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How many times in a race have you hit a bad patch, thinking your race was over, and then somehow recovered to finish extremely strong?

This type of experience is very common in triathlon, particularly longer distance races. Both physiology and psychology play a part, but I’d argue the psychological aspect is just as, if not more important, than the physiology.

Since your day to day training is covering the physiological side of things, doesn’t it make sense to work in some specific workouts that train your mind to adapt to challenging or unexpected situations? I think so.

The list of situations you can work into a training session are only limited to your own imagination, but here are a few examples:

* Long intervals where you only breathe on your “bad” side (yes, you should be able to breathe on either side) in case you have waves/glare on race day that prevent bilateral breathing or your favorite side.
* Practice swimming in a lane with 3-4 friends side by side. Take off your goggles half way to simulate losing them and being forced to keep your composure.
* Deliberately choose a very windy, cold, or hot day to do a race pace cycling or run workout. Wind is probably the most frustrating condition for most athletes; if you can deal with it well on race day, you’ll have a big leg up on your competition.
* Stop half way through a race pace cycling workout to change a tube (yes, actually change it). Work on getting back into your rhythm after starting up again.
* Brick workouts, particularly including high-intensity cycling efforts. This will make you more likely to cramp when you start running, and if you haven’t had to “run through” cramps in a a race yet, don’t worry, your time is coming…

I’m always looking for good scenarios such as these to integrate into my athletes’ training. Feel free to post any ideas you have.

Via: http://www.coachej.com/2009/04/mental-toughness.html