Three Ways You’re Making Hills Harder

If you’re not working on your mindset, you’re probably making a lot of things harder than they have to be.

Take hills for example.

Mindset affects everything you think about in a race. Big things like not dropping, and small ones like a climbing a hill. 

And you probably don’t even realize it.

For example, you could be doing these three things that make a climb more difficult:

1. You focus on what’s hard about it. 

You look up at the climb looming ahead and brace for how long, steep and rocky it is. You can’t even see the top. 

This is going to take a lot out of you, so you slow down and since it takes longer, it feels longer.

2. You compare it to a similar climb that felt easier.

You think back to the previous loop, or an earlier climb in the race, or last year on this course, or even a similar climb from another course. The other climb is always easier than this one.

The comparison proves you’re not doing well and you feel so defeated, you start dragging.

3. You compare yourself to others catching and passing you on the hill.

Everyone’s faster. You can’t stay ahead or keep up with them. 

Climbs must be harder for you. It feels a little hopeless but true, so you stop trying and ease down to a slower speed.

In all three examples, how you’re thinking about the hill slows you down. It isn’t how long, steep or rocky the climb actually is - measurable things - it’s how you think about those measurements.

And how you think about the hill - easy or hard - is how you experience it.

So if you look for all the reasons it’s hard, it’ll feel hard.

But if you can make hills harder than they have to be, you can make them easier too.

You do it the same way you made the hills hard - with your thinking. You change the way you’re thinking about the hill so it works for you, not against.

It’s a simple process you can do in the middle of the race when you need it most.

Once you learn how to do it, you’ll remember you’ve been up hills like this many times before. 

Your body always comes through and it can again.

And there’s no guarantee the people passing you know what they’re doing or will finish.

All thoughts that lighten your load up the hill.

To make a hill easier, all you have to do is notice you’re thinking about it in a way that makes it seem hard.

Then change the way you think about it to something that powers you to the top instead.

It’s a simple foundational skill i teach all my clients that will absolutely work for you too.

Do all the hill repeats you want but if you want to climb your strongest, you have to look at the way you think about a hill.

With mindset, you can make a hill easier than you expected it to be.