If you’re training for an event or on a mission to improve your fitness, your motivation will ebb and flow. Once you embrace that fact you can fine-tune personal strategies to keep motivated. Coach Chris Kilmurray has five tips…
1. Embrace true rest
There’s nothing better to keep motivation high to ride fast, improve and suffer than quality, planned rest. Real rest. Feet up, good food, friends and family. If you have big training goals, then make it a priority.
2. Rewards don’t work
If you rely on regular rewards to motivate yourself, you’ll soon find you’re spending more time searching for better or more rewards and less time actually riding. Keep the beer and cake as part of a varied diet, and see the fun and time outdoors on your bike as the real reward.
3. Get your priorities right
If you have clear goals, then your daily choices should match up to those, and motivation will flow for free. Want to complete an enduro race? Then preparing your kit and food the night before your three weekly training rides is a perfect example of priorities matching goals.
4. Fun and friends
Have fun, ride and train with friends! That’s the best motivation there is. Try riding with faster friends and planning fun rides with no goal, set route or duration. Fun always equals progress.
5. Keep track
Keeping a log of your rides and training, using an app such as Strava, will help keep you on track. Seeing all the effort you’ve put in over time will motivate you to do more. Even after a long break, holiday or illness, looking back at past rides and seeing success and consistency will show you what you’re capable of doing.