4 Weeks Out

Welcome to the end of October, and the home stretch of training.  Here, we have just finished what's called BASE 4 and it was the last section of training for performance increases before the actual IronMan race.  After base 4, this is when the nerves set in.  We are starting the taper, in which the hours drastically drop off and your head has more time to think... Great... I can feel my body tense up when i think about it, ready to start swimming at any moment, even though the race is still around 4 weeks away.  You start to visualize what it'll feel like in and during the actual race, you imagine what it'll look like, when you swim with 3,000 other people, what it will be like at the transition tent, and as you visualize it in your mind, your body reacts.  You feel your heart rate pick up, you start to sweat, your imagination runs wild with images and scenario's and possibilities  both good and bad.  The realization comes to you that you WILL be kicked and elbowed in the face.  Not probably... WILL BE.   How is that going to affect you?  hmm.  The mind is an incredible thing, and it doesn't know the difference between dreams and reality.  If you don't believe me just start thinking about your favorite food and before you're done reading, your mouth will start to water.

Base 4 was the hardest and most time consuming part of the training schedule, when the hours are the longest and the day's are the shortest.  Hours spent riding my bike in the basement, running on treadmills and staring out dark windows in the morning.  This is where the race is won or lost though.  When the schedule get's tough and the training isn't as fun, what do you do?  When your dream seems a little farther away than you thought it would be, and accomplishing your goals is taking more than you thought it would, isn't as much fun as you thought, what then?  This is the deciding moments, each day a new battle in the war.  What are you fighting for?  The story changes, people struggle for races, in business, in politics, in sports, and the winners and the losers are separated by a tiny fraction.  These daily battles are what decides the victor.  If you can see it in your mind, if you can taste it, then your brain can make it happen, whatever you can dream you can do, your mind is that powerful, your body is that reactive!!

The greatest thing about your mind not knowing the difference between reality and a dream is that your brain prepares your body each time you imagine something.  Like eating, or running, or swimming, or getting kicked in the face.  Rehearsing it in your imagination each time.  Each time preparing your for that moment, that sprint, that speech.  People tell you to visualize when you speak in public, when you high-jump, poll-volt, etc.  and this is why!  You can program yourself in advance for incredible success or incredible failure.  Most of us are somewhere in between.  Be careful what messages you say to yourself, and what you allow others to say to you because each message is another little segment of programing, it brings you closer to quitting or closer to winning.  Be careful what you tell yourself because your brain is a supremely positive thing, even if we in our conscious mind aren't always.  Your brain doesn't process negatives.  So you can't say, I will not be sick, or you'll get sick.  Your brain will focus on the word sick and make it happen for you.  It doesn't process the NOT.  You've got to say I will be healthy.  Then your brain focuses on the word health and makes it happen for you!!

As the training hours dwindle, and the race draws near, I will be preparing my mind for the struggle.  As the time draws near for any event, weather it's speaking in public, meeting with your boss, asking for the promotion, sitting down with your spouse for that difficult talk, or finally opening your own business like you've always wanted to do.  You MUST prepare your mind, and let your mind prepare your body!  You are in command of such an incredible weapon, the most powerful device ever made on earth or in the heavens, the most powerful computer hooked up to the most ruthless hardware in existence !  The space between your ears is literally the crafter of the universe you live in!  It generates the thoughts, that motivate the actions, that create the circumstances, that build the life you live in!  In the past it has created nations, and torn them down!!  You are your own master and commander, you can literally change your entire life into whatever your dreams are if you start controlling and putting into action the worlds most powerful tool, the most powerful thing ever created:  You.