Episode #9 Thriving Through Endurance: Overcoming Challenges and Breaking Barriers in Male-Dominated Sports

Natacha and I had a fun chat about how training for endurance events can help us to thrive and grow as a person, we commented on the unique challenges that women can face when taking part, or deciding to race in typically male dominated sports.

You can find the details for her upcoming workshop below 👇🏻

"Natacha, is a half-British, half-French Sport and Exercise Psychologist in training with BASES, with a background in endurance triathlon and adventure sport. She is the director of The Performance Psychologist, a performance psychology consultancy providing individuals with the mental skills to perform better under pressure. Natacha is particularly passionate about supporting female and disabled athletes with the aim of making the sporting environment a more welcoming and inclusive space for everyone to enjoy and thrive in. In her spare time, you are likely to find her (if your navigation skills are good enough!) up a mountain somewhere remote, ski touring, running, cycling, or climbing."

Website: https://www.theperformancepsychologist.com/

Instagram: @the_performance_psychologist

Workshop info

Navigating Perfectionism in Sport
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/navigating-perfectionism-in-sport-workshop-tickets-869216729637?aff=ebdssbdestsearch&keep_tld=1

When: Monday 22 April at 6:30pm

Where: online

Do you put too much pressure on yourself? Do you have such high expectations that nothing ever seems to be enough? Does this lead to self-criticism?

Let's dive into the complexities of managing perfectionism in sport, by exploring the high expectations we set for ourselves. The workshop starts with an activity to help uncover perfectionistic tendencies and offer a straightforward examination of how perfectionist traits influence training and performance. 

We will then share practical techniques to alleviate the pressure and anxiety linked with perfectionism and to help you break free from the endless cycle of self-criticism and unrealistic standards. By embracing a balanced approach, which emphasises progress over the elusive notion of perfection, you can extricate yourself from these self-imposed constraints.

This workshop aims to help you reconnect with your enjoyment of sport without the burden of unattainable ideals. Join us to start your journey!

--------------------------------------------------------------


Follow Celia at Love The Rain Triathlon Coaching

Website: https://ltrcoaching.co.uk/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovetheraincoaching/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ltrcoaching

If you find value in what I share and want to support my work, your contributions mean the world. They help me continue creating helpful content, and inspiring others to chase their triathlon dreams.
Buy Me a Coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lovetheraincoaching

Transcript

0:03

[Music] hi I'm tiia boothman founder of LTR coaching and I'd like to welcome you to the inspired triathletes podcast where I'll be bringing you stories from female triathletes and taking on topics that are important to women in the sport okay hello and welcome I'm here today with Natasha a sports psychologist and we're going to chat a little bit about mindset and who knows where we're going to go in this conversation there's probably a lot that I want to ask and a lot of information that she's going to be able to share with us to help you to perform better and even just you know have a better mindset generally in life because we know that racing can help you to develop that side of yourself so Natasha we'll start off with just a little bit of background about you you know how did you get into sports psychology you know what was it that excited you about that and yeah got you started hi Celia thank you so much for having me on a podcast um so it it was a bit of a random story as to how I got into sports psychology um as I was telling you before I was born and brought up in France and actually psychology is just not so much of a thing there I you can't really take it as a subject at a you know at our equivalent of of a level the Borat and so I just didn't have any exposure to that at all and I I started thinking about it when I watched a TV series so a bit random but there was this really powerful um woman who was a psychologist in this TV series and she was really outspoken very knowledgeable uh very strong and I was like you know I'd like to be like that and so then I started thinking a little bit more about it and looking into the different types of psychology and I've got a background in in sport I've always done loads of different sports love it and really um there was this moment um in in University when I was going through some family bereavement it was a really tough time and you know I was it was the first time ever that I just didn't have any motivation to get out of bed in the morning and I'm one of these people who's normally up at the crack of dawn to go and exercise I'm an early bird I love it and it was just it was it was terrible but I had just assigned up to an Iron Man and so I got to a point where I was like okay I really need to actually do some training for this and that really gave me like that routine that sense of purpose um it just really got me going and helped me you know through this time and of course once you are swimming cycling running you feel amazing because you get old endorphin so it was also great for the mental health side of things and so that's kind of um how I I I got into um sports psychology I realized it was an actual thing that uh I could do and so I then went through all of the qualifications process which is a long long process and and now I've started up my sport psychology consultancy the performance psychologist and I work with athletes one-on-one um to support them in performing better under pressure really and and I also do workshops um to support teams or or groups of athletes um around you know different topics in in sports psychology so um that's kind of a an overview overview yeah what so what TV program was it would we know sex education watch sex education I haven't watched it actually I know a lot of people that do but yeah so the mother of the main character is actually a sex psychologist and she is just an absolute Powerhouse um and I mean sex psychology wasn't really my thing but you know I made it worked for me yeah and it was like a a female a strong female role model and inspiration to you that's really cool and so you were training for Iron Man um and that was what so you you were you were having like a tough time emotionally and mentally but you kind of found that Iron Man was made you get out and made you go and and do things that you may not necessarily wanted to do and had you looked into the psychology of it before then or were you just like I need to get out and train for this bloody iron yeah of course no it was it was I had no idea I mean I I've always done Sport and I always know that sport makes me feel better so um so it was just and I didn't really have much choice because it's you know as we know it's very expensive to sign up for an Iron Man and it's quite a daunting Prospect once you once you've done it and you want to do it well so once but it's really that routine that gives you it just helps you um uh just do things well get get things done um in a way it provides some doesn't it to your day when you may be feeling like what what's just happen it's like you know having having the rug from pulled out pulled out from under you and you're kind of like looking what what can I focus on where can I have some kind of structure and routine in my life because everything else has shifted and changed I guess it's something to like hone in on and and get something that you can control something that you can put your mind on as well it takes a lot of time to train for an iron manand doesn't it so you're out there abely and it gives you a lot of energy as well you know I think once you've done the exercise and then you can then slot in all the rest of the things you need to do in your day around that structure um so yeah it's like something to hang everything else off of yeah cool which Iron Man did you do um Iron Man Austria actually which was a fantastic um kind of first Iron Man because it's a really fast course and it it's just perfect I mean it was perfect conditions when I did it um and I mean I was brought up in Europe so I have a bit more tolerance to to you know yeah exactly but it wasn't it wasn't even that hot it was about you know 21 degrees or 22 degrees which is perfect I mean the lake was probably on the on it was really the you know there was this big thing about whe whether we were going to be allowed to use wet suits or not and we were just on the edge of the cut off which was a little bit of stress because I'm quite a weak swim swimmer but um but yeah it was it was beautiful kind of Rolling Hills um and uh and and a very flat run so a really good beginner Triathlon to do yeah so how did you feel at the end of it uh incredible it was uh it was very funny because my my supporters can believe but it was actually so much easier than the training the race was it's it's it's crazy isn't it you go through such a hard time to train and and actually the race if it goes smoothly um is actually pretty easy so and it's the first time I don't know about I'll go with it but it's it's the first time that you also in a long time that you get to a Run Cycle swim on Fresh legs and it's the it's the best feeling you know of really being very well I was very well tapered I don't know if that's the thing but very well rested and it just felt incredible oh nice yeah and there's a lot of support as well isn't there when you're out on the course it's that sort of atmosphere that gets you around whereas when you're slugging out in the rain on your own on a b it's not quite the same as it so it's worth yeah worth it for that feeling oh that's amazing so I mean you you trained for that long distance event when you were going through some tough times are there any other kind of common mental challenges that you find people face or you know that you faced as well when you were doing that well I I think you mentioned it yourself um when like keep maintaining that motivation through a really long training block especially as most of the racing season will be in summer so actually you've got to do quite a lot in Winter and frankly the winter conditions in the UK mainly for for for cycling um are just yeah can be very difficult and and so it can be really difficult to uh to maintain that commitment it's it takes a lot of sacrifice because um you know you can't always go and do all the things all the socializing for example that you might want to do because you're weekends have to be in a certain way a little bit um uh designed around your training um and I think what can really help is to know your why and and really understand what is driving you and I find actually a lot of athletes don't really know their why they'll often answer that question with you know with their goals so for example oh I'm doing you know I'm I'm doing this because I want to complete an Iron Man and then you ask well why do you want to complete an an Iron Man and then so somebody might then say well okay I well I want to challenge myself but then there are so many easier ways to challenge yourself let's be honest you know um so then so but but why why why do you want to change yourself in this way and so by asking that question why a couple of times you might then get like an answer for for example like I want to challenge myself physically so I can really test my limits um to inspire other women to do the same so that was kind of my yeah my why and and actually that's much more powerful than I just want to complete an Iron Man yeah or get a medal yeah ex exactly well that's yeah that's worse because it's outcome yeah it's outcome orientated um and so I think really having that clear why can really help you when you're struggling um with with motivation in your training but even in in the race and can really be hugely motivating yeah I like that your why sounds very similar to mine because I remember watching Iron Man and it came through uh the town and I was you know like wow the atmosphere is amazing it's like just I've never seen anything like this before it's so cool and these um you could I could imagine these people have put so much of their energy you can tell they put so much energy into preparing for this one day and what they'd been through probably I could sort of see it and and imagine it in my head and this one woman stopped at a feed station that I was hanging around on and she said to the guy oh can you just put this there and you know she asked for some help from this guy and I was like wow she must have been through a lot to to do that that's amazing and then that was part she inspired me to do it plus the whole atmosphere of the day and when I went round the course that was what I was thinking to myself these girls there was like kind of younger girls teenage girls with their families cheering I was like every time I went past when I was like I'm hopefully inspiring you to see that women can do like really hard amazing things and it is like you say it's a powerful thing to be able to think in your hairs and to just to get you through the training also get you around the course when it's feeling tough as well it's like I'm being a beacon of inspiration or something along those lines to people and yes it's a great great uh why but you're right there are a lot of people that don't know their why they're not sure exactly why they're doing they got a vague idea but and it's usually surface level isn't it like that it's like I want to do an Iron Man because I've seen someone else do it or or whatever but you can't but there's usually something underneath that they're not quite tapped into and if you can unlock that it's going to be a huge it's going to make a huge difference okay so um how about have you noticed any differences or kind of yeah being aware of any differences between the challenges that you think women and men face when they're preparing for events or even just like competing an event as well um well I think women can set really high standards for themselves um and and I didn't say that men don't don't do that but they um uh women have sometimes a tendency of you know the combination of really high standards and then not feeling like they are ever good enough and ever uh able to to achieve these standards and with Triathlon I think it's a sport that naturally attracts these high Achievers already um because I mean you know one sport is not enough let's let's do three so so you're you get um a lot of women who who probably um score quite highly on the perfectionism scale um and and I think there's sometimes this myth that perfectionism is is a good thing to have in sport but it's actually not conducive to high performance it it leads to putting a lot of um of pressure on yourself uh so a lot of anxiety and it can also really affect your enjoyment of the sports uh on the long run so um so I really I mean I I'd recommend if if an athlete is is frequently having those thoughts that they are not good enough to really sit down and and have an honest written reflection if possible because I think writing things down is always really good for clarity and to go over their journey and really focus on their progress rather than um you know this this idea of of a goal or trying to reach this elusive notion of perfection that that will just never be achieved and so um so really trying to focus more on that progress um and that journey and also rethinking the the way that we look at goals and we kind of approached it a little bit this idea if you have a goal that's um very very outcome orientated like you know I want to medal at this race or I want to run a sub three-hour Marathon or something like that it's uh it's very restrictive because there's a whole lot of things you will not be able to control during that race um and so it it can be uh were just a bit disheartening sometimes and it it can be better to to have goals that are process orientated such as you know I want to finish my Marathon strong and if you're if you're focusing more on how you want to achieve things rather than the actual results um it takes off a lot of the pressure and and also can can just be much more satisfying and still be really good for performance you know you don't have to choose one or the other I I don't know how do you do any goal setting with um with your clients yeah I mean we do and it varies it's it's almost like you have to change depending on where that person is and what situation they're in um and and how much we know about them as an athlete as well so it can be quite tricky to do and I always say it's probably better for them to because they're going to know what they can do on race day it's probably better for them I can give them a kind of an idea you know if we're looking at times and things like that it's very very difficult to predict I know I did it with Iron Man when I was training for Iron Man I wanted to do a certain time I kind of knew my what I was capable of so I gave myself a bandwidth and and something that I'd seen was giving yourself like different goals so you've got like a bronze goal a silver goal and then a gold goal so if I get so you don't go away thinking oh I didn't do any of those things um so yeah and even if you have a mechanical on the bike or something you could still perform well on the run or you know there's that way of looking at it there's so many things you can do aren't there with goal setting and I did hear something about that kind of having a secret goal as well you know you kind of say oh I only want to finish you know I'm not bothered people all say that won't they but actually in their head they're like I want to go sub whatever and they won't vocalize it because they're a bit scared maybe of it but then obviously when they don't achieve that they're disappointed and upset because they were like but I wanted to do that in the back of the they didn't tell youone about it they're still like and everyone's like well you completed it what are you upet about cuz I didn't do that but he didn't tell he didn't say you were going to do that one to do that so it's important to know like those goals and kind of weed out isn't it like okay what is it that you really want and is that really realistic or achievable and can we change it or adapt it or have some options open for you I guess that's that's how I approach things generally with goal setting yeah um I I think that's a great way of doing things and actually I like the secret goal is an interesting one because my perhaps I guess the gold um level goal that you were talking about that would probably be a secret goal for me but it's something that I will only or or or just something that I I wouldn't tell other people about but then I would not really focus on it till like I'm probably halfway through the run on an Iron Man or something like that or or at a start of a run an Iron Man and I all of a sudden know that there's a lot more that I can control yeah and and then I can start looking yeah yeah and I can start and and also I'm just not one of these people who's like obsessed with pacing and so I won't look at my watch I'll do a lot by when I'm racing I do a lot by just perception of you know how I feel and and then it's only towards the end end that I might start looking at my watch and thinking actually this is what's achievable for me and if I start putting you know if I've got a bit of energy in the tank I can start pushing and and so that's how I take the pressure off myself and I know it works for me but I know that also it's different for other people because lots of people love the idea of of being quite measured and and really going you know following a a specific pace and and all of this kind of stuff yeah I think I'm a bit more like that I like to sort of have a lot more control over what's happening which isn't all you know if something goes wrong I that's what I learned I suppose through doing that was if something goes wrong like I had a bad swim at the first Iron Man it kind of threw me off then for the the rest of the day I was okay but in the back of my head I was giving myself a hard time about this swim the thing was everybody had an awful swim that time because it was such bad conditions so you've got to remember that as well it's like it's not just you always having you know that but you tend to sort of focus in on yourself then and think oh I didn't do it so well but it's not necessarily the case this is a big thing actually it's um I think we have to be a bit careful with the word mindfulness because people just you know they they they picture kind of uh meditation sitting cross legs and it can have a bit of a bad connotation but it's so important to work on and and mindfulness is just being mindful of your thoughts and and being aware of the thoughts that are coming in and trying to refocus yourself into the present moment and not be looking back onto the past as you say like a past mistake or something that didn't go well because there's genuinely nothing you can do about that and all it does is puts you know it distracts you it's it's a massive distraction from what's happening in the moment and it's taking you away from your current performance and so it's really important to try and and anchor yourself into the present and well in sports like ology we often use Q wordss to do this so if you if you you know notice that your mind is going off either in the past or in the future because you can have you can start you know getting a bit over excited and saying oh my God like I'm actually exactly and it can be a bit like it can be a bit too early to start thinking that way you know and also really put you off your race so um yeah we would often use a qword um based on often it can be often just like a technical thing but any anything that will bring you back into the present so perhaps if you're if you're running it could be something about uh you know your pedal stroke and it could just be or power or something like that uh that will bring you back into the present and and make you focus on something that is really going to help your performance in the now um and and take you away from those wandering thoughts that can be very distracting yeah I love that can you sing Let It Go let it oh no would that work oh absolutely absolutely yeah yeah anything anything that works for you the I do that quite often just with General daytoday stuff we have like if something happened and then one of myself or my husband are start singing that and it brings a bit of humor like okay just it's fine just let it go it's fine but yeah this is funny one um I uh this is a little bit of a Sidetrack but I know we we both do climbing and in climbing uh singing is a great coping mechanism and because especially for you know sometimes for fear because it really helps you to it lightens the atmosphere it gets you uh you know thinking about something else and it can be a really good it's it's quite a well-known coping mechanism so yeah I've used it in triathon as well I did I i' have son I'm sure I've told the story before but there was um time trial I did and it was pouring with rain it was just horrendous and I was like on my TT bars singing chesne Hawks I am the one and only it was just and it was it was just the worst song that you that I don't know why that popped into my head I was really getting into it I did kind of like just because it can be Grim it's like oh my God what am I doing doing out here and I was like come on you can do this and and I think that's just it's a bit of a distraction technique as well from and it's to to take your attention away from from negative things right and enlightened mood because sometimes we can be we have a negativity bias have you heard of this yes yeah so we are much it's much easier for us to pay attention to all of the negative things that are happening in our life and it to be a survival trait because you know we want to identify threats so as to protect ourselves but in our very modern comfortable lives it's actually it really H hinders Us in in a lot of the things we do yeah definitely and if you're aware that you that that happens and it happens to everyone as well because I sometimes us to think now it's just me that is like that but it's everyone absolutely think I can change it as well you can change it because you can notice it and uh that's the words that you sort of reminded me of some words that I I quite often get people to think of that like think of some words that you can use you know In The Swim and they might write in their race plan or on the bike you know like calm relaxed In The Swim when people get stressed and and anxious and you can write things on your bike as well to just remind you to tune into that when you go into I think that's a really good tip for people as well and I think I did some like before the event like when I was kind of there was a lot of riding on my doing well in this event I did some hypnotherapy stuff like before I went to bed and you know how they do that deeper you know go deeper now deeper now deeper now and it C like in the middle of the run when I was feeling awful all of a sudden this word pops it was like dig deeper dig deeper like this and it it came it came into my head and it really helped me just get through a bad patch on the marathon that and it was sort of linked me into that state of being slightly hypnotized I think and I just got into a rhythm and and it works really well so words are very powerful and language the language that we use can have a massive impact on us we need to choose the right or Yeah the more positive words that we can or I don't like to use right and wrong either yeah I get myself in a mess sometimes because I'm I don't want to use that word I think helpful and unhelpful are are good words so instead of of positive and negative we it's like thoughts because you know you it's not NE necessarily negative thoughts because negative thoughts could sometimes be helpful they could often you know they might your life yeah exactly exactly so I think helpful or unhelpful is is a good way of of describing things yeah definitely super important awesome okay so the other thing I wanted to talk about was like we talked about women having these high standards for themselves and and having a bit of a perfectionist mentality how about like entering races and things like that because I know you did kman and you were talking about the low entry rates of women do you think there's a reason that that happens and what we can is there anything thing we can do about it or um so I think there's uh the problem is that competition can be very daunting to women and actually there's a bit of a myth that women are less competitive than men and research has shown that that's not actually true but they are competitive in a different way and unfortunately a lot of these races are set up in with this kind of win at all cost attitude and can feel you know they can need to quite a bad atmosphere um or or once again an atmosphere that's that women don't appreciate as much as as men perhaps um and I think this is especially um visible in big races like Iron Man uh because people have invested a lot of money to be there um they have put so much time into their training and quite like to be honest quite a lot of of people are there for the bragging rights if if you're looking at a certain you know the amateur level so they're not really out there to support other competitors or to be friendly or helpful they they're there to you know have their own performance and I think that can lead to a not very friendly atmosphere and then on the other side of uh you know we have events like Park which is a great example where we have loads of women I think park run is is practically you practically get half half um uh and it's because it's more geared around beating your own previous time yeah then it is about beating other participants and so it's something that I think a lot of women appreciate more and what's interesting is is actually the research is showing that having this mentality of competing against yourself rather than competing against others can be really conducive not only to Performance but also to just long-term enjoyment and you know thriving in in your sport so we I think we have to reframe a little bit this idea of competition and try first of all to designed some events and I actually haven't done the outlaw triath but I've heard a lot about them and apparently they are quite friendly as well so I think we need to try and also potentially have some some um events that are are a bit friendly branding maybe is not quite right for yeah yeah I well it's interesting because it it doesn't even need to be a like a level it's not necessarily uh linked to the level so uh of of racing so at the last Iron Man actually was probably two years ago now um the last Iron Man championships in in cona um some women age groupers started a campaign I don't know if you heard about it and it was called with Superior to against and they were really trying to encourage the female at least at least the um you know uh the women age groupers to to have that supportive attitude of you're actually using other competitors to Spur yourself on but ultimately you're racing against yourself you're racing your race and it shouldn't you know be about beating people and being coming out on top you're you yeah I was talking to to I think it was Heather I can't remember now or it could have been in in a recent podcast that I talked to someone and they were saying the same thing about that you know us collaborating together rather than being like I've got to beat all these people and and win this race or you know that sort of mentality and to be honest I think that's how we should be moving towards as a society really like it everybody should be moving towards we need to work together rather than that kind of um well it's darwinian survival of the fittest idea because that's not how humans really are like genuinely most people actually want to help each other and get on really well so exactly I think if we can bring that into sport where you are in that supposedly competitive environment then it can spill out into other areas as well and it I remember hearing that a long time ago actually about the you know using there was some pros talking about how they you know they they're not you s think oh there's this rivalry between these people because they're at the top and it's like no they're not like that at all they're using each other's performance to inspire each other and push each other on and and be the best that they can be in that moment and that's a really kind of I don't know it just makes you feel good rather than like you know it it makes you feel good about being competitive because it's like well I'm helping other people because competitive has a bad word you know associate in your head this power of language again you hear that word sometimes it can turn people off um absolutely I didn't think I had a problem with it but then I was like I don't want to you know I'm bit or you say oh I'm bit competitive and it's almost like apologetic and it's like what's wrong with that it's fun isn't it competition should be fun competing should be F but it's also interesting so I think federa said that he was I mean he was very grateful that Nadal came onto the scene because he and he wouldn't be half the player he is today without Nadal because because we want strong competitors if we are seeing it as a collaboration it means that we encourage strong competition because that means that we will have more to work towards you know we'll have a higher quality of competition and then we will be pushing harder but if you're if you're all just set about winning then you want you know weaker uh competition just so you can win but ultimately you're not performing at at your um at the ultimate level or pushing your limits um in the same way as as if you had stronger competition yeah and you're not getting as much from it because you don't then start looking at okay where can I improve you know you just don't have to because it's like it's going to be easy for me I don't really have to think about it whereas if you have that competition and that those people around you that may be doing things in a different way or they have different strengths and weakness again I it's language again I don't like to use that word but I'm going to use it for ease um then you start looking at okay well where can I improve in that area or that area and you become more like holistic and and think about a lot of other things that you might not have actually bothered to so it kind of makes you lazy doesn't it that kind of like a no there's no competition I don't need don't need to try yeah yeah yeah for sure but actually coming back to I feel as I didn't completely answer your question if if we are if we're talking about cman as a race specifically um I think the reason they probably less women is that it has a bit of a reputation as a really hard Race So for people who don't know calman is part of the extry um Series so it's the same series that does norsman as well in uh in Norway and so the concept is that that they are extreme longdistance triathlons in harsh environments and so I think because it has that that reput a um it's it probably because of kind of um we haven't really spoken about it but I also think that female athletes sometimes lack a bit more self-confidence um than than male athletes and so I think coupled with that they may just think it's uh it sounds a bit daunting um but what's interesting is that actually because it's a much less straightforward race than Iron Man and what I mean by that is that with Iron Man there's only so much that it's it's more controllable I would say because the conditions um in uh in Iron Man are a bit more controllable you're racing on roads most of the time and whereas cman is a is a TR has a trail um marathon in it it has um a very windy or it's got a a bike course that is notorious for uh terrible headwinds and is very windy and often the weather because it's the north um The W nor north west coast of Scotland it the weather is often just horrible so so it makes it bing exactly exactly um so it's actually people are much less uh uh focused on results for cman very few people going to cman and thinking I want to do a sub4 race and once again they might have idea what you know they'd like to achieve but it's much more about the experience and so I think actually I would really encourage women to to sign up for this race because it's such a great atmosphere and people are supportive and you know it it does attract people who are a bit nuts so it feels like a there's a bit of a clan you know and and then there's a fantastic Kaye um to celebrate the the next day which is really fun so it I I think it's a bit like the difference between sometimes trail races and road races yeah sometimes you know especially these long distance maybe the Ultras it's more there's more of an emphasis on experience rather than maybe completion rather than a specific time because probably there's so much less that you can control um so it's an achievement just to to get to finish that event yeah yeah definitely yeah I think I had a guy that did nor man you get like a different color T-shirt or something don't you IND man if you get to the top in time so there there's a little bit of an incentive isn't there for people I can't remember what it was now he managed to get it just it was like I was watching the truck and going oh come on but you know that's your sort of I guess can be a motivation for people who are focused on a time or or some kind of you know recognized achievement but like you say for those events just turning up and completing them and I have heard you know a lot of people say that about these smaller events that are a bit out there they can be much more friendly because people are just doing them for the experience of the race rather than I want to do an Iron Man because it's an Iron Man branded event and everybody else has done it and so I need to tick that box or whatever so yeah there's more there's a bit more to it than that yeah I yeah I did an event like that that was I think there was about 20 of us did it and it was really nice you s of we started it was very very lowkey um and you cycled from the top of Wales like North Wales down to the South and then you ran up um Snowden cadus and penan on the way and you had to have like a car you know you had to have someone that supported you on that you know picked up your bikes when you were running drove it to the bottom of the bounc in the next bit so that you could cycle the next bit and I remember turning up at the start of this race and it was like there's all these people just it was horrendous weather of course and we stood there in our kind of like

what are we doing 5: 40:50

00 in the morning pouring with rain just miserable and it was June as well well it's like just awful I didn't have enough clothing and it was like but I felt like yeah I'm part of this tribe it just felt good even though there was about three women doing it or something it still felt like nice atmosphere and yeah people weren't they were more relaxed and something yeah yeah it was a good good vibe so yeah people remember that then um it might encourage them to go and do it and sometimes the photos you see like for noran they always whenever I think of it I imagine that photo they've got that photo and there are people standing before the swim on the edge of the ferry going looking really worried I don't know if I want to do that because it looks really nerve-wracking but I've heard it's not as bad but everyone's also worried at the start of any start line it's always too early in the morning it's always cold it's often dark and you're just like what am I doing here and it's and it's a I think it's contagious as well everybody feels like that and as soon as you're out there and doing it it's absolutely fine and it gets a lot better yeah it's true it's that kind of pre like when you're waiting for something to happen and you just want to get in there and get on with it don't you and as you say as soon as you start swimming it just all it's all gone and you're just happy to be in there yeah doing that event awesome so I mean we kind of talked about this a little bit with but I just wanted to talk about cultivating a positive mindset and you know you building that resilience in sport we touched on it a little bit at the beginning but is there anything else that you wanted to say about about having that positive mindset and what we can do to help us so I think first of all we have to uh so resilience is really our our ability to recover quickly from from setbacks yes and I think this uh the best way to do that is is to and as you say we've spoken about it but is to embrace a growth mindset I don't know have you ever heard of of a growth mindset it's quite it's pretty self-explanatory um and it's yeah just because I know doesn't mean yeah exactly I mean it's it's about um it's about this idea that uh you know our abilities are are not set and that we will uh they grow through hard work and every Challenge and every difficult situation that we overcome is helping us to to build um our our skills and our abilities and so if if you Embrace uh you know this growth mindset you will actually actively seek out difficult situations you know to help you grow and learn more um and and so in that way you can see setbacks as opportunities to learn something rather than this negative thing that holds you back and I think a really good example is how you approach injuries and this is very I think very relevant to Triathlon but uh you know obviously it's it's devastating to get an injury and I think you do have to let yourself grieve a little bit maybe you know let out those emotions have a bit feel of it so sorry for yourself uh for a bit but then you know you've got to approach it in a proactive way and think of actually when else do I have all of this spare time you know normally training takes up so much time what can I do to you know to use this this time in uh in a constructive way and you can go to the gym and do all of those strengthening exercises that you never have time to do work on your glutes and your ankles and all the imbalances your Mobility that you've been told by your physio to do hundreds of times so that you can know come out stronger you can work on your mental game so for example there are things like mindfulness and visualization that are they're really skills that you need to practice and over and over again and once again it can be quite difficult to find a time to do that when you're training but it's a great opportunity when you have that extra time you can also um work on on your tactics and your strategy you can also take a bit of time off and socialize and see those friends that you've been meaning to see for the last you know forever and so if you approach injury from the kind of proactive way of I'm going to get the most out of this possible then you can actually get come back from injury stronger wiser more mentally relaxed uh in a much better position than when you you left and then you just build up that that physical fitness which will often come quite quickly um if you know for because of muscle and memory and things like that and and you can actually be in a much better position and that's an example of of growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset which is this idea like well either you have it or you don't you know um and and there's it's a bit the whole nature versus nurture debate in Talent acquisition and okay some people may be born more talented and and maybe you know may have more skills in some parts but it's pretty well established that whatever happens you need to put in a lot of work and put in a lot of deliberate practice in order to hone your skills so um embracing that growth mindset is really um appreciating that any setback is an opportunity to learn and to get better at uh you know you do yeah definitely yes I think that kind of thing has helped me in the past it's easy for people to get frustrated and look at everything that they've lost or everything that they can't do and oh I can't do this and I can't and you go on that sort of you know we talking earlier about how we're programmed to look at the negative and netive bias and that's what can happen when you get an injury but you can turn it around and say okay what can I do what is within my control how can I make this into a A Better Learning opportunity or something that I can build on and and improve and maybe like you know notice I found from getting injured I notice it sooner now as well it's like okay how can I recognize this quicker next time because otherwise the same thing keeps happening to you it's like the universe is trying to tell you something here learn this lesson you didn't get it this time you're going to have to do it again so yeah every time you you you have those setbacks it is you're being you're being sent a lesson really aren't you like how can I how can I learn this lesson and move exactly and the F the Fantastic thing about being an athlete is that you with experience you get to know your body really well and I think that's a fantastic gift in a way and as you said you can really learn from these injuries and learn to listen to your your body and to understand the subtleties between is that a twinge is that just a bit of muscle soreness or am I just a bit tired or is that you know an injury that's about to happen and so I think that really comes with experience and is is a nice a nice feeling yeah it is because it's means you've got control over that or you and you feel more in in touch with your body you've got that kind of knowledge and it gives you that feeling of yeah I'm in charge of this it's not just something that's kind of happening to you you're actually proactively taking charge of it and doing something and doing what you need to do to keep yourself healthy and and fit and able to compete and perform well amazing okay so have you got and like is there what do you think the most important thing for people to sort of take away from today's chat is that's a really hard question was the most important there's so many things well actually it's it's something that we only mentioned in passing but I think is really important for endurance uh Triathlon endurance any kind of endurance event and it's the way we talk up to ourselves and and you mentioned it with um with that you know when you were kind of overly focusing on the past we all have an inner voice in our heads and in during a triath we have so much time on our own and so it's really important that a we are conscious of how we speak to ourselves and be that we have strategies to you know to to to speak to ourselves in a more in a better or more helpful way um so I would recommend I think a lot of people are not even that aware sometimes of of what they say to themselves so i' first of all recommend that over several training sessions over several competitions to really just listen to that voice is it overly critical is it encouraging um is does it does that depend on how your performance is going um do you have these kind of scripts that come back over and over again do you say the same things to yourselves so first of all notice them and and then um well a couple of tips um first of all if you are um speaking to yourself often we speak to ourselves in the first person but a great tip is to speak to yourselves in a second person have you ever done this before I've heard this yeah so you yeah go on so yeah yeah so instead of saying uh I know I can do this um I would say you can do this Natasha and it sounds like somebody else is is saying it to you and so it's much more powerful because we tend to believe other people over ourselves uh so that's a really easy one um and then I think when you're having unhelpful thoughts there's a really great great way of distancing yourself away from those thoughts and that's comes back to the mindfulness that we are talking about um and so if you instead of something like you know if it's oh I'm so slow I'll never make it you could say I'm having the thought that I'm so slow and I'll never make it so if you just put add I'm having to thought that in front of any thought it totally dist it takes you away from that thought and it kind of makes you realize that it's just a pass passing thought not a truthful description of who you are and and so it's much easier to yeah to not believe it because if not we can we can start believing these random thoughts that come in and out of our minds and and it can have a really bad you know bad effect on our emotions um so that's another those yeah that's great and I remember doing when I first start started training for an Iron Man I was like right I need to kind of work on my mindset because I knew that I could get in sort of negative spirals with things and I would there was an exercise in one of the books I have where you go and you write it all down so you said talked about writing earlier and how powerful it is so anytime I would have a thought when I came back from my training session I'd write it down or I just even sat there like without training sometimes and wrote it down and then went through and go okay is it true what's a different belief that's another technique isn't it so you say if if it's if it's true then how can I frame it in a different way and if it isn't true then what can I say instead of that that's not that's going to be more helpful to me when I'm actually thinking that thought and then you can change because you know that thought's going to come up because it might be a repeating P whenever it comes up you replace it for the other thing that you that you wrote down and that can also help I found that helped me quite a bit and then I wrote things all over the place I had like it's a paper with things written on I had little cards and stuff like that I mean you can go to town on that kind of stuff can't you it's pretty cool some of the things you can do absolutely to help your brain I I think reframing as you saying is another technique that's often used and it kind of depends because I think some some unhelpful thoughts can be very difficult to break out of and so that's what that's when the just distancing yourself from it can be quite a good technique because they've taken years to build up haven't they you're not going to just suddenly go oh yeah I don't feel like that anymore you've got to have yeah you need work to do so depends it really depends on the situation so reframing as you were saying you could have this I'll never make it this is too hard and in say instead I'm doing my best and whatever happens I'm learning from this experience once again it goes back to that growth mindset right but sometimes it might be a bit difficult to believe yourself but you know it's it's about testing out these different techniques and seeing what works for you specifically I think that believability is really important because it is you know you can your your brain knows when you're lying to yourself or when you're sort of like bending the truth of bit and it can be and then it'll start arguing with it want that going on to you yeah well a good way of I think of countering that is also being uh being clear on your values and so if you were you know once again a lot of people don't really know what their values are or haven't sat down and really thought of four or five values that are really important to them and so if you can then link up and you know for example if your uh if your one of your values is challenge or um then reframing it to uh I know this is difficult but I'm doing my best and I'm learning from this would actually be quite compatible with your values and could would then potentially be more uh more convincing yeah yeah that's true yeah that's a good point about values and writing those down as well as well is I think you know is worth people don't take the time to think and write and you know go into that stuff but it's so powerful when you do it makes a huge difference to anything really that you're going through because when you're aware of something you can do something about it exactly if you're not aware then you can't change you can't grow you can't you're just sort of stuck because you're not even aware that you're sabotaging yourself sometimes isn't it you know it can be just like yeah self-sabotage with certain ways of thinking and I mean I understand you know training Pat triath takes up an enormous amount of time so uh but it is a shame to arrive to a race that you've been training for for six months plus and and your you know your physical training is there and then you're let down by either I mean I'm so surprised when people don't have a proper nutrition plan for an Iron Man for example I mean it feels like what are you doing you it's such a basic thing and it's such a shame you've spent so long and so much like hard work on the physical side and and that might all be completely negated by Just A nutrition and it's the same for the mental side it it could just be if something props up that you haven't prepared for it could could really you know make or break your race yeah and it's going to in an Iron Man you're going to have something you can't avoid coming to terms with something along the way so it's better to prepare for that before the event then end up in a in a state and you can practice that in shorter races as well but yeah I think the longer distance and the more challenging an event the more you're going to face some some truths about yourself and some things that you can learn from so it's amazing I think it's great that you know we're able to do that really how it is what a cool way to to explore ourselves and learn about ourselves amazing okay um so I know that you're running some workshops for triathletes who want to work on their mind set and prepare for races so if you want to just have a quick introduce about that I don't know how long have you got you you all right for time yeah absolutely okay that's fine then yes so go go ahead yes so um I'm doing a couple of uh um workshops uh based mostly on uh triathletes but also runners or cyclists or people of the different different sports and one one of them we did speak about perfectionism and how this is something that specifically can can often um you know really hold people back so I'm doing a workshop on perfectionism on Monday the 22nd of April um I'll put we can put all the links I can send you all the information um and it's really going to be about first of all um identifying where we stand on the perfectionist scale because because there are is actually um a range um you're not either a perfectionist or or not we all have different traits um so it's about ident being first of all that awareness of of what Tendencies we have and then trying to make a bit more of an action plan uh around you know really a reality check about actually how we're doing towards our goals rather than you know setting ourselves up for for failure with expectations that are way too high um so yeah if you want more information about that um yeah all the all the info will be in in the show notes I'll put links to your Instagram and your website and then the workshop as well um but yeah you know you'll know where to find Natasha and it's been really good talking to you what's on the horizon for you racing wise have you got any events planned uh to be honest I have just got a gravel bike and so um it's not like I have enough bikes nice bikes behind you they must be clean if they're hanging on the wall that that is a good point I don't actually live in Wales so um there is there's a lot less mud here um but yes uh so I'm I'd like to get into some long there's this have you heard of the frontier 300 it's a um it's a a ride race uh basically along the Scottish borders from one from from the one Coast to to the next so I'd quite like to do that it's in June so I'd better get going and start training but it's a nice uh yeah it's a gravel biking race and they were saying that precisely they don't have enough women who want to sign up for it it's 300 kilometers which is probably the longest I'll ever have done on a bike in one go so it will be a challenge but I think it should be beautiful and yeah I'm looking forwards to it yeah that sounds amazing which way do you go from east to west or west to east um let me think I think it's from west to east hopefully get the wind behind you hopefully it's a long way to get a head wind I know and there probably will be loads of wind because it's you know um Scotland so yeah yeah I know oh that sounds cool well if any people are listening to this and think yeah I want to enter it then there's some inspiration for you sounds really good well thank you very much for talking with me Natasha it's been great to have you on and I hope you have a great rest of your day thank you Celia it was fantastic speaking to you too have a great day bye bye thanks for listening today have a great day take care bye for[Music] now