I’m going to write something here that is going to upset a lot of people. But for many others, it will resonate. And hopefully make them feel they are not alone and that they can redefine their own success and more importantly, enjoy sport again! But I also want to write this for its wider meaning: For all the business owners, entrepreneurs and other busy ambitious people I work with, there is a message in here for you too, about the dangers of moving your own goalposts and getting swept away with the smoke everyone else blows up your arse.
Over the last twelve months, it’s been a challenge to step down from racing and training to the degree that I have, to focus on some underlying issues with my body that just needed addressing. But it’s also been an enforced period of reflection. And I’m so glad of that. It’s the thought process I never knew I needed, which I could never have had if I hadn’t had this extended hiatus I did. At the time, it felt like the world was ending. But I’m through the other side and back to having possibly the healthiest relationship with my sport that I’ve ever had.
It started with a goal…
I talk about goalsetting a lot – because they’re important! Mine was this: After watching a close friend go and earn her GB stripes and compete in age group triathlon wearing the famous blue leotard, I decided I wanted to do the same. If she could do it, maybe I could have a go. It was a bit of a pipe dream at first and I went to the qualifiers more to have fun and see how well I could finish next to all the other more “serious” athletes. I rocked up in my bobble hat and over-sized body warmer looking like a child wearing hand-me-down clothing, did my race and went on my merry way having thoroughly enjoyed the unique chance of competing on closed roads and having some proper “bike racing” with other athletes.
4 weeks later…
I remember vividly, the excitement and elation I felt sitting in that sushi joint in Central London on my lunch break on an away day, catching up on some admin and seeing the email fall into my inbox: “Congratulations on qualifying for the 2020 European Sprint Distance Championships!” I was ecstatic. I’d done what I set out to do and so much quicker than I thought! The next bit was going to be an AWESOME experience. I was going to get my coveted blue uniform, see some places I’d never seen before and best of all, get to see them really fast while I whizzed about racing people on my bike and having a good old fashioned race day battle. Afterwards, I’d be able to exchange post-race debrief stories, laugh about the chaos and the silly mistakes and make some new friends I’d hopefully catch up with when we got back home.
But that’s just not how it panned out.
I’ve competed in three age group championships now: Two Europeans in Valencia and Munich and a World Champs in Montreal. And I’ve made a decision. This cannot be my major focus. Let me tell you why.
The focus had become extrinsic.
When I first started racing in that GB kit, it was fantastic to be able to sign up my sponsor – who still backs me today, the Aesthetic Entrepreneurs – to pay for my kit and sponsor me to train. We hooked up some partnerships to pay for a new bike and get me all the kit I needed and wanted to give me the best possible shot at my goal of racing well…and beating others.
And that’s when it got nasty.
Most people in age group sport start out with their own personal challenge – that’s exactly what it was for me. It was proving to MYSELF I could do things. It was mental resilience and the development of that that was important.
But when I got into that blue trisuit, something changed. Suddenly, people were talking about it. Some were supportive, some weren’t. And worst of all, I started to care. I started to feel pressure to look and perform like other athletes. I started to feel like I didn’t fit in, I wasn’t worthy. Worst of all, the focus became about beating people around me, not about judging my own performance. It was no longer about what I could do, but what I could do relative to other people.
I’m a competitive person. And I love the battle of a good race. But at my core, it isn’t getting on the podium that excites me the most, it’s being able to dig into the depths of my mental and physical resilience and leave everything on the tarmac, even if that effort only puts me last in the table.
But now it was different.
It became about me, me, me. At all costs, I had to train and race. This was no longer a hobby, it was an OBSESSION. Worst of all, all the athletes around me were behaving in the same way. It got way too serious, way too quick.
I was constantly annoyed that I couldn’t perform as well as others and the consequence was HORRENDOUS pre-race nerves, a horrible negative relationship with my training and how inadequate it made me feel and a constant depression after racing that I just wasn’t achieving what I wanted to. Because I’d moved the goalposts.
Before it has been about simply getting to those races and enjoying them and seeing what I could do.
But when I got there, I let the pressure around me turn my competitive side into a monster.
And I started to look around and realise something.
Nobody was having fun anymore.
The environment was filled with smoke and mirrors of people pretending they hadn’t trained, or putting out self-deprecating posts about how slow they felt and how they needed to work harder. It became a world of people I watched sacrificing all the things they loved – relationships, family life, social lives – just to compete and inflate their own ego. Or worse still, to berate themselves about how they could do better and needed to try harder or buy more kit or get more coaching.
It became transactional racing. Fly in, train, race, fly out. I couldn’t enjoy a “holiday” element of the travel as I’d imagined I would because my brain was so preoccupied with how I was an athlete and that identity meant “do not enjoy yourself before a race, perform at all costs”.
Perform at all costs.
Yes. That was the danger phrase. And yet, here I was surrounded by other athletes all with the same inner dialogue.
At the time, I thought I was separate. That somehow, I was approaching this with a relaxed attitude and enjoying it more as a result. But it turns out, I was stuck in the same pressure cooker.
And I only just realised it.
Because I went back to my roots. I went back to a BIG chunky challenge. I entered something that was about survival and not about competing. It was a start line where people laughed and supported eachother, where people knowingly helped eachother out on the course because we genuinely wanted every single person to simply FINISH. Where people stopped to check on others. Where it felt like togetherness. And it suddenly made me stop and think: THIS is what racing is about for me. It’s about being part of something bigger, connecting with other human beings. As a coach, it helps me to inspire and enthuse others to perhaps push themselves and try something scary! It gives me the mental resilience to run a business, try new things, do the hard stuff.
Age group racing isn’t something I think is “bad”. There are people who will genuinely enjoy it, who can genuinely extract the pure joy of simply being there. I did. The atmosphere in Montreal was amazing. I just wish I’d recognised sooner that that was the real magic. But whenever anyone asks me about it now, I will always be honest. It’s a great thing to be a part of, but don’t turn into an arsehole about it. Ignore the smoke everyone blows up your arse and remember why you started. Because YOU ARE A HUMAN BEING WITH A NORMAL LIFE. Don’t get caught up in the hype, don’t get dragged into the ego whirlpool and if you recognise you’re changing, have the courage to get out and remember why you started the sport in the first place.
There is nothing wrong with a healthy sense of competition, but I fear that in age group racing, that is starting to come at a higher price than it should. SPORT IS YOUR HOBBY. Yes, I am a sponsored athlete, but my duties as that athlete are not to win or perform, they are to inspire others, to share my knowledge and stories about my experiences to help others in their own endeavours. As a coach, it is not my obligation to perform, but to show my clients that life is about passion and fulfilment and balance.
Now?
Well, I’ve discovered new things, I’ve gone back to being a novice at things and I LOVE IT! Cyclocross Sundays (basically falling off in the mud multiple times and comparing bruises on a Monday morning), my new track bike (zoomies indoors with an amazing bunch of new pals!), getting back to spicy training sessions WITH friends and not solo sessions alone, to be better “against” people.
Next year holds some more chunky challenges, with camaraderie, experiences and stories to last a lifetime and share over a pint afterward because I can enjoy my social life again now I’m no longer a total wanker about my racing life. Because I’ve remembered what success and particularly success within sport really meant to me. It wasn’t trophies and medals, it was connections and experiences.
And that’s why I wrote this.
Sometimes we get confused. We start to measure success by what OTHERS say it looks like. We move goalposts. We set ourselves up for consistent and constant failure. And that makes us unhappy – unnecessarily! Whatever our goals are, when we reach them, it’s important to remember exactly what the big picture was that we imagined when we set out to get here. And keep that in our mind. And then change the strategy to maintain it, find a new goal, an INTRINSICALLY DRIVEN ONE. Reset. Don’t get caught up in the flow of everyone else’s approach and definition of success. Essentially, don’t turn into a dickhead.