Thursday, February 15, 2024

Just Try: Preparing your mind to do hard things



The more the road tipped upward, the more I felt my willpower slipping away. Each pedal stroke felt like it would be the last one before I convinced myself that I had to stop, that I can't do this. I had been here before, after all, and the voice in my head that gave me permission to bail out last time was getting louder. 

Is it 'quitting', really, if I just stop for a moment, take a short break, and then hop back on?

Maybe not, but where is the satisfaction in overcoming a challenge when you end up throwing in the towel (again)? I had to remind myself I was - up until a moment ago - very determined to finish this climb without stopping. It was a driving force to return to this same place, to ride up this same road. I was craving redemption.

We train our bodies to do hard things. We generally have a good sense of what we're in for, and we prepare for it. What we're not so good at is preparing our thought processes to overcome self-doubt.

Mental skills training has become a hot topic for me lately. After attending the Endurance Exchange back in early January, and hearing what Dr. Scott Frey had to say about perception of effort, I find myself going down the rabbit hole.

This is not a new interest for me. I've been fascinated by how the brain controls so many aspects of athletic performance, and not just perception of effort. Motivation, willingness to do the work (some would say 'suffer'),  the things we tell ourselves during training and racing - all of it plays a critical role in outcome. And yet we rarely give mental training the same attention we give to our strength and endurance training.

The power of our thought processes to overcome difficult challenges is impressive, and undeniable. My good friend Jill told me that when the going gets tough (on the bike), she tells herself to JUST TRY. 

Many words can be written about how we're supposed to be able to swap in a positive thought (JUST TRY) when our brains are in the throes of overwhelming negativity (I can't do this). 

The simple answer is that it takes practice. Mental toughness and positive self talk are trainable responses - but rarely are they automatic. If you want to do hard things - and I do* - then you have to teach your brain to not put up roadblocks, or give you easy exit ramps. Start by changing the inner dialogue. 

When I knew for sure that this was the last possible pedal stroke, I thought of Jill's mantra and I actually said aloud (through my last dying gasps): JUST TRY.  It immediately shifted my mental focus from "I have to stop" to "Can I do this?" I wasn't sure if I could, but there was only one way to find out.

Will you try it? Will you fail? Will you succeed? I don't know. Only one way to find out.

___________________________________________

My friend and fellow Stelleri athlete, Pat Spencer, is currently working on a mental skills coaching program for women athletes. Stay tuned for more info when this becomes available. Also check out Pat's services through her mental skills coaching company website, Getting Your Mind in Gear. 

*It's been too long since I last rode the epic climbs of Death Valley, but there are plans in the works to change that, in just over a year from now. 

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

What I learned from a 30-day yoga 'challenge'



Laz brings his yoga props and shares my mat

At the start of a new year, all kinds of opportunities exist for establishing new behaviors.

The more popular 'challenges' typically revolve around alcohol, nutrition, or some exercise habit. I have no interest in any of those. 

I don't necessarily love anything that resembles, even remotely, a 'resolution' - especially those perennial ones. (Seriously, if you're my age and you're still making the same annual resolutions around basic healthy habits, you aren't being honest with yourself.)

And yet I found myself drawn to the 30-day Yoga Journey, an annual (and free!) daily yoga session from the fabulous Adriene Mishler (and her mat-mate cattle dog, Benji), offered every January. 

Why yoga, and why this? I've been an on-and-off practitioner of yoga for many years. I almost always find it to be just the thing my body needs on any given day - whether it's a stretch, or a balance hold, or a functional movement that my rather uni-planar lifestyle isn't accustomed to doing.

The operative 'almost' is what makes my yoga practice so sporadic. Like the time I took a class and all we did was chair pose. Or the 'lunchtime break' class that exceeded its time limit and made me late for an afternoon commitment. I expect to leave yoga with more 'zen' than I came in with, but that's not reality. 

In any case, the Yoga Journey gave me something different and new to do, and I am a firm believer that novelty is what keeps us from going out of our minds. I  know that shaking up my daily routine gives me the opportunity to think differently about how I move about my day, and that simple change can be the difference in my perception of 'good day' vs. 'bad day'. 

So I started every morning in January with yoga, and there are some things I learned along the way:

  • I like yoga that only lasts 20 minutes or so. The shorter, the better. 
  • Shivasana is over-rated. We didn't really do it, and I certainly didn't miss it. 
  • I have really bad balance, particularly on one side of my body.
  • I really, really have lost a lot of flexibility over the years, but that is about to change.
  • Knowing that after yoga I will be making a pot of French Press coffee makes the Yoga Journey that much sweeter.
  • If I can get on my mat expediently, I can have coffee sooner. 
  • If I truly feel the need to learn Crow Pose, I have to work at it daily. Or I can be honest with myself (see above) and just give up and move on.
  • Adriene's calm voice thanking me for giving up my precious time and energy to 'meet her on the mat' every day made me realize that my time and energy are precious - and limited. This epiphany helped me cut through the clutter, so to speak, and gave me strength to say "no" to requests for my time and energy that didn't serve me. I hope to remember this lesson for a long time.
  • I can focus my attention, albeit temporarily, to my yoga practice in spite of morning chaos (otherwise known as Laszlo, see photo)
  • I truly hope to continue a daily morning practice for the way it makes me feel grounded.

Wish me luck in my commitment to this practice. Or better yet, join me!

If you took the Yoga Journey, I'd love to hear your thoughts. 




Friday, August 11, 2023

What's old is new again - reclaiming bike love through the group ride


It had been a VERY long time since I last rode with an organized weeknight group. The reasons for my long stay away are so varied and complicated that it's almost painful to list them out. They include bits and pieces of real and imagined hurdles including competing priorities, lack of interest, frustration with group abilities and speed, shifting group alliances, the burden of leading group rides, other people's skittishness towards riding outside, and perhaps a touch of agoraphobia that started during the pandemic and lingered for way too long.

During this time, I told myself that it was better to ride solo, better to ride during the day (this is a newer option since I started working remotely), better to have the flexibility to change my intended route on the fly, or change my mind about riding altogether if I just wasn't motivated. 

But there was always this nagging feeling that I was missing something. I know that riding with a strong, fast group always had the power to make me stronger and faster. Riding with a group also instills the self-discipline that the years of non-group riding have eroded: when I commit to a group ride, I ride THEIR route, climb THEIR hills, go at THEIR pace. I don't have the option to change or shorten the route or take a sudden detour to avoid the hills. Having the group to ride with brings with it some accountability - to them, to myself. To be honest, my cycling fitness has been on the decline since the years since I last rode with a fast group - and without that fitness, it's not as much fun for me.

Last week, I decided that enough was enough. I put a gag on all that head noise that prevented me from joining the group ride, and I showed up for the ABC Thursday Night Fast Ride. (Granted, I started with the C+ riders, not quite ready to throw myself into the deep end, but willing to dip a toe back into these waters). The ride lived up to its name (the C+ group is not slow!), and I left that night with a satisfaction about riding that I hadn't felt in a long, long time.

That evening, after winding down, the endorphin glow (or was it my twitching leg muscles?) kept me awake. I thought about the old friends I reconnected with tonight, and the new ones I made through the power of shared experiences. I thought about how I was needlessly apprehensive about my ability to keep up with the group, and the camaraderie of the group that I didn't realize I missed so much. I though about all those years lost in trying to find my 'bike mojo', only to reclaim it once again in the simple act of showing up for a group ride. 

The outside ride season is ending in a couple short months, but maybe, by the time we finish for 2023, I'll be riding with the B's.


Monday, March 6, 2023

Antarctica: Those days at sea that drag on and on...

If you've been following my blog posts from my adventure in Antarctica (thank you!) you will have noticed that I'm not posting a chronological log of events, nor am I listing off the places we've been or the animal and bird counts. And you will have noticed that my posts have been sporadic, sometimes photos appear at a later time, if at all. This is because the data connectivity on the ship is rather expensive and limited, and it's spotty, and we don't always have a whole lot of time for things like quiet contemplation and blogging. What follows, then, are stories and photos that I wanted to post during the trip, but have ended up in the post-adventure pile where I have more space and time to write. I hope you will continue to enjoy these stories and photos, and I welcome your questions and comments.


What do we do when we're at sea all day? This trip consisted of 5 total days on the Drake Passage (2 and a half days in each direction between Ushuaia and the Antarctic Peninsula), as well as time at sea when we weren't able to get out for a landing or Zodiac due to weather conditions. We were fortunate enough to have a lot of off-ship excursions, but the time at sea can be quite the drag.

Jean Pennycook, Expedition Team ornithologist. Jean was definitely one of the highlights of this trip. 

What do we do when we're at sea all day? I can personally attest to being a little frustrated when I couldn't get off the ship. I mean, what am I supposed to do with myself, besides:

Look for whales and birds and other wildlife, update my journal, review my photographs, talk to other passengers, attend any and every educational presentation available, hobnob with the Expedition Team researchers and scientists and ask a lot of questions, nap, read, visit the Polar Boutique, drink a lot of coffee, tea, and cocoa, venture out on deck, as long as the weather doesn't prohibit, watch the sea with binoculars, write out postcards, go to the spa, sauna, hot tub, or gym*, peruse books and games in the Observation Deck's library, clown around, challenge our balance when the sea gets rough.

Let's hope we get off this ship soon before I lose my mind...


*The gym was a non-starter. The only time available to actually use the gym was when we were at sea, and I couldn't imagine trying to run on a treadmill or ride a bike when the ship was rolling and rocking through the Drake Passage. The very thought of it makes me nauseated.







Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Whale breath





Early into this expedition, we were taught to look for whales out at sea by watching for the blow of their breath. Expedition Team member Annie Inglis is a marine biologist, and she has a keen eye for spotting the spout from far off, and identifying the whale from the blow pattern and shape.

As we crossed the Drake and headed toward the polar region, whale sightings became more and more frequent, and they also got a lot closer to our ship.

There are so many whales here, humpbacks, of course, but also fin, minke, and pilot whales. We would see them cruising alongside us, ‘logging’ (sleeping at the surface) as we were anchored offshore, even witnessing a “bubble net” feeding. We recognized the humpbacks’ breathing patterns (3 breaths and then a dive), which was our cue that we would soon see a fluke as the whale dove deep (get your camera ready!). But the coolest experience was watching them from the Zodiac, where we were close enough to hear them breathe, sometimes using the sound of their breath to identify their position, and to follow and watch them do what whales do. Mostly it was them simply gliding gracefully by, hardly causing a ripple on the water as they swam right past.

Seeing these magnificent creatures in their natural habitat was a humbling experience,  and what a privilege for us visitors to their world.


From Glacier to Glass: “Ice Fishing” in Antarctica







During one of our Zodiac excursions, our pilot Justin and Expedition Team member Jean fished out a huge block of glacier ice from sea. 

This was no ordinary ice! Although there are blocks of ice and ice floes and icebergs all around us, there is one special form of ice that caught the eye of our team members.

From a distance, it looks solid black, as if a block of obsidian were floating on the water. But as you get closer, you realize that it is almost solidly crystal clear - the black is just a reflection of the water.

This is GLACIER ICE, the bits that broke off as the glaciers slowly chugged down the mountains and landed in the sea. Due to tens of thousands of years of compression, there is very little air entrapped in the solid block of ice, which makes it look like a hunk of crystal.

We hauled the block of ice into the Zodiac, and later it ended up at the bar to be used in very special cocktails that evening. It was delicious!

Antarctica: The Zodiac Experience






One of the highlights of this trip is the Zodiacs, the boats that take us from the ship to our land excursions, or to cruise around on the area near our anchor site. I’ve never been on a Zodiac before (I had a lot of ‘firsts’ on this trip - more on that later), and I was super excited to get on the water.

Each Zodiac fits 10 people plus the pilot. The first day at sea we were told what to wear on the Zodiac, and how to safely get in and out of one. It was, at first, quite a daunting process, but we got more efficient as the week went on.

First, what do you wear on the Zodiac? Since being on the water can be quite cold and windy, we’re told to layer up, and carry a dry bag for extra items (and camera), or if we want to shed layers. Many of the Zodiacs were simply a way from getting from ship to shore, which meant that you’ll probably be warm from walking around on land. Other times, we simply did a Zodiac cruise for an hour or more, so it’s best to wear all the layers.

We first get dressed in our cabin:

Bottom: base layer leggings, sock liners, wool socks, fleece pants, waterproof pants

Top: base layer top, mid-weight wool shirt, Quark-issued polar parka with waterproof outer layer

Balaclava, neck gaiter, Smartwool cap. Glove liners, over-gloves (I have polar-rated mittens), hand warmers. Sunglasses or goggles are a good idea, too, as is sunscreen.

After the first time donning all this gear, I kept all my Zodiac clothes in one place so I was able to simply throw on my ‘uniform’ and not forget anything. It seems that you get about 20-30 minute warning for gangway time, so you have to be prepared. Once your excursion team is called to the mud room, it’s a mad dash to get to your boots and life jacket and get in line to board your boat.

The Zodiacs are necessary because there are no ‘ports’ in Antarctica, so you need them to get to shore. Sometimes landing isn’t part of the plan, and in those instances we’re out cruising around the inlet, looking for seals and whales and penguins, and taking in the astonishing landscape from the level of the water. 

The pilots have a keen eye for spotting Antarctic fauna, and we would often speed up to where a whale was sighted, then cut the engine and just watch. Being so close to the hundreds of humpbacks (and pilot whales, and minkes) we saw on this trip is an unforgettable and moving experience.