Recognize When You Get Away with Something

More times that they realize - and perhaps more times than they’d like to admit - athletes get away with poor habits and behaviors.  Contrary to what they may think (or tell themselves), just because they get away with poor habits and behaviors does not mean that what they’re doing is best.  Developing the self-awareness to recognize when you got away with something in your training is the mark of a mature athlete and is really important to continue to see gains and remain healthy over time.

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Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or health goals. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you heard on this podcast. Reliance on any information provided is solely at your own risk.

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening
• 0:16 Higher-Level Self-Awareness
• 3:58 Things Athletes Get Away With
• 11:50 Habits to Form a Solid Foundation
• 17:31 Set Authentic Goals
• 21:19 How to Identify if You Got Away with Something
• 24:56 The Bottom Line
• 26:08 Closing

Transcript

(0:04 - 0:25)
Hello and welcome to the Full Circle Podcast, your source for insights into the science and art of endurance sports training and racing. I'm your host, Coach Laura Henry. Today, we're going to talk about how to learn to recognize when you get away with something or when you got away with something.

(0:26 - 0:54)
Learning how to recognize when this has happened is a self-awareness skill, and it's a higher level self-awareness skill. Self-awareness is arguably the most powerful skill that an athlete can develop. And self-awareness can be defined as having perception of and knowledge of one's own strengths and weaknesses, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, motivation, habits, and values and beliefs.

(0:55 - 1:18)
The ability to recognize when you got away with something versus when you did something that was wise or sound is the mark of a mature athlete. This is because it requires you to be able to detect and acknowledge a blind spot, which is an advanced self-awareness skill. In order to be able to identify blind spots, you must know yourself very well.

(1:18 - 1:39)
Knowing yourself really well includes the ability to honestly listen to yourself and acknowledge any weaknesses that you detect. Blind spots are attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, or habits that we cannot see ourselves. Blind spots can also be aspects of ourselves that we haven't ever fully appreciated.

(1:39 - 1:55)
For example, an underestimated ability or a skill, whether that's positive or negative. Honestly, I end up pointing out a lot of those to the athletes that I work with, these areas of their life that they maybe don't see or they don't appreciate. I often see that potential before they do.

(1:55 - 2:13)
In athletics, blind spots are things that we do or things we don't see that can hurt our performance. It's helpful to consider four different categories of oneself when we're seeking to learn how to identify blind spots. The first is open self.

(2:13 - 2:28)
This is what is known by the athlete about themselves, and it's also known by others. The second is the blind self. This is what is unknown by the athlete about themselves, but which is known by others.

(2:28 - 2:38)
The third is the hidden self. This is what an athlete knows about themselves, but others do not know. And finally, the fourth is the unknown self.

(2:38 - 3:06)
This is what is unknown by the athlete about themselves and that which is unknown by others. A solid first question to ask yourself as you learn to identify blind spots is this. What do others know about me that I don't? I know, this might seem weird because we don't know what we don't know, right? But even just asking ourselves this question can prompt us to think in new and different ways that can be immensely beneficial.

(3:06 - 3:36)
So once we ask ourselves that, what do others know about me that I don't? A nice thing to follow that up with is what is valuable about what others know about me that I don't? And it may be that we can't actually answer this 100% on our own, but this is where we can seek out others, those who know us, our friends and our family. If you're working with a coach, a coach is going to be able to really help you with this. And by getting that input from others, that can help refine our own self-awareness.

(3:36 - 4:09)
It seems paradoxical that what you get from others might help you be more in tune to yourself, but it's true. If you can start to kind of see yourself from the perception or the way that others view you, that can help you have a broader view of yourself that is more all-encompassing and is more dimensional than how you might have seen yourself in the past. When something goes well in endurance sports, whether that's in training or in racing, the default thought process that follows that going well for many athletes is this.

(4:10 - 4:31)
They think that the method or process that led to the positive result was a sound and a good one. This is deceptive, and it's deceptive because this isn't always true, that the method or process that led to the outcome is a sound one. Just because it happened doesn't mean it was necessarily the best way to get there or the way that you should have gotten there.

(4:31 - 5:03)
This is what makes it a potential blind spot because what actually might be true is that you got away with something. The something that you got away with is an unwise or an unsound process, approach, or method that just happened to work or just happened because you got lucky not to cause negative effects or injury. This something may have a higher probability of leading to negative effects or injury in the future, but you may not be fully appreciating that since you got away with the behavior.

(5:03 - 5:19)
All of this is an example of confirmation bias when it happens. Confirmation bias is the tendency of people to favor information that confirms or strengthens their beliefs or values. And once this happens, it's very difficult to dislodge for folks.

(5:19 - 5:52)
So basically, once someone has something confirmed, it's hard to convince them that it's not the best or it's not true. So what I'm saying here is because the end result was what the athlete wanted or that end result was something that the athlete was okay with, it confirms to them that how they got there was okay. And then they don't necessarily seek to change their behaviors in the future because they expect that the same pattern, the same behavior, the same habits, the same things that they did will work again.

(5:52 - 6:08)
And hear me, there are certainly many times when athletes do something or many things that are good practices, that are good habits, that are good behaviors. But that being said, I've seen over the course of my career that there are so many times when this is not actually true. Also, so both things are true.

(6:08 - 6:35)
Athletes do do things that are good, and then they also do things that aren't as wise. It takes time and it takes experience to be able to discern what is a good habit and behavior, what is something that should be repeated, that has a high probability of generating good quality results, of keeping you injury-free, of reducing that risk of injury, and of keeping your joyful factor high over the long haul. And then to discern from what isn't a good habit or behavior.

(6:35 - 6:42)
It really does. It really does take time and experience in sport to be able to discern this. And this is where working with an experienced coach can be useful.

(6:43 - 7:03)
The process of learning to discern it can be expedited for an athlete if they leverage the experience of another person. An experienced coach is going to see things about an athlete that they cannot see about themselves. And so in other words, a coach is going to be able to identify an athlete's blind spots, and they are going to thus be able to guide the athlete to learn to recognize their own blind spots.

(7:03 - 7:21)
So this is what we were talking about earlier, that seeking the advice of others can actually somewhat paradoxically help you become more self-aware. So seeking input from others can actually boost your own self-awareness. People who exercise versus train honestly have more latitude with all of this than athletes who do train.

(7:22 - 7:53)
And so remember, exercise is physical activity for its possible health benefits, and training is physical activity with a specific longer-term goal in mind. And usually that's improved performance in a particular sport, whether that performance improvement is to do a longer distance than you've done before, or to do something faster than you've done it before, or to do something new that you've never done before. If you're training, you need to be more focused on what you're doing than someone who is exercising, because what you're doing will always impact that road to the goal or to the end result that you're seeking.

(7:53 - 8:14)
And you can go back and listen to Episode 2, Now Impacts Later, for a deeper dive on all of that. So what are some examples of things that I see athletes getting away with? I have several, but this isn't a comprehensive or exhaustive list. Adding more volume to their workouts, especially to their long workouts or key workout days.

(8:14 - 8:38)
Adding in extra workouts in a week or on a day when the athlete already has a workout planned. Skipping rest days or planning rest days inappropriately. Not maintaining an appropriate level of daily hydration. 

That's a big one. Not consuming hydration during their workouts. Not consuming fuel during their workouts.

(8:38 - 8:52)
Getting an insufficient amount of quality sleep. Not including strength training as part of their regular week-over-week training. Not including flexibility protocols as part of their daily routine.

(8:52 - 9:07)
Listen to Episode 13 to learn more about that. Not cross-training. Disregarding how important sequencing and timeliness is over the course of a training plan, both on a micro and a macro scale.

(9:08 - 9:38)
Doing too many of the same type of workouts too close together. So, for instance, running too many days in a row without sufficient rest or recovery in between. Traveling too close to their goal race. 

Listen to Episode 18 to learn more about why that's important. And finally, cramming their preparation for their goal race. So, this cramming looks like not taking it quote-unquote seriously until the last couple of months or weeks before the race or not establishing a strong base before they try to build to the race.

(9:39 - 9:50)
Basically, it's a lack of consistency over the arc of their plan. So, they're not consistent for months or years. They have periods of inconsistency and then try to cram it in at the end to make up for the lack of consistency.

(9:51 - 10:07)
Each of these examples that I just listed out may seem innocent enough and small enough on their own. I know. Because honestly, when they are on their own, they usually aren't that significant, though that can vary from person to person and case by case.

(10:07 - 10:19)
Some people are going to be more sensitive to those things than others. The trouble most often comes when an athlete does too many of these individual things. So, too many of these will add up and it will snowball into negative effects.

(10:20 - 10:37)
Maybe not immediately, and that's what gets deceptive, but it will snowball over the arc of a plan. So, maybe it doesn't manifest right away, but it may manifest in a couple weeks, in a couple months, or maybe even in a couple years. It might take a while, but too many of these things done too long will snowball into negative effects.

(10:37 - 11:01)
Basically, while you may be able to get away with one or two or maybe even a few more of the examples that I gave, the more things that you do on that list, the more you risk your end goal and you risk your health and you risk getting injured. And this is why it is deceptive and why it's a blind spot for so many athletes. Athletes often get really focused on the minutiae and the granular details of their training.

(11:01 - 11:22)
As a result, it's much harder for them to maintain perspective in the larger scope, in the larger picture of their training. And again, that's where coaching is so helpful because a coach is going to be a little bit more unbiased and have a broader perspective there. As a result of this, athletes often don't see that what they're doing may not be the best until something negative actually does happen.

(11:22 - 11:40)
And unless that something negative does actually happen, a lot of athletes assume that nothing negative could have happened. And this is that confirmation bias in play, not thinking that anything negative could have happened, that just because nothing negative did happen, that it couldn't have happened. That's not always true.

(11:41 - 12:13)
And thus, athletes then don't see how the little things that they are doing or not doing, as it were, can snowball and add up to create a lot of risk over time. Athletes get away with things more easily and more often when their training and their events are shorter. So the longer the event, the more on point the athlete needs to be. 

The longer or the bigger the event, the more exaggerated seemingly small mistakes will show up. Like they will really just bloom into bigger problems, the bigger the event. Like you can't hide when you're doing a longer or a bigger event.

(12:14 - 13:15)
If an athlete's approach is flawed, it's going to create cracks in what we can call the athlete's foundation. So using this metaphor of a foundation and a building, a lighter building, a goal that requires lower volume or intensity in training, isn't necessarily going to cave or fall because of those cracks. And quite frankly, those cracks may not even be that visible. 

However, just like this building with a foundation, as you stack more weight, which in this metaphor comes in the form of more or longer workouts in the world of athletics, onto that foundation, the more the cracks begin to make themselves known and they're able to be seen, and the greater the risk becomes that the entire building will collapse when the cracks really become pronounced. So in this metaphor, the more things that an athlete does that they are getting away with, the greater the risk is that they will not make progressions, they will get injured, or that they will not meet their goals. All too often, I have watched athletes approach training like it's a test in school or like their daily training plan is a report card that they're going to receive a grade on.

(13:15 - 13:34)
This approach and mindset leads many athletes to engage in suboptimal behaviors. It most often manifests as athletes trying to get all of their workouts on their schedule or training plan in at any cost. So some examples of this are when athletes move workouts around without considering how those moves will impact other elements of their training.

(13:35 - 13:47)
Or athletes will consider this, and then they'll dismiss it, and they'll move the workouts around anyway, because they hope that their moves won't impact things adversely. Hope is not the same as knowing. That's important.

(13:47 - 14:03)
Another example is that athletes will reduce the amount that they are sleeping to get a workout in. So they might get up earlier or stay up later to get a workout in without adjusting for that on the other side of their sleep. So if they're getting up earlier, they're not necessarily going to bed earlier to ensure that they're still getting a good amount of quality sleep.

(14:03 - 14:14)
Or if they're staying up later, they're not sleeping in later to account for the same thing. Another example is that athletes will not hydrate or fuel their workouts because they quote unquote didn't have time. I've heard that so many times over the years.

(14:15 - 14:29)
To plan for those details before the workout happens. So this is especially true for time crunched athletes or busy people who have a lot going on. They just rush from one thing into the next without necessarily planning for how they could do it optimally.

(14:29 - 14:46)
They just want to check the box and get it done. And while I am a big subscriber of something is better than nothing, I am also a subscriber of I would rather that athletes get a higher quality something in. So that might mean reducing workout duration down to plan for some of these details.

(14:46 - 15:01)
So it means that if you need to cut a workout short by five minutes to ensure that you have a bottle packed with some hydration and that you pack some snacks so that you have some fuel. That's what I would prefer to getting in the full duration of the workout. We don't want to just check the box at any cost.

(15:01 - 15:19)
And finally, another example that I'll share is that athletes will cut the warm up or the cool down of a workout if they run out of time to do the entirety of a planned workout. And as much as no one likes to hear what I have to say about this, you need the warm up in the cool down both mentally and physically. There's so many reasons why that's a whole other podcast for a different day.

(15:19 - 15:29)
But if you're pressed for time, you should actually be cutting some of the main sets of the workout. You should not be cutting the cool down or skipping the cool down or skipping the warm up. That's not the right way to approach that.

(15:30 - 15:37)
And so I know what some of you may be thinking. There are a lot of things that need to be true and that need to take place in order for an athlete to reach their goals. That's all true.

(15:37 - 16:09)
But thinking of a training plan or a workout schedule as a graded exercise that you get credit quote unquote for is a flawed approach because it can lead to less than desirable behaviors like those that we just discussed. Remember, a goal is a thing that you have deemed to be more important than other things. So what things are you willing to sacrifice or carve out of your life in order to make space to accomplish the goal that you've set for yourself? Like we discussed in Episode 14, Respect the Distance, there are many more people who exercise than people who train.

(16:09 - 16:28)
If you are going to set a goal, that means you want to train. And this means that you need to treat your movement practice differently than someone who is exercising will treat their movement practice. If you are going to train, if you are going to set goals, it requires that you make sacrifices and prioritize your movement practice over other things in your life.

(16:28 - 16:44)
It's as simple and it's as hard as that. All too often, athletes don't actually prioritize their goal over other things. They'll set the goal, they'll speak the goal, but they don't fully acknowledge that for it to be a true goal, it needs to come before other things.

(16:44 - 17:00)
It doesn't need to come before all other things, but it does need to come before most other things. In order for a goal to truly be a goal, most athletes are going to have to carve something else away in their life to make space for it. Time is a zero-based budget.

(17:01 - 17:09)
You are already spending every minute of your day. By default, that's what you're doing every single day. So you need to allocate how you're spending it.

(17:09 - 17:23)
You're going to need to change how you allocate how you're spending your time in order to make space for a goal. In other words, the goal is not automatically going to be prioritized over other things. You need to actively prioritize it over other things.

(17:23 - 17:43)
Only when something is prioritized over other things are you truly demonstrating that something is more important to you than something else that you could be doing. My opinion is that athletes should seek to engage in the habits that are going to best help them reach their goals, simply because they are the habits that are going to help them reach their goals. Maybe that sounds basic.

(17:43 - 17:57)
Maybe it sounds simple. But we should seek to engage in the things that are going to help us get to where we want to go. We should seek to engage in the things that we know are good for us, simply because they are good for us, simply because they're going to help us get to where we want to go.

(17:57 - 18:11)
We shouldn't need to get credit for it. We shouldn't need to feel special for it, per se. We really should just do it because we know that it's going to get us there, because the end result is going to feel worth it to us.

(18:11 - 18:29)
So maybe it doesn't feel good in the moment, but it will feel good later on. Because honestly, and this might be hard to hear, no one but you is going to care if you reach your goal or not. Your family is not going to disown you, and your friends aren't going to stop hanging out with you if you don't meet the goals that you set for yourself.

(18:30 - 18:48)
Honestly, if they do disown you or stop hanging out with you, these are not people you want to hang out with anyway, so you'd be better served to find some new friends. I'm kind of joking, but also kind of not. No one who actually cares about you is going to think less of you if you don't hit an athletic goal that you've set for yourself.

(18:48 - 19:01)
So your goal only truly matters to you. And since your goal only truly matters to you, it doesn't matter if you get quote unquote credit for it or not. I always encourage athletes to set authentic goals.

(19:02 - 19:13)
Authentic goals are goals that matter to an athlete and are in alignment with an athlete's true self. Knowing your true self and therefore setting an authentic goal is an act of self-awareness. A big act of self-awareness.

(19:14 - 19:42)
A good way to gauge if your goal is an authentic goal or not is to ask yourself this question. If only two people other than you in the entire world will know that you achieved your goal, will it still be meaningful to you and or would you still want to work towards it? So imagine this. If you could only tell two people that you accomplished your goal, would it still matter to you? If the answer is no, then you may be setting a goal that isn't in alignment with your authentic self.

(19:42 - 19:51)
You may be setting a goal that is heavily influenced and motivated by external factors. Now hear me. I know we are social creatures and sharing is a part of our nature.

(19:52 - 20:21)
I'm not saying we shouldn't. But what I am saying is that while accolades, cheers and external rewards are certainly nice, research, along with my experience as a coach and an athlete, shows that they are not sufficient motivators. You will have a higher probability of maintaining motivation and a higher probability of reaching your goal if it's an authentic one that aligns with who you are as a person and what truly matters to you, not what matters to somebody else, not what you think your friend group cares about, what matters to you.

(20:21 - 20:48)
If a goal is an authentic goal, if it's something that is truly important to us, then we should not be seeking to accomplish it at all costs or by taking shortcuts. The reaching of the goal will be, and therefore will feel, that much more significant if it is accomplished via a series of quality decisions made by an athlete who has the overall long-term process in mind. An athlete who does this also has a higher probability of staying healthier and reducing the risk of injury over the long term.

(20:48 - 20:57)
I want to be clear. We're not seeking perfection here. I'm not saying that you need to do every single thing exactly right all the time, every single day, day in and day out.

(20:57 - 21:18)
That would be an unrealistic goal. What we are seeking is a high percentage of quality, well-thought-out decisions and choices over the long arc of our training, because these stacking up over time is going to lay down a really solid foundation without a lot of cracks. We want to have quality decisions over the long arc.

(21:19 - 21:39)
How do we pragmatically begin to determine if we got away with something? One way is to review your recent training or the training that you had leading up to something that was important to you in the past. So you could review the training leading up to a big A goal race that you had or the last time you trained for something like a marathon. Maybe you're training for a marathon now.

(21:39 - 22:04)
Maybe review the last time you trained for a marathon if you've done one in the past. And this is where maintaining a good workout log is really useful. Whether it's an analog notebook log, like where you're writing things down, or if you're using a digital platform such as Final Surge, workout logs are so, so important for reflection, to help develop and cultivate self-awareness, and to help guide future training choices to help serve you well.

(22:06 - 22:52)
As you're doing this review over your past training or over your current training, ask yourself how you really felt throughout your training and about the end result of your training. So how did you really feel about your goal race performance or the results that you had? And how did you feel along the way when you were working towards that result? If you're reviewing your current or recent training, ask yourself how you really feel about where you currently are in your training. How do you feel right now? Are you actually happy with it or are you placating yourself and telling yourself that you're okay with it? So with open eyes, take a look at what you actually did over a period of 2 to 12 months, whether you're looking at recent training or you're looking at something in the past, and ask some questions.

(22:52 - 23:42)
Did you cut workouts? Did you skip workouts? Did you add extra volume to your training? Did you manage your intensity of training well? Did you move around workouts a lot? Did you develop a nutrition and hydration plan? If you did develop a plan, did you stick to a nutrition and hydration plan throughout your training and in your race? Did you get quality sleep and appropriate amounts of sleep over the course of your training? Did you incorporate recovery modalities? Did you cross-train? Did you incorporate rest days appropriately? Did you try to cram things in only when you felt the time pressure of your looming race state? There are so many other questions we could ask ourselves, but those are just some to start with. All too often over the course of our training, we do cave to confirmation bias. I get it.

(23:42 - 24:05)
We want to see things that make us feel good, and we want to see things that confirm our preconceived notions about things and our preconceived notions about ourselves and who we are and what we do. It is far more difficult to confront the reality that what we've been doing might not be the best thing. And this is especially true if what we've been doing is something that we've been doing for a long time.

(24:05 - 24:44)
It does not feel the greatest, to say the least, when we realize that we were wrong or that we did something that didn't serve us well. By taking an honest look at our previous training and by asking ourselves a series of thoughtful questions, we can start to cultivate a mindset where we are open to the possibility of other options, beliefs, techniques, habits, and practices. So as you ask yourselves these questions and as you answer these questions, consider what you could do differently in your current and future training that would enable you to take less risk, remain healthier, and see better results.

(24:44 - 25:10)
And by doing this, you'll start to be able to determine when you're engaging in something that is a sound behavior or when you're doing something that you're getting away with. Regardless of whether they are professionals, elites, experienced, or beginners, great athletes are self-aware and they are realistic. And let's be clear, you can be a great athlete at any stage of your athletic journey, whether you're a beginner or whether you're advanced or elite.

(25:11 - 25:24)
Great athletes recognize both their capabilities and their limitations. The fact that they recognize their limitations does not mean that they give up on their goals or that they don't try to get better. In fact, it's honestly the opposite from what I've seen.

(25:24 - 25:42)
Great athletes work on and with their limitations. Great athletes are able to recognize both when they did something that was a sound, good practice and when they did something that wasn't and when they got away with it. They can then take that information about what they got away with and apply it moving forward.

(25:42 - 26:12)
They can use it to inform their choices and decisions in their future training and racing so that they can continue to make progress, see results, and reach their goals. So to you, seek to grow into a great and mature athlete who can harness the full power of this skill so you can try to reach your goals, not by chance as a result of the something you got away with, but on purpose as part of a wise and sound strategy. That was another episode of the Full Circle Podcast.

(26:13 - 26:29)
Subscribe to the Full Circle Podcast wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. If you like what you listen to, please be sure to leave us a rating and review as this goes a long way in helping us reach others. The thoughts and opinions expressed on the Full Circle Podcast are those of the individual.

(26:30 - 26:53)
As always, we'd love to hear from you and we value your feedback. Please send us an email at podcast at fullcircleendurance.com or visit us at fullcircleendurance.com backslash podcast. To find training plans, see what other coaching services we offer, or to join our community, please visit fullcircleendurance.com. I'm Coach Laura Henry. 

Thanks for listening.