As I wrote about in a previous article, the most common means of assessing how your training is going is how your body feels. If your body feels good (e.g., rested, illness and injury free, sleeping well), keep pushing. If your body doesn’t feel good (e.g., tired, hungry, sore, sick, injured), then it’s time to back off. The problem is that when your body starts to push back against your training efforts, you’ve probably gone too far, and it will take a while to get back to your body feeling good again.

So, you may ask, “How can I know when I’m pushing too hard before it has taken a real physical toll on me?” That’s where the mind comes in. Because the mind is more sophisticated and, well, intelligent than the body, it can offer valuable information about where your body is headed long before it starts to go down the bad road of overtraining, fatigue, illness, and injury. In other words, your mind can be a really helpful guide when managing your training volume and intensity.

I experienced the power of the mind in letting me know how I was doing in the weeks leading up to 2023 USAT National Multisport Championships in Texas a few weeks ago. My coach, Dr. Greg Rhodes, had me in a very demanding six-week training bloc with both serious volume and intensity leading up to those races. For the first five weeks, I was responding well to the heavy training load based on what my mind was telling me (here’s a list of signs to look for):

• Highly motivated
• Looking forward to and enthusiastic about workouts (even hard ones)
• Excited about triathlon and life
• Emotionally even keeled
• Feeling confident
• Relaxed about upcoming races
• Generally optimistic about life

My body felt equally good with consistently good effort in my high-intensity workouts, feeling well rested, no changes in my sleep and fueling patterns, and lots of good energy coursing through my veins. All indications were telling me to keep hammering.

At the same time, with less than two weeks until Multisport Nationals, I began to notice a subtle shift in my mind. Specifically, my thinking and emotions started to head south:

• Decline in motivation
• Loss of enthusiasm for training and racing
• Feeling of dread about upcoming workouts
• Difficulty pushing myself to my limits in my hard workouts
• Emotional volatility (i.e., mood swings)
• Doubts about race readiness
• Growing anxiety about my races
• General sense of melancholy (e.g., depressed, lethargic) in life

In essence, my mind was feeling the wear and tear of my intense training block before my body did. I have to admit that I ignored these signs because I was listening to my body which was telling me full steam ahead. I was practicing what I was preaching without realizing that my preaching to other people and to myself wasn’t entirely on target. It was only in hindsight after the races in Texas that I was able to process my experience of the last few weeks, do a little research, gain some valuable insights into what I went through and, in doing so, write this article sharing my mistake and the powerful lesson I learned.

Interestingly, our minds (that is, our brains) are finely calibrated from billions of years of evolution to detect very early threats to our survival. As early humans, if we waited till our body sent us signals that our life was in danger, it was probably too late. This early-warning system was very effective at helping our primitive forbearers survive, but not so helpful when we’re trying to push our physical limits in pursuit of our triathlon goals. On the one hand, these signals may cause us to stop or ease up when we still need to keep going. On the other hand, and in the present discussion, we would be wise to listen to and respond pre-emptively to these early signs because they will help us to “survive” and thrive as triathletes in the long run.

So how do you best respond to these deeply ingrained, yet sometimes conflicting, signs that your mind sends to you during triathlon season? First, ask yourself if you normally check most or all of the boxes in the top bulleted list above. If that is your “normal,” and you’re still feeling those ways, then keep on pushing. But, if you aren’t experiencing the “normal” you and, instead, are checking more of the boxes in the lower bulleted list a few paragraphs up, you may want to take note and consider modifying your training program for a few days or, if a race is approaching, begin your taper sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, I didn’t learn this lesson until after Multisport Nationals. I ignored those early signs that my mind was sending me and went into those races feeling physically fine, but mentally flat and emotionally “low on gas.”. Admittedly, I still had great results, but, in retrospect, I raced with less enthusiasm, excitement, and energy than I’m used to. The lingering question is whether, if I had listened to my mind one to two weeks prior, would I have performed even better? Of course, there’s no way to tell, but I’m sure I would have had a more fun experience if I had.

One thing is for sure as I progress through my 2023 race season. During this upcoming training block before the World Sprint Championships in Hamburg, Germany in July (and it’s going to be a long and hard one), I will listen to my mind, as well as my body, and if it begins to send me those early-warning signs, I’m going to listen and back off because I’m in our sport to be my very best on race day and also for the long game of staying in our sport as long as my mind and body tell me to.