In this episode I’m talking about HOW to find the motivation you need and why you are still an athlete even when all of your favorite sports aren’t available. Yes, Covid has changed it for a lot of us!
We discuss:
- How to create competition for yourself to get motivation to continue!
- Why having community is such an important part of it all
- How virtual meetups can be used to try and bring some normalcy back to your fitness
- Why working with a coach makes it easier for you to do the hard work
… and more!
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Feeling Like You’re Losing Your Identity as an Athlete as Competitive Sports Shut Down
“These are the things that we train for, and now we're in a world where we haven't seen them for the greater part of this year. It's been over nine months now without consistent sporting events. They're happening in various places, but most of the time, it's just not happening, and as time goes on, what I was seeing in the community was just more and more despair, more and more feeling lost, more and more feeling disconnected, and one person in there said that she didn't know how to define herself as an athlete without a sport. That really stuck out to me, that really stuck out to me. How do you define yourself as an athlete without a sport? So that’s the topic of today’s episode”
Why Losing Competitive Sports Is Hard Right Now
“Athletes are typically driven by the way we test ourselves in a sport and in our fitness. That's kind of where it's not just, I'm working out and I feel good and I'm an athlete, but like we are typically driven to test that, and that can look at a lot of different ways, whether it's a race, whether it's a competitive event, like a CrossFit competition, whether it's a roller derby game… we like to put that to the test. And so we've lost the test. We have lost that in the traditional sense, and we need to find new ways to put our training to the test.”
Virtual Races
“So, how can you put your training to the test? First, the most obvious is virtual races. Just like there's all sorts of traditional races, there's all sorts of virtual races right now too! There's one day virtual races, there's short, medium, long distances. There's multi-day, there's longer form, but some sort of virtual race that you're excited about is key. And the way I like to look for virtual races is I like to support the companies that have provided great experiences for me when we had traditional racing.
The OCR, the Spartan Race, the Spartan virtual races…I did a Tough Mudder challenge. I'm currently doing an awesome 80s race challenge because I've always loved the Awesome 80s run, and so I wanted to support them, and so I'm doing their virtual race. So when you're looking for virtual races, think about the races that you've loved and the companies that you love. I personally wanna make sure that they are supported and we can keep them afloat, so that when the time comes for us to get back to racing again, we can because they're still around! Support the companies that have supported you!”
Creating Your Own Virtual Race
“We have the ability to create our own race and schedule our own race and choose a date and hold yourself to it. We have that, we have the ability to do that. It’s gonna be self-supported because we don't have races providing water stations for us, you have to do it yourself, so it takes a little extra planning, but you can do it.”
Setting Mileage Goals
“One last thing you can do is set a mileage goal for yourself, just set a very specific mileage goal that's a little outside where you're at right now. Set a date for it and put it on your calendar. And that's really the key to any of these is that just like in a traditional race, we need a race day. We need to know when that race is happening, we need a date that we're looking forward to, that we're inching ever closer to on the calendar and that you hold yourself to that date. Treat it like it was a regular race, so that's a challenge I'm throwing down to you, is to take any one of those four options I gave you, whether it be virtual race, longer form, virtual competition, DIY, Do it Yourself race or a mileage goal, set a date on your calendar and train for it.”
Why Community is So Important
“A sporting community is unlike anything else out there. This is gonna be your group of friends who all are working towards similar goals, often working towards the very same goals you are. These are people who will typically encourage you to actually do things that are good for you. So in your teen years and your 20s, when you're hanging with a bad influences, well, these are the good influences. These are people who will celebrate when you reach milestones, they're gonna encourage you to adopt healthy habits and do things that are good for you. That's this crew. These are people who will lift you up and celebrate you, and we all need more of that in our lives, and they're just people who get you, they understand you.”
How to Seek That Connection As Races Aren’t Happening
“One is regular virtual meet-ups! You get a race team together, the people that you saw at these races and do some happy hours or virtual meet-ups just to connect and say ‘Hey, you know, I'm so happy to see your face.’ You could do group virtual race days, and I'm a big, big fan of this... I love group virtual race days. I did a group virtual race day with some of my clients in my ‘Age is No Obstacle’ group coaching program that I started at the beginning of the year. We were supposed to run the San Diego Spartan Race together. We were gonna do it in-person together, and then Covid happened and we couldn't run it together anymore, so instead we did it virtually, but we still treated it like a race day.
On the day of the actual race, we did the Spartan virtual version of this race, each of us on our own, wherever we lived, we did the race, and then we had a set time that we got on Zoom and had an after party. I told everybody ‘put on a metal. If you've done races before, grab an old metal, put it on! If you haven't done races before, make a metal. Let’s all wear a metal, let's all have our beverage of choice, an after party beverage of choice, and let's all celebrate together. So why not do that? Now, why not make that a thing?”
Why Coaching Is Essential
“Most athletes have coaches. Why do you need a coach? Well, sometimes we need an extra kick in the butt to keep moving, and I think the moving part is really key right now, 'cause some people have got moving but they haven't figured out how to keep moving because they lose motivation. Right now, for many people, the motivation to exercise is at an all-time low. I get that because again, if you're motivated by racing competitions and challenges and you're not getting that, why even do it? And that's the question that so many people are asking themselves right now. And if you are feeling that, well, you might need some help. A coach can help you reconnect with a goal and give you as clear of a path as possible to get there. A coach can keep you accountable. And when you make an investment in a coach, you are putting skin in the game.”
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