Published Articles
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WHAT IS YOUR
MOTIVATION?
By Lara Brown
PART
1 - The Big Picture and Blown Speakers
So the
front, right speaker in my Subaru Outback is blown
out.
I’ve often wondered why one speaker blows out before
the rest, but I guess I’m glad that only one of them
rattles these days.
I have to confess, it wasn’t the crazy nights
bumping around w/ my posse that caused the damage,
it was probably driving to swim practice at 4:45am
on a weekday morning, playing Radiohead much too
loud for the majority of the population.
Getting out of bed is hard, but
not so bad because my favorite part of those
mornings is the drive to the pool, the empty freeway
and even though it’s still dark the birds sing along
giving us false hope of an early northwest summer.
My seat warmer is on, my tea is piping hot
and my music, as previously noted, is for lack of a
better word, loud.
Stripping down to my suit and
walking out to the pool deck is painful, it’s that
sense of cold that creeps under your skin.
The competition (short course meters) pool
was completely empty, and there was no one behind
the blocks to indicate procrastinators intending on
swimming portions of the workout.
No coach either.
My other options are the warm pool (short
course yards and about 10 degrees warmer) or the hot
tub.
Eight weeks out of knee surgery and I hadn’t been in
the hot tub in what seemed like ages.
Hot tubs exist on pool decks for most
swimmers to stare longingly at, or to get verbally
berated by a coach for pretending to stick a toe in.
With no sensible thought of a long warm-up, I
parked it in the hot tub.
For 20min I sat and stared at the clock
watching and hoping no familiar swimmers would walk
out of the locker rooms towards the empty cold pool.
As I sat there I concluded that if no one
showed up I would just go home.
That got me thinking, what
motivates me?
What drives me to get out of bed before our
automatic heater turns on, and jump in a cold pool 6
days a week?
It was about five years ago when determined I
would become a swimmer and started swimming masters,
that’s when I started feeling that awful feeling.
The feeling of diving into cold water before
your body is awake enough to generate its own body
heat.
Just the thought of that moment makes me gag, diving
in and coming up for your first stroke with a chill
that pierces your bones.
Why do I do it?
I like competing.
I like going fast, I like pushing myself as
fast and as hard as I possibly can, and I like the
competition because they push me even harder.
I like the adrenaline rush of cornering full
speed in spikes through a cross country course,
tucking in aero bars down a descent worrying only
about how to get more aero and pass just one more
girl, the shiver that shoots through your entire
body as you realize you do have one more gear with
600meters to go on the track.
If you’ve ever felt your body near 100% at
just the right time, hopefully race day, then you
understand.
If you’ve ever surprised yourself by holding
a pace, finishing strong,
or surrounded by competitors you thought were
way out of your league, you understand.
If you’ve worked months at a sport and one
afternoon realized in the middle of a 60 minute pace
run that you were flying with minimal effort after
dragging your body through months of training, you
understand.
You may ask yourself, what is that feeling
worth?
An entire season of mornings filled w/ gag reflexes,
getting on your bike w/ no energy when everything
else inside of you screams couch and nachos, aqua
jogging because a sunny day run may put your knee
over the edge,…no not a season, numerous seasons.
I think back on my college running career and
think fondly of only one season, my senior year
track season.
Those few races in 2002 were well worth four
years of high altitude training and getting stomped
on repeatedly by much skinnier BYU girls w/
children.
So without completing a novel, I love
competing, but with all that intensity saved up for
race day, how do you keep your focus, where do you
find your motivation in training?
I like to think I’m a good
coach, but I would consider myself my worst athlete
by far.
I go into overload, become short-sighted and wrapped
up in the daily details of training and on certain
days or weeks I lose all sense of motivation.
In this state of overload there are only a
couple people who understand me as an athlete, or as
they otherwise refer to me, “retarded”.
And knowing this I know who will give me a
straight up no BS response to my tightly wound up
lack of composure.
The first one is my husband, who
unfortunately for me, I rarely listen to.
The second is my previous coach and good
friend who after a “freak-out” morning the other day
only told me 4 words,….but mind you he repeated them
about 5 times.
”You are not training!”
I’m rehabbing, that’s right, I’m rehabbing.
Just being reminded of my main objective put
me at ease, set me back straight on my path and
motivated me to take small steps to achieve that
goal.
And once I reach that goal I’ll renew my
motivation with another big picture, maybe it’s a
race date, maybe it’s a time goal, maybe it’s just
the goal of getting back out there and competing,
really competing.
So what is it that motivates
you to achieve your goal?
It could be as simple as feeling fit,
spending time with good friends, kicking a friend in
the pants up a climb (you’d be surprised what a big
motivator this one is), a release from stressors,
winning your age group or making an Olympic team.
The list goes on and on, but motivation is
something only you can find for yourself.
And once you determine what that motivation
is you need someone to really understand that and
hold you accountable.
To understand your big picture so they can
slap you in the face with it when you inevitably go
into overload.
And as much as we would all like to deny it,
self inflicted overload happens more than we
realize, and much too often for our family and
friends to stomach.
Any decent coach or training
partner can hold you accountable to your training
goals, so find those people in your life who will
remind you when you forget, which you will, what
motivates you.
Someone to kick you out of bed at 4:45am when
you’ve hit the snooze button one too many times,
someone to reprimand you for getting down on
yourself because you’ve lost sight of the big
picture, someone to laugh in your face and call you
a gimp during rehab because they understand what it
takes and what you sacrifice to chase your dreams
down a long steep, dusty dirty trail, blown speakers
and all.
The Sun Doesn't Go Down-
The World of Endurance Sports
By Lara Brown
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The Flaming Lips put it quite simply:
“Do you realize…
Everyone you know,
someday will die.”
I recently spent a week in the Bay area.
I arrived in San Francisco last Tuesday, just days
after an accident resulting in the death of two well-known
Bay area cyclists.
Kristy Gough, also a professional triathlete, was
killed Sunday, March 9th.
While on a group ride she was struck by a police
cruiser when it crossed the double yellow line and struck
three cyclists, killing two of them.
I attended the memorial with a friend and fellow
professional Kelly Couch and her husband John.
Kelly and I talked for a long time about the shock of losing
someone so quickly, Kristy died doing what she loved doing,
living out her childhood dream.
She was happy, but she was gone in an instant.
I spent some time that week with Paul Lundgren of
Fit2Race who then sent me this video (link attached) of a
man named Randy Pausch.
http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=ithct48cqw
I won’t summarize Randy’s lecture here, it is well worth the
time if you get a chance to watch it.
Randy is dying of pancreatic cancer and with only
months left to live, he said goodbye to his students at
Carnegie Mellon University with one last lecture.
Randy talks about living out your childhood dreams,
something we all spend time thinking about, and something a
few of us lucky ones have had the opportunity to pursue.
That Sunday afternoon at Kristy Gough’s memorial, Kelly
Couch said something that I will never forget.
“I see myself in Kristy, I will remember her forever
and I will always race with her in my heart”.
I didn’t know Kristy that well, we knew each other
from racing and I spent some time chatting with her after
the Vineman 70.3 race last year.
As a professional triathlete and a superstar cyclist,
Kristy dealt with her own set of challenges.
She was without a doubt talented, but more than that
she was hard working and perseverant.
She never gave up, and even from the short time that
I knew her; she always suffered with a smile.
As Kristy’s mom put it at her memorial “she reveled
in the suffering”.
My 2007 rookie professional year was rattled with health
problems, limiting knee issues, the challenges of
relocating, a new profession, and new teammates.
Coming into my second year as a professional I’m now
faced with an unexpected long rehab from a recent knee
surgery. It can
be so easy to feel overwhelmed, frustrated and defeated.
But then I remember Kristy and the fact that I am
still here to fight for the boundless opportunities that lay
ahead for me.
And if I lose strength to fight for myself, I will fight for
her.
In the world of Endurance sports we become short sighted;
achilles tendonitis, torn meniscus, strained
hamstring, ruptured disc , crazy work schedule, and even a
common cold seems like the end of the world, but in reality
these are challenges.
How we deal with those challenges not only define us
as athletes but as people.
As Randy Pausch reminds us, you can either wallow in
self-pity and bring down those around you, or you can use
that challenge to motivate others and leave a lasting
impression.
I know my knee surgery will not be my last challenge as a
professional athlete, I will have many more after this, and
I find hope in the reality that each challenge ahead
provides me the opportunity to step up, define myself and
affect the lives of those around me.
Life is a temporary thing, it can be gone in an instant.
Kristy reminds us to attack each challenge as if it
was your last and to do it with a smile.
The Flaming Lips take it one step farther to remind
us that life has boundless opportunities, the world will
never stop spinning, life will go on “and instead of saying
all of your goodbyes,
let them know,
you realize that
life goes fast,
it’s hard to make the good things last.
You realize,
the sun doesn’t go
down,
it’s just an illusion,
caused by the world spinning round. “
Lara Brown a native of Portland, Oregon currently resides in
Redmond, Washington. After attending the Air Force
Academy in Colorado Springs she served 5 years in the Air
Force. She is presently competing as a professional
triathlete, and works as a freelance writer and marketing
consultant. Feel free to email lara@larabrown.net
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Chris Chorak and the team in San Francisco really took a genuine interest in me as an athlete and a person, they gave me tremendous support throughout my 2007 season. Presidio Sport and Medicine will continue to work and consult with me into 2008. With all our history PSM is a great resource for me to have and I will continue to depend on them in a big way.
The team at Clif Bar has been fantastic supporting
me from the start of my professional triathlon career. Their
products, their strawberry blocks and vanilla recovery drink in
particular have been the staple of my training and racing for the
past year. It has been a fantastic opportunity to work with a
company so focused on quality, performance and the well being of
their athletes. I hope to represent Clif well throughout 2008!
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Making the move back to the Northwest has made winter riding quite the challenge, but I was fortunate enough to meet Cindy Biggelstone last year after the Vineman 70.3 and started EMC’s Multi Riding program soon after my move to the Seattle area. After over a year and a half of eCycling with Endurance PTC I’ve seen the results of training with power and I’m excited to now ride a new computrainer focused class in a group setting and continue to improve my riding strength in 2008. EMC is also been a great hub for meeting cyclists, triathletes and just great people in general, so Thanks to the East Side Multsisport Center team for keeping me off the icy roads of the Northwest at least twice a week, what a treat!
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I started using Trigger Point Massage products during my 2007 triathlon season, and since then TP products accompany me wherever I go. A footballer in my gym bag, at the pool, a TP massage ball on the plane, in the car and usually one in my backpack or purse. I believe very strongly in Trigger Point Technologies products and the vision of the company. I am always learning more tools and techniques from their website and understanding more about my body and how I can keep myself on top of my game. Thanks to Cassidy Phillips and the rest of the Trigger Point gang for making me a part of their team for 2008.
Thanks to all my 2007 sponsors for a great year of racing, support, friends, and life experience!
 
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