Training Willpower

I am exceptionally hard on myself if I ‘quit’. Not saying that is a good thing. In my head I would likely start to quantify why I am struggling (e.g. lack of training) then move on to why I deserve to be punished by this suffering so I learn my lesson to be less sh!t in training and consistency, etc. I need a shrink not triathlon :laughing:

Not sure where that comes from but deep rooted and probably from childhood. There are times I really should stop for my own good and not just in sport but it is a struggle. I would consider myself resilient in general but that isn’t related to my stubbornness, if that makes sense.

@Jorgan is right on putting pressure on yourself and that can stop it being fun even if you love exercising.

I am sure Matt Fitzgerald dedicated a chapter of Iron War to the “Community of Suffering”. Let me check…

Chapter 4: Pain Community.

Same as me there. I quit my 110+ mile winter ultra across the Brecon Beacons in 2019. I could barely walk, my ankle was the size of a watermelon, i was almost 100 miles in and i still had something like 4-5 hours left with worsening weather. I was moving so slow i was getting colder and colder. The only sensible decision was to stop, despite beint almost 30 hours in, i’m super proud that i managed to make such a rational decision.

Do i care about any of that? NOPE!! I was still annoyed about it the other day when i was thinking about events. 18 months later, and it still p*sses me right off!!!

I don’t think that’s good necessarily, but it certainly keeps the fire burning inside of me that will hopefully stave off a future DNF. I don’t want that feeling again.

Really interesting thread.

I’m a stubborn bastard. Once a seed has been planted in my head I find myself generally motivated to achieve whatever the target is.

I think accountability helps. Whether that’s your coach, training partner or your wife/partner.

If I’ve said I’m meeting a mate at 6am Sunday for a ride I’m going to be a massive cock to let them down.

For me personally like many others, juggling your work/kids/partners time is a fine art. If I’ve got a slot to get something done it’s probably my only chance in the day so I’ve got to get in with it

This is my biggest issue currently and where I really struggle. I can have the plan, and even get my kit on and sometimes start but then children interrupt this and I have to go and help out. It is very hard to then start again. As @Mungo2 said, if he gets off the bike during a long turbo, he rarely gets back on.

Some really interesting responses on this thread by the way

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That’s the one for me. I’ll never let a mate down unless it’s really serious. But i’ll much more readily bin off a solo session.For this reason i try to plan my big sessions with friends.

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Yeah the amount of times my wife has kicked my arse after finding me sitting in the sofa when I’ve said I was off out for a run on my own!

I would suggest that this involves a conversation with the wife whereby once the ‘kit is on’ you aren’t available to help out unless it’s an emergency.

:slight_smile:

Gordon Byrn has written a fair bit on balancing family with training, well worth read if you have time.

ETA: could your current motivation/will power be down to fatigue due to the lack of sleep? When mine was baby-toddler I bought a running buggy 2nd hand off ebay. It was a great investment, she loved going out in it and often had a good nap, wife loved some free time and I got run.

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aside from Gingerb above where there is a clear necessity to stop…this is about value and experience…

With the exception of pulling out of races (only had two DNFs, one ultra and one IM) I could’ve written that.

I really struggle with this and with my back history, I don’t even know why I do it sometimes. Mrs FP and I had a discussion the other day about we would have changed our lives, my answer is always the same ‘I wouldn’t have had Little One’. (not very Father of the Year but there it is!).

I have a lot of baggage in my life, from financial adversity, dealing with divorce on my own in Oz, lots of operations and lots of moving houses, jobs and countries. It wears you down and to continue to train in all of that is hard and gets harder, the older you get.

Mrs FP said to me other day ‘why do you always have to do the extreme thing’? and my only answer is that if I don’t keep moving and striving, I’m absolutely scared shitless that it will all grind to a halt and as we don’t live near the sea and I can’t surf every day, it gives my life meaning when other things aren’t ideal. This seems like the only thing I’m in control of.

I have learnt to embrace an endurance ethos, rather than ‘I’m a triathlete or runner or cyclist’ I just do whatever I feel. But I do seem to be ‘all or nothing’ like just today, I’m getting sharp pains in my knee, which can probably be fixed with rest or just walking but my mindset defaults to ‘your race is over’ even though it’s 6wks away.

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As all said above, it’s a tricky one.

You could go with the “no one forces a child to play” as in if you’re not enjoying it, you might need to look at why that is?

I should point out, that I’m a single man with a 9-5 job, so my reasons come down to purely CBA

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Maybe someone like @Memphisraines can tell us why we do this to ourselves ??

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His posts are the best …

Obviously bonkers but seems a really nice fella, I think I’ve seen him in a race ?!

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@hillwall you are very successful working in your own way, I am also successful working in my way. We are not clones, If we look at a distribution of training motivation, I am a pretty extreme outlier, probably in the 99.5th percentile, while you are “only” in the 90th percentile, just look at IMJ to see where the median is.

I think I am like @gingerbongo in many ways. In life I am pretty relaxed, I hate conflict, I am fundamentally pretty lazy, I am disorganized. As soon as I am training or competing I am 100% the opposite, I am super competitive, I have no issue with conflict, I am as far away from being lazy as one can be, I am super organized.

I have gradually realized that I enjoy pain, I push myself to experience pain because I enjoy it (As I write this I wonder if I need help). People complain about hot races or cold races or windy races or wet races, I thrive under those conditions.

Its interesting when I see @Jorgan comments, I also love that I am at a level of fitness that I can do other events competitively, without specific training, however, I also enjoy the specificity of training for an Ironman

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Don’t know if this will help….

Some may assume, being obese I have little willpower, but I have at 27 stone completed 2 hour karate classes, completed the loch ness marathon and triathlons at 20.5 stone, and been told by an exotically oriented lodge master that I have strong willpower. I also pretty much gave up fairly heavy drinking. I also worked my way out of a broken home will an ill mum in a Scots council estate, through Uni, and the professions, and somehow managed to get through a subsequent quarter century of difficult family life.

So, how have I done this?

  1. Focus on what you are trying to achieve.
  2. Putting the crap to one side as you plod on (which could be fatigue in a race).
  3. Realising that it doesn’t really matter if you are successful or not, as life will likely give you further opportunities to try again.
  4. Not giving a sod what others think. It’s about you growing as a person. We are all different and at different stages of our journeys.

Now more specific…

  1. Think about when you started to train, you might have ran a half mile, then three quarters, then a mile and so on. That trained my willpower.

  2. I also, at the 10 mile and longer stage, had a weekly 10 miler where I aimed (and succeeded) to get the out and back to pretty much precisely the same time to the minute, most of the time.

  3. I don’t care one iota about ‘winning’, for me it’s all about pushing my physical and mental boundaries.

Now some further thoughts…

  1. Recognise that willpower is often misunderstood (Sloggers is obese so he obviously has no willpower, for example), as it comprises a multitude of facets to do with you. Eg, it could be avoiding any sort of addiction (yet extreme sport is addictive); it could be (and I have had this verified by several others re an account given to me by the respective person), someone who is an esoteric society felt so much energy through the sword he was holding that he had to drop it mid ceremony. His will to keep hold wasn’t sufficient. It could be as simple as overcoming the fear when asking a girl out on a date when you were younger. All willpower related.

  2. So, and I realise that this may mean little to you, and hence be of no help, but in case it might, work on ‘knowing yourself’ as best you can. Understand why you do things, and what motivates the motivation. That may help.

  3. But if you are not the philosophical type, set yourself manageable targets eg running, and try to find ways to enjoy achieving them. As noted above I used to get a lot of enjoyment for doing that out and back run to the minute identical each way.

Hope something in the above helps.

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This is pretty much me as well. The only difference is that I have never had any shit in my life, I guess I have been lucky. I wouldn’t change any aspect of my history, I am happy with what I am today, and my past is what has made me

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Good stuff. I think the first of these is probably the number one thing for me to consider - every time. Whether it is racing, training, junk food, alcohol, gambling plus a million other things, taking a few moments to reflect on whether I really want deep down to be doing this. Maybe just to think - will I be happy with this decision in 24 hours time and try and make choices based on that rather than what I am feeling at that point in time.

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Reading back my last comment makes me sound a lot more miserable than I am.

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:grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

No. I think we all get what you’re saying here, and have experienced something similar at one time or another, hence all the responses. Which have all been super interesting tbf. All killer no filler so far.

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