When you’re ready to quit.
Are there time when you are competing in a triathlon, or even during a grueling training session, when you think “OK, I’m done. I don’t need this” ? I know these times come to me. But triathletes get through these thoughts. We ignore them, muddle through them, shout them down, whatever it takes.
I love this quote by champion triathlete Natascha Badmann of Switzerland. She has won the Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Hawaii in 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, and 2005. Badmann, who by the way, is a married social worker with a daughter, trains up to 35 hours a week. Three times a year she goes to the Canary Islands to train where she has to deal with the heat and fatigue to prepare herself for Hawaii.
“Everyone who does a triathlon comes to that place where the inner voice says, Why don’t you stop? You’re tired,” says Badmann. “If you realize it’s all in your mind, then you can try to manage it. I wasn’t born that way I work at it every day.”
If you’ve ever seen her race, you can see she has a positive, friendly attitude. But it helps me to know that even top triathletes work on the mindset too.
September 4th, 2009 at 12:15 am
Natascha Badmann is a truly inspirational Female triathlon, thank you for sharing this quote with us! Going to the Canary Islands to train sure would be a fantastic training location!
April 15th, 2010 at 10:02 pm
i have noticed a trend, confirmed by age group results in Triathlon Life magazine, of women over 50 falling out of the ranked athletes. i have seen fewer women in their 50’s in races, and i wonder why? menopause? different focus? life changes for men as well, but there are still a full page of ranked competitors listed, and my husband can never win, because in every major race, there are many men in their late fifties who still run/bike/swim like champs. lucky for me, i show up, and there are maybe 5 women my age, ready to go for it.
May 1st, 2010 at 4:51 pm
I wonder why also. Maybe part of the answer is somewhere in why do you still compete (kudos, by the way)? You enjoy it, you feel good, you have time? I’m in my forties now, and I see this a little in my age range so, actually I look forward to competing later I will actually rank much higher than I do now (ha!).