to finish in one piece 😀 . This is really useful stuff 👍😀👍
Had bad nerves before my first tri this year!! Have nerves for my next one, but this has really helped. Good u look at the mental health as much as the physical!!
I try Lionel's method. Especially in longer races, I need to stay in the zone. Whenever I admit myself to thinking I'm almost there, I get mentally cramped. So unless it's the last 2k of the run, I just think "Keep on running, keep on breathing, it's still a long way to go."
Can anyone help ? Where can I get a triathlon programme with strength training included in it ?? Any programme I've seen only shows what to do when it comes to swim bike run, but no strength training . Where can I get a programme with all, broken down into what day to do it ??
It's a little nerdy, but in Star Trek TNG episode "Peak Performance" one of the main characters, Data, learns that winning shouldn't be his objective in a computer game. But, that he should have an infinite goal to stay alive in game. Later in the episode when he challenges a strategist he leads him to a stalemate and tires him out to give up on the game. Then, Data won by default. In long distance swimming, I like to think my goal is to add one more stroke and do better than I did before, or start well if I'm new to it. This channel videos are really helpful too :)
Perfect timing guys, less than 12 hours for my sprint Tri. The tips didn't seem to help though. Regularly checking the weather esp. the wind speed :)) nervous and still questioning the reason of doing this. Haven't packed up yet, feeling totally blocked this time
Heather Fell how flattering to be encouraged by you Heather, really appreciated, if only I had seen the message beforehand though, it would had shaved 5 minutes off my total time :)) Anyways job done 👍👌
Hello GTN. Please please please promise me something. Promise me that when Lionel retires, you'll offer him a job as a GTN presenter working alongside Heather and Mark! (And whoever you may add in the meantime)
There is a quote (somewhere) from Sanders where he says something to the effect: I am mentally prepared to be taken away on a stretcher. Do you guys know what Ironman event that was from. I watched it on a UA-cam video sometime ago but it appears to have been taken down.
Thanks Heather! I believe it was from Oceanside (circa, 2017), and the video was taken down for other reasons (at least thats that UA-cam seems to suggest). Thanks again. JSP.
There are few ways to focus back. 1. Think about something u really love, try to imagine it. 2. Try to concentrate on your breath, thoughts will come dont hang around them bring your mind to your breath again.
I write down all my training sessions in a calendar. Before a race I look back at all the training I’ve done to prepare and find it helpful to know I’ve put in the work and have come prepared.
Which of these have you found useful when training for a race? Let us know in the comments below 👇
By far the biggest thing for me has just been reducing the event down and simplifying. "A triathlon" can be an intimidating event. "I'm just going for an easy swim, then a bike ride, then running a bit" cleans that up for me. We might get intimidated by the distances, but none of us are afraid to go for a run; there's no reason a race is any different. It's easy to get super caught up in your own head, but just remembering that we're just swimming, biking, and running really helps me out.
Simplifying it down can be really helpful, great to hear it works for you!
none
As a therapist who specializes in the mental side of performance development I love that you guys did this! The layer I would add to all of Deirdre‘s recommendations is to actually practice and train for mental adversity. It’s great to talk about positive visualization and positive affirmations or occupy your thoughts with XYZ but why not actually hone that skill in training. I always recommend having sessions here and there where you train to depletion to see what your dark space looks like. And throwing curve balls into your C races to force yourself to acclimate under stress. Even doing races outside your sport where you have less confidence. It can be so helpful to be a triathlete and go race with cyclists so you can experience the “I’m crap compared to them” experience. Like Lionel did with the zwift CVR. The important component is to make the plan overt to focus on mental fortitude. The same way you would set goals for pace, power, HR you set mental goals in training. Coping skills are very personalized and require trial and error. I’d say that for every block of training you want to dedicate 20% of your time to having some mental development skill you work on improving. In stories like the Championship swim change, I’d want Lionel not only getting confident swimming without a wetsuit but confident dealing problems. I’d surprise him with a choppy open water swim when he planned to be in the pool. Secretly plan to have his next rest day contingent on meeting a swim goal but then throw him a surprise where he has to wear regular clothes or can’t use his goggles. Something to stimulate that “I can’t let this affect me or else” problem solving. There’s so many others. Doing Threshold efforts and trying to achieve a lack of awareness of pain OR totally diving into awareness off the pain. Using sweet spot and aerobic sessions to find your recipe to get into Flow (mind drifting for good reasons).
Really interesting stuff there Kory, it's amazing how much our mental state affects performance.
thx for the wise advice Kory!
I'm a simple man: I see Lionel in a video, I watch the video.
👍
Just watching this gave me the pre race nerves!
I write down all my training sessions in a calendar. Before a race I look back at all the training I’ve done to prepare and find it helpful to know I’ve put in the work and have come prepared.
That's a really great idea, thanks for sharing! How long have you been doing races?
@@gtn wow, hey I love this channel, thanks for asking! Only the last maybe 8 years have I been doing triathlons, got a late start in life. Currently training for my 3rd full distance. IM Lake Placid this July! Watched this video while on the treadmill at work. You guys rock 🤘
Awesome work! Good luck, we hope it goes well!
That bit about breathing through nerves is totally true and it just saved me in an Olympic distance race a couple of weeks ago. I started in the swim scrum and it was very chaotic. I started to feel a little bit of panic set in, but I reminded myself to keep breathing steadily. Shortly afterwards, I calmed down and the field spread out. We're on the edge of panic out there and it's important to be able to keep your breath under control. Otherwise, things can get dangerous.
Pian0Mon, well done on that, it's not a nice feeling.
My worst part is swimming. I really don't like being among harms and legs spinning around me and making water boiling. As a general rule, I always race just to enjoy the moment with others and to improve myself. My base goal is always just to finish the race, be it a supersprint or an ironman. I try to put in practice what I experimented in training. I try to get better race after race, year after year. At my age it is quite an achievement just to maintain the level you attained the year before, so making it better is what I like the most. Other atheletes can be very better than me, but I simply look at myself
More Lionel content!
HamishGee Glad you enjoyed it
Glad I'm not the only one that goes 4 inches per stroke.
I'd like to hear about a more specific side of this topic - the psychology of racing against your competitors, especially at the pro level. How much do you deviate from your own plan based on how the other person is performing? Do you try to defeat them by suddenly opening a large gap in a difficult section? That kind of thing.
I just always tell myself "you're not throwing up yet, so you can go harder". haha Besides that tho, my first 70.3 of this season was a wreck: got achilles tendinitis 2 weeks out, caught the flu during raceweek and then during course recon the day before I managed to break my bikeframe.. I don't have to tell you that it just broke me mentally. However, the hosts of the homestay I was staying at fixed me a loaner roadbike and kind of pushed me to start the race the next day anyways. I just told myself to embrace the suck throughout the race and had a blast! Managed to finish in 4h20, putting down the 20th fastest running split overall. Looking back at it, it was probably the most fun I had racing in a long time. It really taught me to be flexible in all conditions. As athletes we sometimes just are so fixed on how things should go and try to plan everything, that when something goes wrong, we freeze.
Thanks team for producing this vid. I run my first Ultra in a months time and have found the psychological barriers quite a challenge shall we say. My target is to finish in one piece 😀 . This is really useful stuff 👍😀👍
Had bad nerves before my first tri this year!! Have nerves for my next one, but this has really helped. Good u look at the mental health as much as the physical!!
Great video.
I try Lionel's method. Especially in longer races, I need to stay in the zone. Whenever I admit myself to thinking I'm almost there, I get mentally cramped. So unless it's the last 2k of the run, I just think "Keep on running, keep on breathing, it's still a long way to go."
Can anyone help ?
Where can I get a triathlon programme with strength training included in it ??
Any programme I've seen only shows what to do when it comes to swim bike run, but no strength training . Where can I get a programme with all, broken down into what day to do it ??
It's a little nerdy, but in Star Trek TNG episode "Peak Performance" one of the main characters, Data, learns that winning shouldn't be his objective in a computer game. But, that he should have an infinite goal to stay alive in game. Later in the episode when he challenges a strategist he leads him to a stalemate and tires him out to give up on the game. Then, Data won by default.
In long distance swimming, I like to think my goal is to add one more stroke and do better than I did before, or start well if I'm new to it. This channel videos are really helpful too :)
That's a nice way of looking at it!
Perfect timing guys, less than 12 hours for my sprint Tri. The tips didn't seem to help though. Regularly checking the weather esp. the wind speed :)) nervous and still questioning the reason of doing this. Haven't packed up yet, feeling totally blocked this time
Don't worry about the wind. If it's windy, everyone will suffer, not only you.
Rafael Mondini-Bueno thanks mate
Mustafa Bircan, good luck and try to smile!
No problem mate, good luck!
Heather Fell how flattering to be encouraged by you Heather, really appreciated, if only I had seen the message beforehand though, it would had shaved 5 minutes off my total time :))
Anyways job done 👍👌
On the bike I like to focus on keeping an aero position
Hello GTN. Please please please promise me something. Promise me that when Lionel retires, you'll offer him a job as a GTN presenter working alongside Heather and Mark! (And whoever you may add in the meantime)
at the end the basic principle of meditation. Train meditation and your race improve!
Best regards Chris
How often do you meditate then meinonlinetrainer?
i have the best nerve calming strayegy the night before race.
i think of all the girls i have been with...chronological :))
There is a quote (somewhere) from Sanders where he says something to the effect: I am mentally prepared to be taken away on a stretcher. Do you guys know what Ironman event that was from. I watched it on a UA-cam video sometime ago but it appears to have been taken down.
J.S. Patel, I'm afraid I don't but have heard it too.
Thanks Heather! I believe it was from Oceanside (circa, 2017), and the video was taken down for other reasons (at least thats that UA-cam seems to suggest). Thanks again. JSP.
There are few ways to focus back. 1. Think about something u really love, try to imagine it. 2. Try to concentrate on your breath, thoughts will come dont hang around them bring your mind to your breath again.
Nice ideas!
This better not be Lionel clickbait!!!
Not first!
I listen to white sound
second ;D
How can anyone listen to lionel. His ego got in the way of his racing.
I write down all my training sessions in a calendar. Before a race I look back at all the training I’ve done to prepare and find it helpful to know I’ve put in the work and have come prepared.