The Process Of Belief
Sporting success can be yours but you have to believe you deserve it....
This story begins a long time ago, the mid-nineties to be precise. I was a moderately talented Cross Country mountain bike racer back then, regional champion, sponsored, felt like a big fish! Which is all great until you get into the biggest pond. It was my first year racing the full national series and I distinctly remember feeling totally overawed. The sheer scale of the races sapped at my confidence and ultimately I found myself hiding on the back of the grid for the biggest race of the year, the National Champs, trying to be invisible, not bothering anyone. The inevitable happened, I got stuck at the back of a huge bottleneck at the first singletrack and lost minutes. By the end of the first lap any hope of catching the top 20 riders had been obliterated by other people's technical inabilities. I was left frustrated by a 28th place finish in a race where I wasn't passed, not once! I had spent the entire race picking off nearly a hundred other riders and when I finished I still had energy to burn and the definite knowledge that if I'd had the balls to stand at the front of the grid I'd have been a top 10 finisher. The process had begun...
Fast forward 17 years and I found myself stretching my hamstrings on a bench in Janske Lazne, venue for the 2013 World Masters Mountain Running Champs. After a frustrating 8 weeks of preparation since my last race, hindered by a run of interconnected injuries that had made my left leg a virtual passenger in my heavily interrupted training schedule, I had every right to feel nervous and unconfident, except I didn't. Obviously I had the adrenaline, the essential buzz that brings out the best of performance when the flag drops but those crippling teenage doubts were nowhere to be seen. I finished stretching, jogged back to the start line and placed myself on the front row, dead centre, racing line. Any of the other racers could've demanded I moved back and joined the grid from the back as you should, but they didn't. My demeanour said I was World Class, I belonged there. The race went perfectly, tactically and physically. As expected the genuine World Class athletes pulled away from me, the pros, full timers and superhuman specimens. The rest of the field didn't catch me, couldn't pass me and I gradually eased away to get my top 10 finish. Top 10 in the World! The process of belief was complete.
 |
| Feeling confident 30 mins before the biggest race of my life |
This scenario doesn't really make sense. In 1996 I was already an experienced mountain bike racer with a fairly enviable CV of results. I was at the peak of fitness and belonged somewhere near the front of that National standard grid. By contrast, this year I was just a second year runner, albeit with some good Irish results but absolutely no experience of racing on a World stage and with no right to plonk myself in pole position on the Czech starting line. In the 17 years between those two races I had learned a very important lesson...
Ability without confidence is about as useful as confidence without ability and neither is likely to win you anything!
I'll elaborate in a second within the limited context of my own sporting successes but first I want to drill this point home. Picture Usain Bolt at the start of a race, any race, as he doesn't really lose ones that matter! His posturing, smiling, oozing confidence, ultimate external image of relaxation actually served to change the sport of sprinting for a while. I remember reading an article not long back about how Bolt's demeanour so totally crushed his opponents that the only way they felt they could compete was to copy him. So everyone started acting the way he did, but they were just pretending to be confident, playing into his hands and basically by interrupting their own finely developed pre-race routines they were conceding the race before they even got into the blocks. Even Olympic standard athletes need to believe they can win, the alternative is a lack of confidence that can end the careers of the truly talented.
Funnily, there are actually some comparisons to be made between those Olympic start lines and the pre-race warm-ups at the Irish fell races in which I've spent the last two years competing. In my tentative first year I was turning up and getting sucked into a trap of amiability! Despite always arriving with an hour to spare I'd end up chatting to so many really friendly people that I'd end up not even completing my warm up! This left me underprepared and therefore never fully ready for the race. I did OK that year, always top 10 but never a winner and there were a group of 5 or 6 runners who I never could beat, physically or psychologically. I could almost predict my race result whilst stood on the start line because I knew that whoever was there from that elite group would be beating me to the finish line. The process of belief was still a work in progress. Having decided to focus properly on mountain running this season I began to think a bit more professionally and glean every bit of information that could make me faster. I watched the pre-race rituals of the top contenders and realised that amongst all the chat (and they'd still be very friendly) they were definitely focused on their own routines and rituals, ensuring that when they stood on the start line they were 100% ready. They were the Usains and the other 95% of us were the hapless opponents. If I was going to win, my pre-race had to be right.
So that was learning point number one. I changed my approach and developed a warm-up schedule that still allowed time for me to chat to everyone but guaranteed that I always finished with a final stretch just in front of the grid before stepping on to the front row, dead centre.
Here are the other things that I learned this year in order to mentally develop the required belief. I think these are pretty generic and I'll be applying them back to mountain bike racing again in 2014.
1) Prepare Physically
Yes this is totally obvious! If you're not physically capable of winning races then you won't, but the format of your physical preparation can have a massive impact on your mental strength and belief processes. Personally I'm a big believer in targets and goals and I had the perfect set of measures in the previous race results. I based my pre-season training on an intention to beat the winning time from the 2011 Tollymore Hill and Dale race won by the then invincible Des Woods. I knew that if I could get close to his time in my training then I'd have a really good shot at winning this year. As the 2013 Tollymore race neared I focused all my energy on a full pace attempt at the course the week before. I had to bury myself on that training run but I beat Des' race time without the added incentive of competition and so despite having never won a Hill and Dale race, I turned up at my first race of the season feeling like the firm favourite. Ironically in this case it was the speed I'd developed and the confidence to run off the front of all those people I'd never beaten before that led to me missing a turning and leading the next three runners temporarily off course and to disqualification! To me this was also irrelevant though, as far as I was concerned I won that race convincingly and I'd a sneaky feeling that my opponents felt that way too. The belief was growing and I took it to the next race and won by over two minutes.
 |
| Brutal pre-season training added self-belief |
2) Set Ambitious Goals
At the start of the season I was asked what my goals were for the year. Bearing in mind that this is just my second year in the sport I chose these.
a) Win my category in the classic Mournes based Hill and Dale race series and come top 3 overall.
b) Complete the iconic and historic Slieve Donard race in a sub 1 hour time.
c) Put together the results required to represent Ireland at the World Championships and not be disgraced when I competed there.
Pretty ambitious stuff but I figured if I was going to put everything into one sport for a year then I may as well aim high. As it turns out my season started well and gained momentum from there, I achieved or over achieved all of these. The important aspect though was the fact that having stated these to other people, the incentive was there to achieve them (or look very foolish/arrogant). By setting these goals I was making that psychological shift needed to believe I could beat opponents who I previously found unbeatable.
3) Ride The Momentum
This is something that I learned but could have probably done a lot better myself.
Anyone who follows sport generally will probably have witnessed the way that winning is a habit. Good teams become seemingly unbeatable and opponents start sub-consciously playing for a draw or just simply trying to limit their losses. My season had great momentum but almost got de-railed by surprise success.
The Slieve Donard race is the one to win. People have trained long and hard to get their names on the winners shield alongside the good and great of Irish mountain running and most have failed. It's the race that used to totally astound me when I read that the winners could get to the summit and back in less than one hour. Perhaps because of this I never once believed I could win it. I raced it last year and was both delighted and gutted with my performance. I was overjoyed with my 7th place but couldn't help but be disappointed with my time, 1hr and 46 seconds. Not because it was slow by any means but because I'd built up a sub 1hr Donard as the ultimate verification of being a proper Mourne Mountain runner and I'd come so close. That's why this year my main goal was to bag the 1hr Donard. I prepared well and turned up with tactics in mind, get to the top as fast as possible and then try to hang on to the elites as long as I could on the way down (I'm not known for my descending prowess). Sparing you most of the details, I ran away from everyone on the ascent and then unbelievably stretched my lead on the return journey to complete the course in 57:01 and win by nearly three minutes. It's no word of a lie to say that I was in shock as I approached the finish and the realisation dawned that I'd won, and in a decent time despite the worst imaginable weather conditions. My slightly over the top fist pumping as I slowed for the final 50 metres to savour the moment was entirely involuntary and came from a sense of disbelief. My performance had outdone my self-belief and my head had some catching up to do!
The upshot of the result was that I nearly stopped running after it. My total surprise at winning a race I respected and revered so highly almost derailed my whole season as I couldn't envisage it getting any better and subsequently lost motivation to train. If I'd had a bit more belief then maybe I'd have taken it all in my stride, likewise if my goals had been more ambitious. As it was I slacked off a bit and instead of riding the momentum of victory I had to wait a while to win another race.
 |
| The trophies that nearly ended my season!! |
4) Stress the Details
I figured that if I was going to spend just one year achieving as much as possible in mountain running then I'd be insulting myself and the sport if I didn't do everything in my power to be as good as I could. Obviously having a job, two young kids and a growing business meant that I couldn't train as much as I'd have liked but I took control of all the other factors, from the most major to the smallest details. In terms of the bigger aspects I lost weight, taking over 1.5 stone off an already skinny (although I'd prefer lean) frame. This took sacrifice, no booze, no buns, no biscuits, the lifestyle of a monk! Obviously being lighter is a big advantage when running up steep mountain sides, imagine carrying a bag with 1.5 stone of rocks in it, it'll definitely slow your progress. The other side to this discipline though is the fact that for every pint you refuse and for every Hob Nob you turn down, psychologically you feel that tiny bit stronger. The more you sacrifice, the more it matters that you perform when you get the chance, because why make all that effort if your performances are going to be mediocre? At the smaller aspects end of the scale I ditched the baggy biking shorts which had previously caused much amusement for my club mates and competitors alike. By donning a pair of what passes as a pair of shorts amongst runners I was taking another psychological step to being a real runner myself (and on a practical note that move probably saved me from being blown off Millstone Mountain by a blistering headwind which would have flown my old shorts like a kite with me still inside them!). By focusing on making all the measures I could to be faster, mentally my belief continued to grow.
 |
| Every little counts, and those shorts are little! |
5) Have a Routine
And stick to it. Whether your race is a local evening event or the World Champs. Whether it takes place at 7pm or 11am. Whether your journey there takes 10 minutes or a whole day, just be sure that for the last hour before your event you're following your routine. This takes out all the stress and allows you to go through the motions almost subconsciously. Register, attach numbers, drink, warm up, stretch, energy gel, check the first 100 metres of the route, stretch again, line up on the start line, front row, dead centre, jog on the spot, GO. Simple and worry free leaving nothing to burst that bubble of self-belief.
6) Keep The Faith
You'll probably get beaten. After all, there are lots of people stood on that start line with a race plan that ultimately ends up with them victorious. Some of them may even have the self-belief too and so they'll probably get their results just like you get yours. There can only be one winner, don't let your self-belief diminish because someone was better than you on the day, just work out how to beat them next time. I won more races than I lost this year but I definitely lost races that I wanted to win. I picked myself up and tried again next time but always with that same degree of belief. On a similar note, if you're a runner you'll get injured at some point! Give yourself time to heal properly (not easy I know) and with a bit of effort you'll soon be as good as you were before the injury and maybe even better for giving your body some much needed R+R. Don't let your confidence be destroyed by the doubt that comes with injury.
7) Keep It In Context (Or Maybe Not)
You could read this blog and assume that I'm some kind of genuine athlete with a solid backing in sports psychology (or probably not!). The fact is that I'm neither. I am fit, in fact very fit and I train hard (and have for years). If I hadn't competed for years on bikes there's no way that I'd have been able to compete in a brand new sport physically, but even more so, there's no way I could've managed it psychologically. It took me years of being totally rubbish, to mediocre, to average, to above average, to leading races for a while, to actually winning races as a mountain biker. Without that experience there's no way that I'd have coped with the pressure of leading a race in a new sport with 250 people behind all wanting to be ahead of me! This apprentiship as a sportsman is something that all but the most outrageously naturally talented have to go through. The pleasing thing for me was discovering that in addition to the physical side, the mental side of being able to compete at a high level is also transferrable between sports. Despite not actually winning a race of any kind since I quit mountain bike racing 15 years ago, that mentality and knowledge remained dormant, ready to be utilised when required. If you too can develop that self-belief, the feeling that you belong amongst your rivals and deserve to beat them too then who knows where that mental fortitude could take you. Big businesses love paying sports stars, adventurers, entrepreneurs and other 'inspirational achievers' to come and address their employees. Why? Because they want to inspire this winning mentality in their staff, show them the drive and self-motivation needed to be the best they can be. I guess by the same reckoning I've never gone into a job interview, exam or assessment with anything less than 100% confidence and that's almost always got me the desired result. Maybe there are very clear parallels between the psychology of sport and everyday life. Don't forget to keep the sporting bits in context though. Achieving what I have this year has brought me satisfaction and confidence. However, if I'd failed dismally I'd like to think I'm man enough to shrug my shoulders and accept that none of it really matters in the grand scale. Losing my job or business would have slightly more far reaching implications!
As a postscript to this story I took the self-belief to a whole new level in my final race of the season (and possibly my running career). The details of the Mourne 2 Day Mountain Marathon are covered in my previous blog but now it's over (and with a sense of slight embarassment) I'll let you into a secret revealing how self-belief can get a bit out of control! Despite having literally no experience of running in this type of event, no idea of how long we'd be out there for, no clue on how stiff the competition would be, I went in to the race fairly firmly expecting to win the Elite category. Part of this belief definitely came from being partnered by a top athlete and previous winner of the event, but part definitely came from a degree of blind self-confidence. I'll even admit that I'd considered what to buy with my half of the £500 prize! I'm a touch ashamed to have felt like this and obviously if we hadn't won there's no way I'd ever had admitted to it but you can't control your sub-conscience. I meant no disrespect to my fellow competitors, many of whom are very good athletes. It's hard to ignore the fact that confidence can become a self-fulfilling prophecy but I was definitely setting myself up for a big (and probably deserved) fall!
 |
| The logical conclusion? I expected this win before it came despite a huge lack of experience! |
So next up I'm going back to a sport I'm very familiar with but in a brand new format, Enduro mountain biking. I was out with the current Irish champion the other day and he left me for dead despite him complaining that he's massively out of shape and off the pace! I'm going to have to seriously go back to the drawing board before I honestly have the self-belief to beat him. Here we go again....
