Revisiting Mastering Mental Skills for Massive Gains

TriDot Podcast Episode 279

Revisiting Mastering Mental Skills for Massive Gains

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Announcer: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire and entertain. We'll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let's improve together.

Andrew Harley: Welcome to the TriDot podcast. Today is a revisiting day of the show where we take an older episode of the podcast and revisit it. It's kind of our version of a rerun, but I like to call it a rerun with a purpose. When we revisit a older episode of the TriDot Podcast, it is because it is an episode that our team, our coaches, deem to be top tier, top shelf, top 10, top whatever you want to call it. It's a darn good episode and we just want to get it back in front of our listeners attention one more time. And so today we're going to be revisiting episode 128 of the show. It was called Mastering Mental Skills for Massive Gains. And we had two doozy of a coaches on this one. Number one, we had TriDot coach and professional triathlete Elizabeth James on this episode, weighing in from the pro side of the field on mental skills for triathletes. And we had legendary triathlon coach Bobby McGee. Bobby McGee has coached several Olympians, gold medal Olympians, professional runners. He is a well respected name in the coaching ranks and he's written books on running form. He's written books on the mental side of being a triathlete, an endurance athlete. This episode is one of our top 10 most listened to of all time and it's, it's probably the most commented on episode of all time. I got more comments about this show when it aired than perhaps any other by people that just really enjoyed this conversation. So we're going to pick up with the warm up of that show and hear Bobby and Elizabeth answer our warm up question. We'll go through the main set of them talking about mastering mental skills for triathletes and how you can find speed, you can find fortitude, you can find improvement in the sport just through sharpening the mental skills and what's going on in your head as you're training and racing. So without further ado, I'm going to stop talking and get out of the way and we're going to hear from Bobby and Elizabeth as they talk us through the mental side of being a triathlete.

Announcer: Time to warm up. Let's get moving.

Andrew Harley: As endurance athletes, we love to swim, bike and run. We love it so much that we often find ourselves trying to schedule opportunities to do one or all three, even in the midst of a vacation. Bobby, Elizabeth, as you reflect on your own training sessions completed while in full blown vacation mode, which mid vacation swim, bike or run session, or would you say was the most memorable for you? Coach Bobby McGee, what are you picking here?

Bobby McGee: Yeah, tough question for me because the whole concept of vacation is a little lost on me because I was a schoolteacher for a long time, so weekends were coaching, weeks were teaching, so it was not a lot of vacations there. And then vacations were spent working with, at camps and stuff with, with athletes and aspirin coaches. But either way, I used to dabble in long course racing a little bit. And my main training block was a camping holiday in South Africa in an area called the Cedarburg, which is quite remote actually. It's about, about 100 miles from Cape Town. And you know, these, these informal runs that used to pop out. Most of it was just mountain biking. We had these high tensile steel mountain bikes that made us real strong for horse racing. But you know, we try and find swimming and there's, there's odd lakes there, it's a dry area. So one of these days we found this beautiful little concrete bridge and the water was really accelerating under the bridge and we decided to do our swim work out there. We just sort of jumped in and it was, I've never swam in a flume in my life before and that was basically a flume. We were just swimming upstream, staying in the same place, and then move to the side, stand in the shallow water, catch your breath and dive back in again and swim in the same place. And it was magical because you could see fish and, you know, the water moving down and, you know, below you. And it was very much treadmill running in the water for me, you know, so it was an amazing workout. And we finished that up by doing just a little five mile run. And I remembered I'd left my running shoes at the camp and I ran in flip flops for five miles and it was, you know, just perfect. So that was, that was definitely a joyful workout for me in, in a holiday mode.

Andrew Harley: No, that, that certainly stands out. I mean it's, it's almost like a, I mean you compared it to a treadmill, but it's almost like a natural endless pool, you know, and just get in and swim and, you know, how was, how was Your running form in flip flops, did your form break down at all? Were you able to, to run kind of close to normal?

Bobby McGee: Well, I'm a midfoot guy, so flip flops work pretty well, but I'm also quite externally rotated. So you know, in that case I wiped out the outsides of the, of the flip flops. But otherwise, no, not, not too much trouble. And it's not like we were going six minute pace, right?

Andrew Harley: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, for sure. Elizabeth, what about for you? What, what is a, from all of your traveling while you were truly vacationing, what, what was a workout, you got memorable.

Elizabeth James: Yes. And I mean that's the qualifier. They're truly vacationing. Because right now vacation is, is going to race that. You know, we're picking races. Where, oh where, where do we want to see? What part of the world do we want to travel to? All for it, but I, I'd say for me, my parents, 25th wedding anniversary, they, they planned a trip to Maui and just lucky us, they, they brought the kids with them for the anniversary celebration. So there was a day where just everybody was kind of doing their own thing. And I went to a local bike shop, rented a bike and just asked where they would recommend riding. And so there was this 80 mile loop, it's called the West Maui Loop. And it was just beautiful. I mean, I didn't bring my bike shoes with me so, you know, not as courageous as running in flip flops. But I was back to tennis shoes on top of the pedals and just gym shorts and a tank top. But oh my gosh, I'm so glad I did the ride. It, it was just gorgeous and you know, just spent a couple hours out there. And I will say it was also memorable for me because I am terrible with directions. I normally don't like riding by myself because it is almost a given that I will get lost. And for some reason I was feeling brave enough to go do 80 miles by myself in Hawaii in tennis shoes, but glad I did.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. No, and you, 80 miles in tennis shoes in a tank top, you know, on, on pedals, probably finished at 80 miles faster than I could have on my TT bike in my cycling shoes. So I'm sure you were, you were, you were the strongest cyclist on the road that day not wearing cycling shoes. So. But no, that, that's a great pick for, for me. I, you know, I was thinking that all the cool places, all the coolest places that I could pick for this, you know, it wasn't truly a vacation. It's Kind of what you're talking about, Elizabeth, where you pick a race somewhere neat and while you're there, you're obviously training. And so a lot of our traveling has been for that. So, so the one I could think of that was truly a vacation, you know, where we weren't there to race, we weren't there to train. For my wife's birthday a few years back, we decided to go to Washington D.C. my wife's birthday is close to Christmas, just a few days away. And so it was kind of Christmas season in D.C. and so everything had had the Christmas lights everywhere and we were actually staying at the famous Watergate Hotel. And so I took an evening, you know, where, where, you know, while my wife was getting ready for, for the dinner we were going to that night, I had kind of a spare hour and just from the Watergate just kind of, you know, ran up the Potomac and you know, to where the, where the Mall is and kind of ran all the way down the, the Mall to the, the Capitol building and back and then went back down to the Watergate and that was pretty cool. Just, just an evening run. It was chilly, you know that the air was nice and crisp and just to see all of those famous buildings in the Washington D.C. capitol Mall area lit up for Christmas time at night was, was definitely a memorable one. And really, actually the only time I could think of where I truly did a workout on a trip that was a pure vacation for my wife and I. So that's the pick for me. Hey guys, we're gonna throw this out to y'all on social media. Make sure you are a part of the IAM TriDot Facebook group. We have thousands of athletes just talking swim, bike, run every single day in that group. And we always throw out this warm up question to you guys to see what you have to say. Can't wait to give you the chance to kind of brag on your vacations and brag on the really cool spots. Bonus points if you drop a Strava file to show us exactly where you did your workout while you were in full on vacation mode.

Announcer: On to the main set going in 3, 2, 1.

Andrew Harley: Being a well rounded athlete has as much to do with your mental fortitude as it does your physical fitness. I'm sure we've all encountered a workout or a moment in a race where the body was willing, but the mind just wasn't there to push to our capacity. We can follow the training plan and know our bodies are getting stronger and fitter, but how can we improve our Mental strength so that we can get the best out of ourselves in our training and racing. Bobby, before we get too deep into our conversation here about the mental game being played and endurance sports training, can you just kind of share a little bit about your background, how you got into coaching and what led to your strong interest in running mechanics in sports psychology?

Bobby McGee: Good question. I, you know, wanted to be a coach from the very beginning. So I, I went, I basically, you know, at 17, went to college to study human movement studies. And then by the time I got round to doing what so many of us do, that study, exercise physiology, I decided to do my post grad work in perceptual motor aspects and in sports psychology. So that's where that started. And back in those days, you know, South Africa hadn't got, you know, back into the Olympics because of the embargoes, sports embargoes, and all those different embargoes against apartheid. And so the highest level you could go to was basically be a school teacher and then coach part time. But I was very lucky that my sports psych professor was the first guy brought on board in 92 when we went to the Olympics to be in charge of the sports psychology component. And he roped me in, in writing those first progressions for athletes going to the Olympics and how we should prepare them mentally. And so I was hooked from the start. And in fact, my final thesis was on a tool for athletes to prepare themselves mentally for major competitions. And I used that tool for many years thereafter. You know, so I've been in this role of a coach, you know, even before I was any, any level of athlete. And then the second part with the mechanics, that, that's interesting, right? So if you look at the percentage of people that qualify in human movement studies and, and do a degree in, in sports science, it's typically going down the physiological pathway when it comes to endurance events, right? And if you look at all of those things that are involved with what makes a person efficient distance athlete, whether that be triathlon or whether it be running or cycling or swimming, and prominent there in one of those factors is mechanical efficiency. But there's so few people relative to those that study exercise physiology, that study mechanics for a start, and then mechanics has a very low hierarchy level when it comes to running because running is such a primary sport, right? We pretty much know about running before walking, right? Because race walking is a construct, whereas running as a primal activity. And so a lot of coaches and a lot of athletes to this day believe you only mess with your running mechanics to avoid injuries or to learn how to not injure yourself. And the concept that it plays a huge role in terms of your efficiency overall has been not well documented or studied. And then the amount of people that can actually teach that and approach it, or even less so, it fascinated me. So I've been a coach pretty much since day one.

Elizabeth James: That's just so cool. And I mean, you mentioned also working with these Olympic athletes, and you've worked with a number of Olympians in the USAT, Olympic hopefuls, helping prepare them for events as recent as Rio in Tokyo. How rewarding is it to help athletes really make that leap into that Olympic level?

Bobby McGee: It's massively rewarding, but at the same time, there's a lot of it that is similar to just working with a regular age group athlete. Right. They have the same kind of aspirations, they just have different talents. Right. And almost that the elite level athlete is, you know, trying to make a living, obviously trying to get to the Olympics. Olympics add a different wrinkle to it, right? There's a, there's an emotional component to that. But, but it's a really, really good question. Actually. Somebody asked me a similar question and I, and I took the starting list of the men's race in, in Tokyo, and I took the starting list of the women's race in Tokyo, and I've had some work with nine of those men and 11 of those women. And I've had some work with both the gold medalists, you know, one very little, but the other one quite, quite a lot. So it just shows that it gets in your blood. I remember going to Barcelona, which was my first Olympics, and saying, I never want to miss this party again. It's the greatest party on the planet, you know. And so you deal a lot with, I think, having that imposter syndrome, right? How is it possible that these people want to work with me? But I guess after all these years and, you know, various champions and things, at some point you have to say, well, I've obviously got something that, that's useful, right. But it's very rewarding. It's, you know, I feel honored and privileged to be able to work with athletes of this caliber and year in and year out, you know, and I'm not the youngest chicken on the block anymore, but I still find that people think that what I have to offer is relevant. So it's honoring and exciting, you know.

Andrew Harley: So you have a great friendship with the founder of TriDot and the CEO of TriDot, Jeff Booher, and you guys go Way back, working on projects together at the Olympic training center, college recruitment programs, and the Tri4Him junior and professional team. What do you remember from those early days working with Jeff and what has it been like watching him develop TriDot.

Bobby McGee: You know, that the junior community, which was the context in which I first met Jeff, is a bunch of coaches that I know well from my early days in being a high school track and field coach and a cross country coach. Super enthusiastic, super motivated, super in need of expertise and knowledge. And they all sponges and they vibrated at quite a high level, right? But when I got to meet Jeff, he was completely the opposite. He's always calm, he's always collected, he's never at the forefront. You know, he's not. So that, that, that attracted me to Jeff in the first place. You know, he was. He had this huge heart and this huge capacity, you know, to. And I sometimes, I related to him because I sometimes think, you know, Jeff should be more utilized because of his capabilities, but because he's not, you know, so out there, very, very about pushing himself. He. He hasn't got, you know, sometimes hasn't got to where I think he should have got to and you know, just always gravitated towards him when we get to these, these competitions and so on. And when he comes to camps, he would always ask his questions afterwards in a private setting and very thoughtful about how he phrased his questions. So he's just a joy to be around, you know, just a, you know, exemplary human being.

Andrew Harley: So, Bobby, as we start to talk about mental skills and improving ourselves mentally for sport and for competition, you know, what do we mean by mental skills? When you start working with an athlete on their quote unquote mental game, you know, what does that training and what do those conversations look like?

Bobby McGee: You know, we don't have all the time in the world and it's. And it's something that really, really interests me. So I think the best place to start off with is by saying in endurance sports, specifically hard training sessions is mental training. So you go out and you put your feet to the fire and then you deal with those consequences. And that's where your mental training starts, right? So I always feel that there's two components, right? Knowing how you respond under those pressure situations and how much pressure you do put yourself under in a training session, right? And then the second part of mental training, really, all good coaches know this and it is knowledge. So the athlete knows their competition, knows the course, knows their fitness, knows their skills, knows their tactical Capabilities. Those things are actually at the heart of what confidence is.

Andrew Harley: Wow.

Bobby McGee: So to me that's, that's the starting point. What doesn't the athlete know? And so just an interesting anecdote there is very often with this privilege that I've spoken about of meeting elite athletes and having to be able to work with them is that concept that people that have knowledge and have something they can offer, these athletes don't do so because they believe the athletes should know these things. How did they get to be so good? Right. And I'm constantly shocked at how elite athletes don't know things that I taught my 15 and 14 and 16 year old high school runners because nobody bothered to teach them. You know, if, if some kid comes out and he's 18 years old and he runs a sub 4 minute mile, there's suddenly a whole lot of people that don't want to give him anything because they believe he knows and that they would embarrass themselves. And so you sometimes with mental skills, just like physical stuff, you have to go to the fundamentals. What does the athlete want? What does the athlete know? What is their current practice? And then start from there. And then the last thing you really want to say is that teaching somebody mental skills starts off with the fundamental understanding that everybody can learn these mental skills. That you're not working with an individual that has some situation that they should be seeing a psychotherapist for. Right. Which is what we don't do and shouldn't do and can't do. You trying to help an athlete. So if you ask a top class golfer or NBA player or elite athlete at a very high level in the sport, why do they have a sports psychology? What's wrong, what's broken? They say, no, no, I'm going for an edge. This is where I get an edge. They get words and understanding and insight to their process and then can figure out, okay, how can I do that better? Because they want to win. Right? So that's what mental skills are about, is enhancing performance. So Peter Havrell is somebody that I have a great deal of respect for and he's the head sports psychologist for the USOPC and we always work. He's always taught me that, that your, your entrance into that is mental skills. Right? So you, it's all about, you know, you're being able to execute your physical ability. So he would say, you know, you're never going to perform well no matter how good your performance, how good your mental skills are. All right? If you just don't have it if you don't have the fitness, the conditioning, the talent, the ability. Right. But if you have all those things and you don't have the mental skills, you guaranteed to fail. So it's the portal through which performance comes. It's not, you know, you can't have great mental skills and then be a roof screw like I am in terms of talent. All right. And hope to perform at an Olympic level. You know what I'm saying?

Andrew Harley: Yeah.

Elizabeth James: I love how you talk about it as that portal for performance. I know that the mental aspect of sport was huge for me as I was making the transition from an age group competitor to racing professionally. And that was something that, you know, racing as an elite was. It was thrilling. It was the fulfillment of the dream and also terrifying. I mean, that, you know, lack of knowledge of what is this going to be like. And the fear of failure was so high for me that as I began that transition and in early 2020, my coach, John, and I recognize that this is going to be essential for me to work on my mental preparation as well as continue my physical training. And so, yeah, I mean, I work with a sports psychologist and I work on the knowledge, the confidence, addressing fear of failure, self awareness, as well as then the specifics for competing on a particular course and particular pre race routines. So that's, I mean, just a really cool way to think of it as the portal to performance.

Bobby McGee: And it's funny how that term that you state, fear of failure, comes up. I worked with a group in Boulder called Fast Forward and their head coach comes from winter sports. His name is Scott Fleigleman and he eventually came up with a T shirt with a cassette on it and it said, prerecorded for success, just press play. And to me, that was a great way to look at because I'm always saying when you are under duress in an endurance sport, all right, you are intoxicated, right. You are not able to think clearly and you really need to pre plan the content of your thoughts. Another top coach that I work with and sports scientists, uber sports scientists, is Dean Golich. And he's coached multiple medalists and world champions and Tour de France athletes and so on. And he says coaching elites at that level is really, really easy because there's no surprises on race day. And now he's a specializer in cycling coaching as well. But what he's pertaining to is the numbers are the numbers. And if you don't produce the numbers on race day, then there's something mentally going on. It's A very simple math, right. Did the coach make a mistake? Was the taper wrong? Was the training wrong? If none of those things occurred, then we have a mental situation that we need to deal with. Because that portal wasn't open, it didn't allow the performance to come out. Because a very freeing concept for mental skills teachers as well as coaches is they don't give the athlete anything, they just remove everything that is not performance.

Andrew Harley: Wow.

Bobby McGee: You know, so the gold is right there. We just reach inside and shake the other stuff off so that the athlete is aware that, oh, I do have it. All I have to do is express it.

Andrew Harley: Well, that's a cool, a cool way to look of it even as an athlete is just knowing that, hey, like what I, what I need on race day to succeed, what I need in my training to succeed is already in there.

Bobby McGee: Exactly.

Andrew Harley: I might just not know how to tap into it. I might just not. I might be looking at the wrong things and are getting distracted by things like fear, failure and just mentally kind of, kind of not getting my. You hear the phrase, you know, somebody couldn't get out of their own way, you know, and sometimes it takes a coach to help you get out of your own way and get out of your own head. We were in Waco a couple days before IRONMAN Waco and I'm sitting at a table having dinner with TriDot coach John Mayfield, TriDot Coach Joanna Nami, try that coach Kurt Madden and then my wife and I and then try out athlete Shannon Cranston. And so we're all sitting there at dinner and all the coaches at the table are just having this great in depth conversation about the, the things they do with their athletes, the, the ways they communicate with their athletes. And I'm just sitting there, you know, quiet as a mouse, just soaking it all in and listening. And, and coach Kurt Madden was talking about the types of conversations he'll have with his athletes heading in the race day. And it's exactly what you're talking about just in terms of, okay, when you're on the course, when you're in that moment of intoxication where you're not able to maybe think clearly because you're in the middle of pushing your body in an endurance event. You know, when you're, okay, when you get to T1, what are you going to be thinking about? What are you going to be focusing on? What are you going to be trying to do? We know in our heads, okay, I've got to get to my bike, I've got to do this, I've got to do that. But we don't always stop to think through what am I going to be thinking about in that moment to help me process through it. And as he was talking about this, he looked at me and he was like, Andrew, for example, in your race, when you get to T2, you get off the bike, what are you going to be thinking about? And I was able to kind of stop and process and say, okay, well, when I get to T2, I'm gonna be coming off the bike. I'll have just ridden 112 miles. It's gonna be 90 degrees. I'm gonna be hot, probably a little dehydrated. You know, that transition is just totally exposed to the sun. So I'm gonna be thinking about, okay, park your bike, you know, get your running shoes on and get onto the run course so that you're out of the sun and into the shade. And so him asking me that question helped me process in that moment, what do I need to be thinking about. And that was just so cool to hear coaches kind of talk about that. And I think watching those coaches coach, when I travel to events, I mean, the number one thing they give to athletes isn't necessarily the training. The training is already there. With TriDot, the number one thing that our try to coaches give to their athletes is those mental skills and those, and those. The idea of just how to think through moment to moment, how to get through those tough training sessions, how to get through those key moments in a race. So, Bobby, as we're preparing for race day, mentally, what are the concrete things that we can do in our training to mentally be ready for race day?

Bobby McGee: Yeah, you're going to have to remind me along the way because you brought up a whole lot of very important points. So Elizabeth brought up that point of fear of failure. When you listen to things like fear of failure, remember how excited we all got when we heard about the twisties in gymnastics? It's a new concept to us. And we've heard about the yips in golf, right? It's. There's. When you, you know, in twisties is you lose spatial orientation, right? The yips in golf is you. You muscularly freeze. You neurologically are not able to draw the club back. And so this fear of failure in endurance sports is something that you really want to look at from the start, right? And say, okay, that's a. It's something that's said a lot, but do we really think about what it means? And to me, the whole thing with, you know, the acronym for fear is false evidence appearing real. Right. And then we create a paradigm about our fitness. Right. And what we should be able to achieve. Right. And, and the true source of healthy anxiety before a race is based on our expectation of ourself and how embarrassing it will be to us if we don't achieve what it would seem is obvious we should be able to achieve. Right. So that, that's the main cause of anxiety. I'm not going to do as well as I want to do and think I should do. And so what I always remain. Yeah. So what I always remind an athlete of is to take a very in depth look at the source of the information that created the paradigm. How did you come to this point that that would be good and that would be bad. It's like the same def in training, right. It's not slow and fast, it's easy and hard because that covers everybody. But slow and fast doesn't cover everybody, right?

Andrew Harley: Yeah.

Bobby McGee: You know, so Gwen goes out and she does a run and she's running, you know, seven 30s. Then she's quite kind of upset because that's slow, right. And most of us go through our lives and say, you know, if I could run one seven thirty mile, I'll be psyched, you know, so it's looking at where are we sourcing that information? Who told us that? What data are we using? Right. Because data is important, but not all data is relevant. And so when you start having that conversation saying what do you think you can do today? And then you can introduce things like, but what about the weather? What about the humidity, what about the wind, what about the chop? What about this? What about that? And so again in my work with Peter Habrel, that first part is self knowledge. And so the hardest time in the whole world for an elite coach is when the athlete walks out onto the pontoon and you have no idea what they're thinking. You hoping they thinking what they were thinking before their best workouts. And so I remember working on this mental piece with, with the US Para Olympic coach leading into 2016 into Rio. And afterwards he said to me, the most important thing that you said to me is it doesn't matter how world championships these athletes have been to, the Olympics are different. Nobody knows what they're doing in the Olympics. It's a complete, it's a different country, it's different people, it's not the same crew running the show. And so you've got to be the only thing they know that is constant. You've got to be the constant, you know? And he said that made the most difference of creating an environment that they can latch onto some stuff that is common for them and that is rote for them and is calm for them. Right. And so I start this process off with saying to athletes, you need to keep an internal dialogue log. What is different between your thinking on race day versus your thinking on intense quality workouts that are. That are fundamental workouts to your race performance? So finding out how you think. And there's only one way to do that, right? And that's mindfulness. Because what does mindfulness do? Mindfulness starts making you aware of what your thoughts are. It doesn't help you sort them. It doesn't help you control them or anything, but it makes you aware of what they are. And then when you start doing breath counting or mindful walking or any of these sort of things now, you start realizing, oh, I have this ability to shift my focus around, and what I need to be able to do is to make my focus intentional. Now, there's this one little quirky thing in endurance psychology, right? Endurance is a rote movement. It's a pattern movement, right? Gets going. It doesn't even get up to the brain, right. Running, for example, happens in your lumbar spine. It's called your extensor cross reflex. If you think about your running form when you are fresh, you get something called cognitive intervention, all right? Or paralysis by analysis. Okay? And so your automatic brain operates at, say, 50,000 megahertz, and your conscious brain operates at like 5,000 megahertz.

Andrew Harley: Wow.

Bobby McGee: And so the minute you start thinking about executing a movement like the swim stroke or the site or a cycling pedal stroke or the running thing, you become inefficient, you use more oxygen, you expose yourself to injury, and you just can't go as far as you would be able to go at the same intensity.

Andrew Harley: Fascinating.

Bobby McGee: Yeah, it is fascinating stuff. So, you know, when I first read this question, I. It occurred to me that the question is wrong before a race is too late.

Andrew Harley: Wow.

Bobby McGee: It's got to be a continual process. And now, as we're starting to learn with physiology, you don't really want to necessarily taper that hard into a race because things start to get switched off. And it's the same thing with your mentality. You don't want this up special mentality before races. You want this rock solid, antifragile approach to racing. It's what you do. And you will often see it in very experienced athletes. You don't see that Same kind of anxiety and anguish because they go, I'm always nervous. I always end up doing it anyway. It doesn't change anything. And then they slowly say, it's just a race and I'm in the race. I don't know if you remember that Gene Hackman movie, Hoosiers, the basketball movie.

Andrew Harley: Yep.

Bobby McGee: Yeah. Remember when he took them down to the court and he took out the  tape measure and he measured the court and he said, look, it's the same.

Elizabeth James: Size as the court.

Bobby McGee: Yeah, yeah. All right. And that's, that's the whole thing, you know, I know that was longer answer than you wanted, but that, that's, that's where I would start is, you know, how does the athlete think? What are they thinking? Where did they source their belief mechanism for this specific event or in general about their ‍: That's awesome. Another thing that I know that we wanted to touch on a little bit today was goal setting. And I do, I like goal setting. John and I did an episode about it back on, gosh, like episode 17, I think.

Andrew Harley: 100 episodes ago.

Elizabeth James: Yes, exactly. I know this is something that you use with athletes. Could you talk us through how you discuss goals and how solid short and long term goals can help us in our training?

Bobby McGee: Yeah. Those coaches that did their sports psych level 1 USAT training will know this part of the conversation pretty well. Quite recently, psychologists undertook to look at the lessons that are being taught by these life skills teachers like Tony Robbins and Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra and so on. They undertook a study to see if these principles would really work all right, in terms of psychological terms. So instead of having an anecdotal approach to so and so earned $100 a month, and after doing my program, they now earn $10,000 a month kind of thing. They literally looked at the mechanisms, all right? And they found in a surprisingly large amount of cases that these techniques were very effective. One of the things that I stole from Tony Robbins was the difference between goals and targets. Right. And in its simplest format, a target is a placeholder along the way. All right, so I've got to do this in a workout. So I'll give Gwen a workout, for example, and I'll say, all right, our ultimate goal for this workout is this. So we've got a date pace. What you achieve today, the next workout will be date pace plus. Right. So in other words, it will be better than. But it won't be what we're looking for ultimately. So each, each workout has this target to hit this number, because the Next one will be a little better and a little better. And that's how I would deem most of these performance goals. These are the sets in the pool. So for this set, ultimately you want to do this if you want to be able to swim to that capacity, et cetera, et cetera. And then for goals, make those being goals. In other words, what type of person do you want to be? All right. And in other words, now you can go into a race and have this being goal, where today I'm going to be patient, all right? And nothing can impact that goal other than you.

Andrew Harley: Wow.

Bobby McGee: You know, so if you fall off your bike, you can still be patient when you get back on your bike, check your bike, check yourself, and then slowly move up where you need to be. All right? So that will be patient. If you get up and you forget to check your bike out and you just rush off and you go too fast and then you blow up, then you failed in that target of being patient, right? But no cow walking in the middle of the road or no windstorm or no bomb cyclone that cancels the event should be able to impact your goals because they are much more personal about who you need to be to achieve what you want to achieve. Because then you get to that whole concept of in your race plan, you have this trust in your race plan that it only provides the highest likelihood that you'll perform. If you don't follow the plan, you reduce the likelihood that you'll perform. But there's never any guarantees, right? Otherwise it wouldn't be called sport. But what you're trying to do is to address those things that are capable of being addressed and consciously being aware that you are paying attention to things that you can do nothing about and putting them down. So sports psychology 101 is avoid the don't. Because when you tell somebody not to do something, you might as well tell them to do their thing. It's exactly the same thing in brain psychology. Okay? So if you don't want to go out too fast, how do you need to go out fast? So that's the. I never actually said it. That's the thing that's different about endurance sports. You don't want that cognitive intervention. So when you're standing on the start line, you don't want to have a lot of technical thoughts. You want to be using mood words. You want to be saying things like smooth, well paced, prepared, capable, tough, strong things that are general. That's being goals, right? I'm going to be tough today. No matter how badly it goes or how well it goes, you're still going to be tough, all right? Or you're going to fail and say, look, I wasn't as tough as I can be today, but it was nobody's fault. It wasn't conditions or my bike or anything like that. Does that make sense?

Elizabeth James: This conversation is just awesome. Like, even as we're here, I'm still jotting a couple notes, like nodding along. This is fun.

Andrew Harley: Elizabeth, I invited you on this one because I knew of all of our staff, you would probably appreciate it more than anybody to be a part of this one. So.

Elizabeth James: Yes, yes, Well, I appreciate that. I was thrilled. Another thing I know that we wanted to touch on today was visualization. You know, how can this help prepare us either in our workouts or for race day?

Bobby McGee: So they started a study called a Mo Gap study, where they started asking medalists, you know, about what mental skills they used. And they asked them thousands of questions. But one of them was, you know, what mental tool do you feel is the best tool you can have? And they, and most of them, the large majority, said imagery. Right. Then subsequently there have been a number of high profile athletes, you know, Nadal and Woods and Jack Nicklaus and Simone Biles, they've spoken about, you know, how they do this. Right. And so I've been fascinated by that all along because a, we all do mental imagery. For example, Tiger Woods doesn't like to do imagery because it makes him jittery.

Andrew Harley: Wow.

Bobby McGee: So he does a form of physical rehearsal, like slow motion movements, which is a kind of imagery. Right. So he's looking for a feel. And then a lot of people don't think in pictures, they don't think in movies. Right. But if you do the studies with athletes, they get triggered by smells, they get triggered by tactile things, they get triggered by taste. The common one is they get triggered by music, a certain tune. You know, in my day it was Vangelis and Chariots of Fire. That was always playing when you showed up at an event. Nowadays it's a little bit more Eye of the Tiger, but that's starting to go downhill as well. I don't know what the latest one is, but there are all these triggers. So the big thing with imagery is to work from ground zero. What is the athlete doing in that regard? All right? And if they are seeing negative things, they're seeing themselves falling apart, seeing themselves going through that. In fact, in the, I think the 70s or the 80s, when they did research on visualization, they found that that's the one part they try to avoid in visualization is seeing yourself fail. All right, so they wanted people to go through, you know, they wanted people to utilize as many senses as possible. They wanted to do all that kind of thing. Nowadays the big thing is trying to create training environments that absolutely mimic the race conditions. Right. And having the athletes get comfortable in those environments, which is, which is hard in triathlon, but either way is like, which one of the senses that you visualize works for you. Right. Anyway, so that's my take on imagery is that it must be well trained and you've got to be aware of what is the athlete, athletes seeing. How do they experience them? Does it calm them down? Does it get them to an optimal state of arousal? Right. And with endurance athletes, mostly they need to be calmed down. Weightlifters, they need to be calmed up, they need to be revved up. Right. But you know, if you look at sports psychology study, they talk about the bell curve, right? You can be under aroused and you can be over aroused and you've got to be just aroused at the right level. Right?

Andrew Harley: You need to be properly aroused. Aroused.

Bobby McGee: Properly aroused. Yeah. But basically speaking is as you, you know, with endurance athletes are just, they, they just need to be brought down a little bit because it's a very difficult thing for the anthropological mind to consider how they'll feel in four or five or six or seven or ten hours time.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, Bobby, it's, it's fascinating to hear you talk about. I've never considered visualization or imagery in terms of the other senses is in terms of, you know, what, what music might trigger you to a certain, to a certain moment or what, you know, you know, tactile or, or sense might trigger you to a, to a certain feeling or emotion or, or state of mental, well, being before a race or before a tough workout. I mean, for me it's always been mentally putting myself there. And I, I, I don't remember ever being aware of imagery playing a role in my, in my training and racing until I signed up for Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon on. And that swim just kind of intimidated me a little bit. And so when I was in the pool, I was being very intentional about, okay, when you, when you breathe to the right, you know, kind of picture in your mind the Golden Gate Bridge being there. And when you breathe, breathe to the left, you know, picture the, the, the other side of the bay being there. And that really kind of helped stabilize me once I was in the water because I felt like I'd Been there before in a way.

Bobby McGee: Absolutely. That's why it's called rehearsal. Right. It's very, very important. Yeah, very good. That's, that's a good job.

Andrew Harley: All of my visualization that, that I feel like I've cognitively done or personally done was imagery and it was physically trying to visualize what that moment looks like. And I've never considered that there's other, other senses you can tap into.

Bobby McGee: You are already tapping into, right? Yeah, you just, if you bring consciousness to it, then you bring intentional focus to it. And another thing I like to do is to help an athlete create the future from the future. So instead of looking at the finish from where you are now on a timeline, you go beyond the finish and look back and say, how did that race go? Two, three weeks before the race? What's going to be your dialogue? Something I often ask athletes is write your race report. Now, I know you're racing in three weeks time, but write your race report for me now. Speak about feelings, speak about emotions. Tell me the first thing you are going to say to yourself when you cross the finishing line. What are you going to say to yourself? Work on that. Then you up the accountability level. You're nailing the colors to the mast. I said this is what I was going to say and this is what I was going to do. And now it holds you more accountable in the moment when you're just on your own. You know, it basically puts a relay baton in the athlete's hand and then they're accountable to their future self, which you know, you know how relays work, right? You put a bat into somebody's hand, they fall more accountable. Yeah.

Elizabeth James: All right. So by design, race day can be tough. When you are trying to get the best out of yourself, you are pushing yourself to the limit. I mean, it takes the body being ready, but also the mind to be ready just to have that extra edge. So when we're out on the race course and things start to get tough or mentally, we start to feel like we're in a dark place or we're fading, what are your top tips for getting through those moments?

Bobby McGee: Start with an anecdote in the final in Rio in the triathlon, I have a husband texting me saying, I need cues, I need cues. What do I say? So just an indication that pre planning those things right, when things go wrong, having a plan in place anyway, and I love the old again, the Tiger woods quote. Right. I expect the best, but I prepare for the worst. And so you'll be able to look at something and say, well, this is not the worst thing that can happen to me. What can I do? But understanding from psychology how the brain works, right? The brain goes, has a feeling, all right? And then there's a sort of interpretation, but it's unconscious of that feeling. And then you have an emotion, right? And then emotion creates a thought and the thought is basically presenting you with some choices. You know, the choices are you flat out panic from that side, right? It's time to flat out panic. Let's just panic, right? And it's going into a bike accident where you do that versus going, okay, if I do this, I can present a different side of me. I can get my bike between me and the vehicle or whatever the case might be. But seeing those choices immediately empowers you. All right? And you can now start making. Okay, now at least I get to make the choice again. The internal locus of control. All right, so this is happening, this is happening, this is happening. So it's the same thing as a race plan, right? So the race plan is designed around ideal circumstances, right? And if those ideal circumstances are hot and humid, you've prepared for it, et cetera, et cetera, and you've chosen your pace like that. But showing up at the start line and conditions aren't what you've prepared for. It's not. This is very common from the age group athlete is, I'm just going to see how it goes, I'm going to stick to the plan and then when it falls apart, we'll make a decision. Right? That's the fatal error right there. No, you see a choice, make the choice, adapt from the get go. What in my toolbox is useful is agonizing about my condition and I feel terrible and I'm nauseous and I'm puking and I'm hot and I'm this. Is that helping you? What can you do? Oh, I can shorten my stride length, I can scrunch and release my shoulders. What can I actually do? I can take a short chosen walk break, I can hydrate, I can do this, I can do that. So it's just feeling in control. And this might be a good time to speak about the difference between self confidence and self sufficaciousness.

Andrew Harley: Go for it.

Bobby McGee: Yeah, yeah. And that's the. To me, this is what they learned from the Maths Olympiads, right? That kids that showed up in a questionnaire as not being confident did really, really well and asked them when they go in, what are they thinking? And the kids that feel that they were self confident, were subjectively saying, I think I'm good enough, I'm not going to embarrass myself here, I think I'll be able to win, et cetera, et cetera. The kids that were more effective were self efficacious. This is Bandura's work from the 70s. They were thinking about what do they have to do? If I get this math problem, which equation do I use? That's how they're visualizing. They visualizing problems, they're not visualizing ego stuff. How am I going to feel? Am I going to look good? Am I going to win this? What happens if I don't win? What happens if I do poorly, et cetera. None of their thinking is there. They're thinking about the doing. All right, so now I'm, I'm dying out here. What are the signs? I'm dehydrated. What do I need to do? I need to find some electrolytes, I need to get some fluid in me, I need to regather myself. All right, so walking is moving forward. So I'm going to take a little walk, break and I'm going to look at my options, etc. Etc. At the next aid station, I'm going to do this, that and the other, or I'm going to shuffle. I'm not going to be putting out a lot of range of motion, et cetera, et cetera. You know, because you get how many people forget they have two gels, they forget that they have a glucose tab hidden away, they forget that they have an extra bottle or that the next aid station is a mile away and they've got a, you know, they've got a special needs bag there or whatever the case might be is if that all goes out the window, you know, it's presence, it's literally presence and working with what's in your toolbox, you know. And to me, that's why mechanics is so beautiful, right? Because I can't teach people great mechanics. What I can do is teach them to maintain their mechanics for a longer period of time, hopefully for the duration of the race. So my best compliment is, wow, that athlete came out of transition and they stayed exactly the same from start to finish. Nothing changed. And that's, you know, and so that's looking into your toolbox, right? That's doing the body check. Where are my shoulders? Where's my chest? Where's my chest? What am I doing with my arms? You know, and then addressing those things and going through them and with Bob Lindquist. I put a little stopwatch inside of her suit that would just beep every minute. And every minute it was just reminding her to go through her cues. Are you doing this? Are you doing that? Are you doing this? Are you doing that? And then she would remember, okay, I've got to do this. These are my typical failures. When I start to fatigue, my arms get forward or my shoulders get hunched or my chin goes up or whatever the case might be, address those things because you can't. Can. But in terms of go harder, you've got to pick up the pace. No, I'm an elite athlete or I'm a really good athlete. I would pick up the pace if I could.

Elizabeth James: Yeah, right. That's so true. So there are some athletes that are confident in training. You know, they can nail their training sessions day in, day out, feel good in the pool, confident in their ability on the bike. They know that they've got the run in the bike. But then race morning comes, they get nervous, they underperform, or they get it into the water, they panic and it kind of throws off their day. What would you say to athletes who are kind of good at the homework but struggle with test day, so to speak? How can they learn to ace race day?

Bobby McGee: So we're talking about 98% of the population, right?

Elizabeth James: Pretty much.

Bobby McGee: Yep.

Andrew Harley: I would say so. Not 98% of the endurance athletes. Yes.

Bobby McGee: Yeah, so. So I can be a little facetious here. Right. And I can say, okay, they don't like test day. Right. So you can change the name of test day or whatever you could call it. You know, you, in your own mind, it could be as a coach, you've got. This is my assessment workout, but I'm not telling anybody about it. Right. The other thing is, is if they don't like time trials, give them more time trials until they so bored with time trials that they just give you a physical representation of what they're capable of on the day. Right. But bottom line is what I alluded to earlier, the internal dialogue has changed. So there was either false bravado or some sort of mindset that was ego involved, saying, I got this, I'm good at this. Even to themselves, when they are sub vocalizing in front of the mirror, you got this, you got this, you got this. That's gone away now on race day because the microscope is now fully on them. Right, Right. So the really, really good athletes like to open their mouth and say, I'm going to do this. This is what I'm going to do. They nail that intent out there and then they hold themselves accountable for that. But most athletes are one of two things. We all knew them in high school, right. I didn't study for this test and then they aced the test. Right. Okay. So either they doing the work behind that or they, or they brilliant students. Right? One, one of the two. But that's part of that interplay that you need to changes internal dialogue. What changes? They suddenly thinking about how they're going to be viewed versus what they capable of. So you go from self efficacious to ego, right? And you go like, how am I going to be evaluated today if I don't do this? Right. And so very often you'll see those individuals that don't suffer from that, they have that kind of mentality. A good way to look at it is to say if somebody's generally quiet and then they motor mouth on race day, they not the same person.

Andrew Harley: Yeah.

Bobby McGee: All right, so they're not showing up on race day and vice versa. If they generally, you know, outspoken and so on and suddenly just dead quiet crickets on race day, then you know, oh, there's a different person in that mindset. Like I spoke about earlier, the coaches watch the athlete walking out to the podium and they're saying, please, please, please be the same athlete. I know. Because if that athlete doesn't show up, and that's literally what not showing up means. That's literally what, you know, why they call it internal dialogue. There's two components to that, right? And so you might have the, the, you know, the, the white angel talking to you all the time through training and then the little red devil shows up on race day and, and he, he gets to run his mouth, right? So it's, it's who's talking? Because remember, that's what your mind does. Your mind produces thoughts all the time and there's a habituation to the thoughts it produces when you're training well. And then as soon as it's no longer producing those thoughts, then it's a different mechanism at play and it's basically a different person. Right? So that's what happens in these long races, right? You present, you're present, you're present to your plan and then suddenly you start feeling tired, all right? And that has the emotions and the feelings and all those sort of things going on with it. So you start thinking about what you've done and what you've still got to do. You still got a long way to go. And now you go past and future based thinking and you're not pressing. And research has shown over and over again when you're not present, the power goes down, the efficiency goes down, the ability goes down. You know, you must have had that feeling, Elizabeth, you're in the bars, you're racing along and suddenly you seeing a heart rate number and a power number matched up to each other that you've never seen before. You're in a flow state, you are flying and the minute you cognitively realize that, boom, up goes the heart rate, down goes the power or something like that and you lose it, right?

Elizabeth James: Yep. It's like, whoa, where did that come from? Yep.

Bobby McGee: Yes, exactly, exactly. Now you start the other part of you, the observer, the peanut gallery that's sitting up there and commentating on how good or how bad you are. The value judger is now in charge. Don't make a fool of yourself out there now. Don't you know, don't make mistakes. Don't be silly. This, that and the other. That's the commentator. The commentator has got no fitness, no ability, has done no training, just wants to shoot their mouth off. Monday morning quarterback before the race place, you know, so, so being aware of where you at, being able to literally say, ah, I hear what you're saying, thank you for sharing, let me tell you what I'm committed to and then we'll go from there. Because you can't block the negative thought, right? You can't block the naysayer. When you acknowledge it and you say, look, this is what I'm, this is what I'm going to do and this is what I'm doing, then it feels addressed, right? And now you can continue. But having that awareness of those two voices is very critical. So you can say, okay, I hear what you're saying, but this is me here, the doer, and this is what I'm going to do.

Andrew Harley: You mentioned earlier, you know, real early in the conversation today, that race day, but by the time you get to race day, it's too late to hone in on what your mental state should be that needs to be practiced in your workouts, needs to be practiced in your rehearsals. So when we're considering the mental relationship we have with triathlon, the mental relationship we have with our sport when we're in those training sessions, what are we looking for out of a healthy relationship and a healthy mentality in our training?

Bobby McGee: I think that's the authentic nature of the whole question, right? Why do I do this? Am I doing that? We know this conundrum, right? You're going to do your first race, whether it's a 5K or whether it's an IRONMAN, and you're going to do it because you want to finish it, right? And then forever thereafter, if you've done a specific distance, then you're going to have a situation that says faster, faster, better. Right? And that's why TriDot does so very effectively. It doesn't say, this is your readiness for an IRONMAN. It says, this is your readiness with this IRONMAN based on this amount of fitness, you know, that's why it's such an amazing program. So it really is a question of being authentic, being vulnerable, and being a aware of why you are doing what you're doing, you know, and then if you're able to vocalize that and be honest with yourself. That's why I really like the. The exercise standing in front of a mirror and saying, look, come on, be honest with yourself. What do you really want out of this race? What do you think you're really capable of? Let's go verify that with somebody who knows, all right? And then we lay down a plan to achieve that, and then we do the best we can to execute that plan, and then we take it from there. But tomorrow is another day, and this is only triathlon, all right? And then also take other places in your life have been successful. We know triathlon attracts people that are successful individuals in their lives. So they have this model of being successful where they can go, okay, so, you know, on race day, you go, I chose this. This is voluntary, all right? This is me being my best self. I've worked hard at this. I've invested a lot in this. This is the one place on the planet today, in this minute, that I really want to be. You know, I want to be challenged. Life is not one long purple patch, all right? So, you know, I'm looking forward to the valleys as much as I'm looking forward to the hills, you know, Then I think you go into it with a much more open mind. Right. I love the concept. Again, I'm bringing up Frank Shorter, but, you know, he said before the gold medal medals and the gold and the silver medal, he said, I still want to be married. I still want to be, you know, finish my degree. I still want to have children. I still want to run my own business. I still want to do this. All these goals after this. You know, they've done studies. You know, Olympic athletes who win gold medals or win world championships, right? They feel this sense of, especially in the Olympics, they Feel this sense of wow. I just spent six years of my life on that. And that's all it was, really.

Andrew Harley: Wow.

Bobby McGee: You know? And then, you know, 10 years later, oh, it was the time of my life. So I spent a lot of my time talking to high school triathletes, saying to them, this is the time of your life. Don't wish it over. Because this is what you're going to tell your kids about. This is what you're going to tell your grandkids about. This is the time of your life. Don't wish it over. Don't be in the middle of an IRONMAN saying, oh, I wish this would be over. No, you signed up, you did all that work for that. Just going through a little, little hole here. Just pull yourself out of the hole. And then that's another story and another thing to be proud of, you know, that you pulled yourself out of that hole.

Announcer: Great set, everyone. Let's cool down.

Andrew Harley: We've covered a lot of ground on mental skills with Coach Bobby McGee today, and this has been just such a valuable conversation for all of us. Elizabeth and I have just been sitting, sitting here soaking up every word like a sponge. But, Bobby, I would be missing an opportunity if I let you go without asking you about running. This is a huge area of coaching expertise for you, like we've kind of already alluded to. You know, before we go, you know, can you just leave our athletes with a Bobby McGee nugget of run coaching wisdom? Maybe for athletes who really want to improve their run this year, what are the initial steps they should take to do so?

Bobby McGee: Good question. I think the first thing that people need to realize when they look at elite runners is, you know, you're looking at some of these, these track athletes and these female marathon runners. Those girls are weighing 88 pounds. You know that you think, okay, I need to be thin and spindly to. To be able to be successful. But I'm a real firm believer at every level of the sport that you need to be strong before you go long. You need to be strong before you go long. It's absolutely essential. And by that, I mean low back, hip, quad knee support, musculature, ankle arch, feet. That needs to be strong. And then for people to realize there's a big difference in the strength you require to ride your bike versus the power you require to run. Well, that's a very different conversation. And so you can get really, really strong on the bike, but that's concentric contraction, and you can ride with low revs. You can do a good, you know, IRONMAN half IRONMAN at, you know, 75, 80 ribs won't be able to run afterwards. It needs to be much faster. And so when you've gone through a strength phase in preparing to go long, you need to go through a little power phase. You need to add some speed to your movements, all right? And so that will bring in posture and balance and explosiveness and elastic return. And only then should you attempt to do these very long distance. So way before you go and run continuously for an hour, you need to do a lot of work so that you can run continuously for an hour, week in and week out without breaking down. So that would be my one big piece of information is strong before long.

Announcer: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon for more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to TriDot.com and start your free trial today. TriDot, the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

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