Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Internal Goals - The secret to taking multiple steps forward



You want to get better at racing, but not sure where to start? 

Lets first break down the two major types of goals

Internal 
Internal goals are things you have complete control over. Example of internal goals:
  • Consistent effort at your workouts or events
  • Learning a skill better such as sighting, cornering, descending, quicker transitions, or even educating yourself to name a few. 

I had minimal success when I started to do triathlon. The entire experience was exciting, yet overwhelming. I wanted to be good, andI wanted to be good NOW. I felt so far removed from where I wanted to be racing. It felt like an impossible task to get to the high level I thought would be fun to achieve.  

I surrounded myself with “faster” athletes and while fun, just got my ass handed to me. I would come home tired, sometimes discouraged, and if I am honest just frustrated that my hard work was getting me nowhere. 

One of the most frustrating things for me was seeing glimpses in training, yet at the races still have to explain what went wrong and why I could not execute. All the while listen to my friends fun stories about how well their races went. 

This is actually when I hired my first coach. While that initial coaching experience, wasn’t awesome, it was on par with the amount of money I was investing. I think it was like 65 dollars a month. That was back when I had to wait for my FAX to come every 3 weeks with instructions and workouts. OMG... LOL

While this is one of the reasons why I care so much about the athlete experience SuperFly produces, I want to get back to what I learned. 

I learned to start to focus on training that would help me overcome MY limiters. Group activities were absolutely part of the fun and enjoyment, to get better however, I had to dedicate time to my limiters. 

I started to break down what were the next 1-2 things I could do to just improve a min or two. I could wrap my head around those tasks. 

Some were simple. 
  • Don’t sit down to take of my wetsuit
  • Try to not have to breast stroke during the swim. 
  • Shoot for a 20 mph average for 40K (that was not totally internal - however vividly remember trying to break 75 min in an Olympic) 

I went from approximately 3 hours for an Olympic distance to eventually 1:56 on the same course over a few years, beating my friends - LOL! 

Once I got to that level, actually around 2:10, I started to face EXTERNAL goals.... That will be another blog. 

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