Promises to Make or Break

I read an interesting article in the latest edition of Endurance News which is published by Hammer Nutrition. Although the focus of the article is geared toward athletes, it was easy to relate it to other areas of life as well. What goal would you like to accomplish and what is holding you back? Have you made promises to yourself that you need to break?

Promises to Make

Resolve that you will do this for fun
The pain = gain crowd eventually loses interest, because in the end it is impossible to keep up something you don’t enjoy.

Promise not to focus on beating someone else in a competition
Why should you let someone else decide for you whether you are successful? Your true competition is yourself.

Promise to trust yourself.
You are not lazy, you are not inept, and you will improve. So many athletes negate their success by telling themselves they cannot succeed. They are right.

Promise to do what you are doing.
I often see people who want to be fit trying to read a book while they stair climb or listen to music while they ride. They never seem to make any progress. All the best athletes I know
pay full attention to what they are doing.

Promise to keep other life goals intact.
A friend of mine let his business languish while he put everything into qualifying for the Hawaii ironman, and almost did. It cost him five years to put his business affairs back together. He became overweight and stopped his athletics. But there is a happy outcome. I now see him running and riding and since he has aged up, maybe he will achieve his objective.

Promise to try something new.
If you find the long distance cycling training for triathlon pleasant, maybe a double century is the direction you should go. How about unconventional multi-sports events involving kayaking
and mountain bike legs?

Promise to finish.
A finish in a challenging event is always more satisfying than having gone fast at some point, only to fail and DNF.


Promises to Break

Limits to ambition.
If you vow you will never do an event longer than an Olympic triathlon, you may later find that a half iron distance event is actually more fun. I once told myself I would never do an event I
couldn’t complete in one day, only to find I really enjoyed multi-day bike races.

Promises to slow down.
So many athletes reach a point where they stop trying to go faster and from there they begin a slide towards giving up entirely. The essence of these sports is that they are a challenge, so a promise to participate half-heartedly is to miss the main point.

Keeping to a preordained race plan, no matter what.
You can sometimes save a race by abandoning intended pacing in favor of one that that feels right and matches the conditions you experience on the course. Last fall in a very hot 12-hour time trial, I slowed after hour 9 when the temperature became an issue. Several of my age group competitors then passed me as they kept hammering onward. But they all dropped out by hour 11 and I won the age group.

Promises to maintain a set schedule of goal paces and times.
You might be observing these standards, when they are beyond your ability or current level of fitness. If you blindly persist it will likely lead to injury or sickness. If your plan is going south as you approach race day you may well find that a somewhat more freeform approach will work better. Once in a while forget about pacing and do some runs and rides just for pleasure. Often your fitness will improve and your goals become obtainable as you find your own natural pace.

Promises to quit.
Some athletes do this at some arbitrary age or when they can no longer maintain some previously obtainable pace. I once promised to reach my athletic peak at age 55 and indeed I did finally do an ironman when I attained that age. Then I realized that I could still get better, so I broke that promise and went an hour faster the following year.

Thus, I have found that many promises I have made were unworthy of me and I have benefited greatly from abandoning them. Do you have commitments that are not working for you and holding you back? If so, by all means break those promises.

- by Bill Nicolai