Feb 04, 2023

ARE YOU A CONSUMER OR COMMITTER?

HOW DO I EXPLAIN THIS? I've discovered a massive secret to improved performance. It will work for anyone...

... if they'll just commit.

Here's the dill.

Once we commit to an A race, for example, everything changes.

We are no longer wandering from race to race, or thinking about maybepossibly doing a particular race like a typical consumer. We now have what the great Napoleon Hill called...

... a definite major purpose.

On such and such a date, I will do X.

I was thinking about this today, my first race of the year, because it was a chance to check if my own definite major purpose was working.

MTB Marathon Nationals.

Once I made that commitment, a number of ideas regarding training came cascading into mind.

Ride MTB almost exclusively, even if on the road.
Go harder on the strength training.
Build a massive Zone 2 base.

In practice this meant, no more gravel riding. I really need to be training the MTB position almost exclusively. I'm only riding the road, when I want/need to do really competitive group rides or races.

I've also increased my RaceDay Ready Cross fit from 12 minutes to 24 minutes by adding a few other exercises along with adding more weight. My baseline is now, 10 pullups and 30 pushups in a row, and deadlifting my body weight 10 times. Daily, or a minimum of 5 days a week.

Mondays and Fridays used to be 60ish minutes in Zone 1. No more. Now, I'm shooting for 2 hours Zone 2.

What I've noticed so far, is my Zone 2 efficiency is increasing. I'm going faster and faster at a relatively low heart rate. I'm never sore from the daily lifting, because my body now thinks that's normal. (Do bodies think?). And... AND... my MTB skills are coming back which means I can go much quicker with the same physical exertion.

None of this would have happened without that commitment.

But, why?

Without the commitment I never would have seen all the areas I could make tiny little improvement...

... which were on display today.

That's a pretty steady effort and all my lap times were within a minute except the last, which I'm attributing to knowing I had the race won and it being my first real race in about 6 months.

There's more to discover, and it will be a lot easier...

... because I'm committed.

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I covered this similarly in the first chapter of my book.