Matters of Mettle

Question: Adventure racers seem to have super-human minds to keep going in those long races. I’d like to gain that same mental strength. Do you have any tips?

Answer: My anatomy of a successful adventure racer is someone who is very driven to achieve and has a willingness to do whatever it takes to accomplish different tasks. These people also really enjoy the physiological changes your body goes through during these events. This forces them into a place called the zone, where there’s complete absence of outside thought. With this kind of profile, it’s so much easier to endure the pain, suffering, and sacrifice. You have to have a strong desire, will, and sense of purpose. You have to know why you’re doing it. Otherwise, you’ll stop. Doing extreme sports such as adventure racing is like going to battle. The thrill is about surviving. It reminds me of a quote from running great Roger Bannister: “In the joy of going all out, I forgot my pain.”

Maybe you’ve done some adventure races and had problems. That’s natural. The mind can play tricks. To overcome this, you have to get in touch with your purpose. You have to decide: Is this worth it for me? These aren’t extraordinary people doing these events. Assuming they’ve done the training, ordinary people are all capable of extraordinary things if the motivation is there and you keep in touch with why you’re doing it.

Question: I recently had a bad crash on my mountain bike. I’ve recovered, but now I get scared when I ride because I don’t want to crash again. I ride really slowly or even walk on tricky sections that I used to ride no problem. What can I do?

Answer: Boy, can I relate to this. I once crashed and broke my collarbone while mountain biking. It took me a long time to ride without being afraid. But fear is a natural way of protecting you. It means you’re not ready to go fast yet. This happens to everyone, even the pros such as such as Travis Brown, that I deal with on the Trek/VW mountain bike team. He went through this when he broke his leg earlier this year. When I broke my collarbone, I did not go near the trail where it happened for a year. The first time I returned to the scene of my accident, I rode so slowly. But I got to the bottom and said, “I know I can do it.”

When coming back from something like this, don’t go out of your comfort zone. It takes awhile to recover emotionally from the shock. Your fear will go away as you gradually increase the time spent on your bike. In time, you’ll forget you even had a crash. Before you know it, you’ll be back where you were or even better.