WHY DO YOU TRAIN?
Many competitive athletes hover continuously in Ordinary Land. Never can they break their own PRs, never can they smash through plateaus, never can they realize what truly can be done.
BY KENNETH LUNDGREN
Many athletes never have their mind inside the workout – or, better yet, athletes never have their minds inside the effort.
When you do a hard interval, you just don’t get down and begin to pedal hard. Yes, you can do that. There are many riders out there who ride two, three, four hours a day, they train hard.
And they perform like shit.
And why do they perform like shit? They are training their legs, heart, and lungs, but they are not training their minds – they go through the motions, almost like they are bored, almost like they don’t know why they are training.
Just yesterday, an athlete yearning to improve asked me which is more beneficial, carbon wheels or a power meter?
I thought, ‘This cannot be serious. This is Mickey Mouse stuff.’
Everyone wants that similar top prize, and in order to elevate, in order to truly work hard, you must have this vision in front of you.
You need to see what you want – do you want to be like everyone else, or do you want to be on that podium, in front of the crowd, in front of your fellow competitors?
(photo is Elite Endurance athlete Robb Hampton of BIKE Doctor Racing Team, winning Ride Sally Ride Crit, one of the biggest criteriums in the DC region)
This vision is the motivating factor, this vision drives you to the bike – the strength of this vision is so strong, you don’t need discipline – the vision just takes you there, the vision pulls you in. To train every day, every workout you do from now on will drive you closer and closer and closer and closer.
The motivation does not come from me. All the way to the bone, training training training, raw success means full concentration, training with specificity, zero workouts or minutes wasted, your eye on the goal, you need to put fire into that engine every day.
We all have the same amount of days to prepare. You need to make sure you don’t waste One. Single. Pedal. Rep.
If you do something, THEN DO IT. You train. Or you don’t train.
The truth is if you train smart, you eliminate weaknesses and maximize your strengths, you keep moving forward, and this is what separates the winner from the loser.
Work hard to achieve your goal. You can do it — so think big. You will continue to improve and generate tremendous satisfaction for yourself.
You will achieve your goal, and your vision becomes your reality.
(photo is Elite Endurance athlete Robb Hampton of BIKE Doctor Racing Team, winning Ride Sally Ride Crit, one of the biggest criteriums in the DC region)
