Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure
Paulo Coelho
Here are 12 principles I’ve learned from triathlon
1. Train hard
“Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.” – Steve Prefontaine
Train hard. There is no way around it. It’s the foundation. Everything else will depend on it. When I built my first start line, after surgery and cancer treatments, I didn’t know anything about IRONMAN and Triathlon. Train hard. If you want to race, you need to pour your heart and soul into the preparation. This is where races are lost and won, this makes the difference between finishing a race or abandoning.
2. Make Sacrifices
Emil Zapotek is one of the greatest runners of all times. Emil wasn’t terribly talented or genetically gifted to run. But he made sacrifices. More than anyone else. And he won.
Building an IRONMAN requires huge sacrifices…..always remembering that you are not a pro athlete !!!
run, run, run … so much … 70-100 km per week …. hear every blessed day the alarm sounds at 4:30 AM
pedaling, pedaling, pedaling … always so much … 350-400 0km per week … .. always hear the alarm clock at 4:30 AM and know that during the cold months you will be sitting alone, in the dark, riding your bike on the rollers where every panorama is denied, where you can fix the white wall and view your OBJECTIVE …….
swim, swim, swim … a little less … but always so … throw in free water at every opportunity ……
strive to find new ways to run
strive to find new ways to pedal
strive to swim in the usual pool
rush and ride while worrying about weather conditions to comply with the program
realize that the program is more “big” than ever
the program is crazy
getting up the morning before the usual … .. where usual is not normal thing … ..
sleep the night before usual … when you can … otherwise you have to spend 5 hours of sleep … ..
eat more than ever
eat so much
eating too much
eat so many times a day
eating in the strangest hours of the day …. eat in secret … ..
still have hunger
always have bad feet … .. having the toenails that “weep” … ..
always have bad legs
have a new pain every day
be always tired at any time of the day
little social life … .. a cloistered monk has more !!!
do not find the reasons to justify your missed presence anywhere
who always calls annoyance …. or you bother me why not answer ……
count the days that are missing in the race
organize everything for the race
think about FINISH LINE … .. be afraid …. know that beyond your fear you will reach your goal
also think about fiddling about the result of the race
thinking about the after race
think about racing after the race
think about the holidays after the race … .. after a day off you already feel something missing ……
think that holiday days are few
think of how to explain this to ordinary people and to think about others that you ARE NORMAL
find a valid justification for these unusual things
hope that others will understand
if they do not understand
accept that they do not understand
3. Make Positive Choices
Your life will be full of decision-making points. Make sure you choose wisely. Choose the ones who will have a positive impact on you…..discover my limits!!!
4. Seek Your Potential
I recently read that, unless you are an ultra-elite runner, you always have the ability to run faster. Always. I believe this is true for everything we do. Only very few people tap their whole potential. Seek out your potential. Figure out what you’re good at and get better at it. Don’t waste time getting mediocre at something you’re bad at. It’s not worth it. I have learned a lot about myself during the illness and above all how important it is to tackle obstacles with energy and determination, how important it is to repeat one, one hundred and a thousand times a day – do not give up!
5. Set High Goals
The barrier is only in our mind. You can’t change the world if you don’t set out to do so. Be bold. Dream big, Act big and the result will be big!!!
6. Relax Under Pressure
You can’t perform to the best of your abilities if you are tense. You will annoy the people around you. Control your frame of mind, control your emotions and you will be leader of yourself first !
7. Attack Pain
Pain is inevitable. You will feel pain. You can choose to let it dominate you or choose to attack it, ignore it, grind through it. At the end, pain is just a neuro-signal. You can will your way through it. Pain is the purifier. I can’t count the amount of times I came to a point where I just wanted to stop. Wanted to give in to the pain. Or just take a break. In racing, life!! Ignore the feeling. Grind through. It’s just a neuro-signal. If it’s worth it — push on.
8. Push the Pace
Go out and don’t hold back. Don’t be the guy who races in the shadow of others and tries to sneak by on the last few meters. Keep on pushing the pace. You chose to start with every fiber of your body, continuously pushing the pace. Be bold. It’s the only way to succeed as a true leader.
9. Work as a T.E.A.M.
Triathlon looks from the onset like a very solitary sport. It is not. Your Family is everything, your T.E.A.M. is everything. Without them you are nothing. Embrace the spirit of the T.E.A.M. in your life, sport, organization. There is no room for anything else — you have to work as one, for a common goal. Even the brilliant Steve Jobs couldn’t make things happen without his team.
10. Compete with yourself and respect any opponent.
It’s not really about the competition. Your biggest challenge in a race is yourself. You’re often racing against time. You’re frequently running everything through your mind. You’re always competing against preconceived ideas. It’s not really the person next to you that you worry about.
11. Defeat the Wall
“I’m going to work so that it’s a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it.” — Steve Prefontaine
When you are in race, you will hit the wall. After 112 miles of biking your body simply runs out of glycogen and wants to shut down. This is the point where your will is tested most. You push through it. You force carbohydrates into your body although your stomach started cramping up at mile 15 in the run transiction. But deep down you always knew — it is possible. So you persevered and set one foot in front of the other. Repeat. And repeat.
12. Relentless Focus and Boring Consistency
IRONMAN is all about spending hours and hours doing the same things — swim – bike – run. You need to have laser-sharp focus and be consistent.
There is no way around!!!
“The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.” — Roger Bannister