Journey to Kona Day 29: Training the Mind

I’ve been doing almost all of my cycling over the last five weeks on my indoor trainer.  I always do this while watching a movie.  My typical movie will be a war movie, interspersed with some action movie.  War movies tend to be my favorite.  I’ve watched “Band of Brothers” countless times while training on my bike.  Two of my favorite war movies to watch are “We Were Soldiers” and “Black Hawk Down.”  If I’m planning to ride for three or more hours,”The Godfather” works it’s way into my repertoire.  Watching a movie gives me something to focus on while riding, to take some of the monotony away.  It’s interesting, right now I need the focus to distract me from the effort to my legs.  As I get into better shape, the distraction will be from the exertion itself.  

I know that some athletes will do indoor cycling training without anything to distract them. I’ve never really tried that, but have to wonder what the mental training component would be like.  I’m truly not sure how long I could last riding indoors without something to focus my brain on other than the ride itself?  On the other hand, it might be an interesting test of my ability to focus on the effort.  I’m not sure that I’m ready yet to try this, but now that the idea is out there, I will have to prepare myself for it.  Doing an ironman is all about the mind, and training the mind to focus and stay in the moment over the course of a long day is the key.  Ironically, this is not something I’ve ever really struggled with during most of my ironman races. I don’t necessarily want to create a challenge that I don’t have. 

Five weeks ago I was recovering from my 100 miler, to some degree my fitness was at a bit of a nadir, and mentally I wasn’t fully engaged.  I feel like my fitness is starting to gel, which is important when it comes to factoring in the mental component.  When the physical aspect of training seems burdensome, that’s the overriding factor to overcome. As my fitness improves and cycling and running feel more comfortable, it’s easier to maintain a basic level of mindfulness and lose oneself in the training.  Hence, the 20 mile run.  When I’m in my long run groove, 20 miles goes by quickly.  

Two hours on the bike trainer seems to be my limit right now.  In the past, I’ve been able to spend four to five hours on the trainer. For some people this would be excruciatingly difficult, and I have to admit, right now, there’s no way that I’m ready to do this.  However, I feel like I’m not far off.  I really want to build on this because I know the value of my twenty 20 mile runs, and I’d like to do something similar with my cycling.  Perhaps doing ten 100 mile bike rides in preparation for my next ironman?  The other thing I’ve long thought of doing, but haven’t ever done, is to do some significant “overdistance” bike rides, in the range of 120-130 miles.  There are pros and cons to this, but I am intrigued by the thought.  In the end, it really is about training the mind to believe that 112 miles of cycling is really not much!