Gathering the mental ammunition

Working up a sweat during my trainer session

 The more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle –Unknown

After a few down days about my health and training, I had a nice chat with the coach and now feel reinvigorated.  We looked over my training log, health, and general mindset and decided that my three heavy days of training might be too much. Since we're not ready to cut back on training, we're trying one small tweak: swapping Sunday's long ride with Friday's HURT loop. I love the HURT loop and lately long rides have sapped my enthusiasm, so hopefully by switching things so my long ride comes after a rest day, my training will improve. That means tomorrow I have my long ride. We'll see if our swapping of workouts improves my mindset.

Earlier in the week I was struggling with a really sore adductor muscle that brought flashbacks of my pelvic fracture.  I cut my long run short by an hour and spent the rest of the day feeling sorry for myself. My massage ninja suggested I roll out my TFL, and once I did I had instant relief. He explained that it is due to the tug-of-war between muscles: when one thing is sore it is usually because an opposing muscle is tight or out of whack. Although it's still relatively tight, my coach and I are confident we can train through this "injury".

Three more days. Just three more days of heavy training before a recovery week. 5 hour ride on Friday, 5 hour triple brick on Saturday, and 6 hour trail run on Sunday. If I just get in the right mental mindset, I can get through this. Time to gather the mental ammo.


What is your best mental ammo for tough training sessions?