In the moment

As the Busselton Half Ironman creeps ever closer I am finding myself having a particular conversation more often. It is the conversation about staying focused on the sessions at hand.

When I was racing I always found my focus drifting as I got closer and closer to a race day. I would be out training and knowing that I needed to get the session done, but sometimes my motivation would be low because I was so focused on the race to come, I struggled to gather the energy required to do the session justice. Since I have been coaching more I have come to learn that these unfocused feelings near races is not that uncommon.

I guess it makes sense really, usually with a race we have been working towards it for quite some time and so it is only natural that the event takes up more and more of our attention as the race day draws nearer. However, the danger of this is that our sessions start to lose quality as we are increasingly distracted by the looming race day. Two or three weeks out from an event there is still time for good quality training and for gains to be made, so we don't want to be losing focus and missing these good opportunities to train.

What I have been telling my athletes over the past week is to keep reminding themselves of the purpose of particular sessions. When they feel their focus and motivation drifting, bring themselves back to the moment of the session. What am I doing at this time and why am I doing it? Thinking about the race is not a bad thing, but you don't want it to dominate every moment, so in the training session actively focus on the now and pull yourself back to what you are doing. There will be plenty of time to obsess over the race once the training session is complete.