Mojo, Lost.

I’m an athlete. I’ve always been an athlete. In fact, I flounder a bit when there’s no huge athletic goal on the horizon: no race coming up, no training schedule to plan my day around, no sense of that awesome damn-I-worked-hard-today fatigue seeping through every muscle and ligament, no falling into coma-like sleep while imagining all my little apple-cheeked cells multiplying and shoring up my fitness. I’d also be lying if I didn’t admit to liking the fact that I’m that girl who does Ironman — that sense of being a teeny-tiny bit of a celebrity among my friends (if only in my own mind).

But this past summer, after years of training and racing hard, the unthinkable happened: I lost my mojo. I began showing up at races just wanting to (GASP!) get it over with and go home. And during races, I watched women run by me and thought, “There you go now, looking good, go right on by me, that’s so totally fine…” For the record, that never would have happened prior to my mojo running off with someone younger. I never would have let someone pass me without mounting a significant challenge. I didn’t always win said challenge, but it would have been a fight to the death, for crying out loud! There would have been sailor-worthy expletives bouncing around, fangs, bloodshed — and a certain level of healthy rage coursing through the ole veins. Now the only thing coursing through them is olive tapenade and cheap Chardonnay.

So what to do? For many athletes who lose their mojo, this is the million dollar question. Perhaps it should be obvious — take time off, right? And often that works. But sometimes, when you’ve been at it for a while, it’s bigger than that. There’s a deeper fracturing of the spirit that no physical rest can cure. And you can (as I did) end up in a funky no man’s land where you’re unhappy racing but you’re unhappy not racing. So I’ve been noodling this around and — spoiler alert — I have no neat and tidy solution. What I have realized is that there are some truths about racing competitively. And maybe understanding these better is a path back to another long fling with your mojo.

Three Really Unpopular & Completely Unscientific Truths of Competitive Racing

When you race hard, it hurts — really, really hurts
I usually “retire” at about four different points in any triathlon. Yes, sometimes you have that race where the sun, moon and stars align and you are given wings to float over the ground, barely feeling a thing. But those are rare. Most would be lucky to have a handful of races like that in their whole career. The rest of the time it just plain hurts. And that fact can wear you down emotionally, especially when combined with the next point.

Improvement will hit a ceiling
I know, I know… it’s such a discouraging thing to say, but it’s true. There will come a time when we kill ourselves for a minute here, a few seconds there. But this is true for everyone. If it weren’t, our world-class athletes would be closing in on the speed of light. At some point, we will swim the fastest we can swim, crank out the most watts we can crank out and run the fastest we can run. What then? How do we maintain our passion while continuing the pain-fest? See, it’s easier to accept the pain when performance gains are still on the upswing. We get out there and think, “Wow! Look at me! I’ve shaved 10 minutes of my last 70.3. I can’t wait to race again — to see if I get even faster!” And then maybe you do get faster. But eventually that rate of improvement slows and then what? The plateau becomes the problem — it’s tough to stay passionate in a plateau.

If you’ve been racing competitively, it’s extremely difficult to let go of the “all or nothing” mentality
Okay, here’s a story for you — one that has taken me a long time to admit to anyone and remains a massively-annoying mosquito doing frequent fly-bys of my head. Three years ago, I DNF’d at a 70.3 after a major bike malfunction only one mile from T2. (Spare tube fell into rear wheel, which snapped derailleur and chain, bent frame. Game over). I ran the last mile (in bike shoes) carrying my bike because the rear wheel wouldn’t turn. As I entered T2, I slipped and fell on the pavement, bruising my hip.

But here’s the thing: my hip wasn’t that bad. It didn’t actually hurt much when I started running. However, my ego was severely injured — it had a major stress fracture. I had been with the leaders in my age group on the bike and was positioned for a podium finish — a slot at the championship maybe. But that dream quickly faded after the bike mishap and the hip bruise gave me the perfect out after the first loop of the run. I could forever talk about that race that went south because of my “crash” and “hip injury” — and those things really did happen. But in reality, there was no reason — none whatsoever — that I couldn’t have finished the race and still had a decent result. Just not the result I wanted. What really happened was that I didn’t want to explain a non-podium finish to those who would have expected it of me. Instead, it was easier to blame it on the crash and save face. I share this because it’s an example of the “all or nothing” mentality — a mentality that gets really exhausting and emotionally draining after a while.

Somewhat recently, Lava Magazine ran an article about how problematic it is when athletes race out of fear of what they don’t want to have happen, instead of in excitement to showcase their capabilities (I’m paraphrasing here). What happened at that race was a perfect example of that playing out in real life. It’s hard to do, folks, but sometimes we have to remember that we’re doing this for fun (unless you really do race professionally) and put things in perspective. But it’s hard, really hard to accept good (or not-so-good) results, when you’ve set the bar at great results.

But back to the mojo search. So far, it’s been a slow journey toward making peace with these truths. It’s been realizing that nothing external can force an internal shift (so put down that super-expensive aerodynamic bike contraption). It’s been a gradual process of finding a new height at which to set the bar — not necessarily lowering the bar, but just redefining it. For example, I used to start racing in May and end the season in October/November — and I loved it. It worked for a few years. But now, my three young kids have gotten busier, with soccer and swim meets of their own, and a long season has become a grind and a stress. But here’s the kicker: the only one putting this stress on me is, well, me. So, for next season, I’m focusing on only two races within a shorter training window — a real change from seasons’ past. I’ve also come to realize that some seasons I can give my training and racing 110% of my focus. But other seasons, it may only get 75%. And that’s ok — it’s my own version of “redefining” the bar. And the bar may need redefining every single year, or even within a season.

So if your mojo has run for the hills, is it possible that a past approach needs rethinking? Is it possible that some other aspect of your life needs top billing for a while, and then you can put racing back on top? Or perhaps mojo is a real-time barometer of where we need to focus — when it’s there, we race our pants off. But when it’s not? We try honestly to find what’s really calling out for our attention.

P.S.: I wrote this essay in early September, after a miserable performance at the USA Triathlon National Championship in Vermont. And when I say “miserable” I mean that my time would have been better had I walked the race backwards eating donuts. Then a family tragedy occurred. My stepfather was killed in a motorcycle crash, which (understandably) threw me into a tailspin. So I stepped away for a while — as in didn’t pick up a pair of run flats, goggles or bike helmet for a full six weeks. The longest break I’ve ever taken (except to pop out three kids). And I can report that it has done me a world of good. I’m getting the fire back — plotting for a strong finish at Ironman Lake Placid in July.

P.P.S.: As I write this post script, I may or may not be hiding behind furniture in the dining room eating a mini Butterfinger from my son’s Halloween basket so that I don’t have to share it with him. Nobody can prove anything.