How To Stay Mentally Fit

This season has been an exercise in patience. After an inevitable surgery on my ankle in April of this year, I was hopeful to get back to racing on two feet again this summer. But, like any injury recovery, it’s neither predictable or linear. This particular recovery was actually one of the tougher ones I’ve experienced: with many setbacks and not a clear road back to running. In fact for the first time in a long time, I felt like running was something I would never get back to.

With any set back, a person’s mentality can have great control on your outcome. After being through so many, I thought I had this down. I thought I’d be fine after the initial disappointment, I’d pivot, regroup and build back - just like I’d done before. But for me, this time, it was different. I found myself more depressed, not as motivated and generally frustrated with my lack of progress.

I finally realized, that this season wasn’t guaranteed a delayed gratification. I had to purposefully work on my intensions for the year and work on my mentality to get through these low moments, and have a more sustainable relationship with running, and myself. So here’s what I did.

I focused on what I could do. This sounds so simple to do, but it’s actually quite a challenge. I found myself constantly stuck in the future, picturing myself on the other side of this injury - this might see positive, I was visualizing a positive outcome and future - but it was equally destructive and taking me out of my current moment. I had to intently focus on what I could do, each day and feel grateful for the things I could do. This started with cycling and cross training, but also spending time with friends and family, going to the museum and engaging in parts of my life that were completely separate from sport.

Next, I picked goals which challenged and scared me. This built off of focusing on what I could do - cycling. I have been riding a bike and doing gravel races since 2019, but I hadn’t actually focused my attention on racing or trying to get stronger and faster on the bike. So, if I could cycle and felt strong doing it, I decided I wanted to try to race! For the first time, I raced in the elite field at Unbound 200 (one of the most competitive gravel races on the Grand Prix circuit) and I placed 21st. Since I couldn’t race an early season running race I had planned, I pivoted and tired my first bike packing race - the Trans Atlantic Way, a 1500 mile self-supported race across Ireland. These races truly challenged me and pushed me way out of my comfort zone. I liked what I was discovering about myself - that I had courage to try my hardest regardless of a result. So I signed up for Leadville 100 MTB and I finished under 9 hours (big belt buckle) and earned an elite bib after only 6 weeks on a mountain bike.

But I think the most important thing I did to stay mentally fit was to purposefully work on valuing myself not based on results, but on the process of trying my best regardless of a result. This was something I did almost every day. Trying something new is scary. The feeling of wanting to give up, or do something ‘easier’ or ‘more familiar’ never goes away. I missed running so much this season, and I learned to love cycling and being a beginner again.

I think I was so depressed by the slow progress of my recovery because I forgot to be patient with myself, I forgot to value parts of me outside of sport, and I got caught up in results based success to teach me things instead of learning from slowing down, setbacks and imperfection.

The more I did these things - focusing on what I could do, goal setting through challenging situations and valuing myself through the process of failure, the more motivation I felt, the more momentum I gained and the more balanced I felt. So even though I haven’t raced on two feet as much as I would have liked at this point, I feel more mentally fit than I ever have.

Injuries and setbacks can make you feel broken. But they are also opportunities to discover parts of you, and inner strengths that you’ve had all along - and of course, an opportunity to work on mentality and flex that muscle as hard as you can.