{"id":1686,"date":"2013-05-16T15:19:37","date_gmt":"2013-05-16T22:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/o2fitness.net\/o2\/?p=1686"},"modified":"2013-05-16T15:19:37","modified_gmt":"2013-05-16T22:19:37","slug":"mental-opportunities-of-training-and-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/mental-opportunities-of-training-and-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental Opportunities of Training and Racing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The month of April started with the goal of having a successful day on the bike with my Rio Strada teammates at the Rapha Prestige event in San Francisco. \u00a0This longer, much climbier<\/em> ride\/race was definitely outside my comfort zone and I did as much as I could to train for the distance and elevation gain involved. \u00a0Unfortunately, the best laid plans didn’t help me on the day and my back decided it was not in the cards for me to finish the ride. \u00a0I really felt like I let my teammates down, especially when I saw the team’s “DNF” on the final result a couple days later.<\/p>\n

That day was like a hard punch to the stomach. \u00a0In the days that followed, I hoped to find something positive in what happened, but it was extremely difficult to do that. \u00a0Julie took the time to give me much support and guidance. \u00a0The advice she gave me made that day an anomaly when it could have been the start of a bigger downward spiral. \u00a0She helped me turn my\u00a0focus forward. \u00a0I resolved to work harder on my core strength, climbing and distance riding.<\/p>\n

I also decided to do some races for flat out speed… FUN stuff… mood enhancers for bike racers! \u00a0For me, that’s a good, fast criterium. \u00a0Only a week after that down day at the Rapha, I won my first race of the season. \u00a0Then, somehow, some way, that win turned into four straight podiums over a four-race span. \u00a0It’s a huge turnaround for me that has resulted in wanting to do more to improve and get stronger — mentally and physically. \u00a0The momentum is going the right way, much faster than I ever could have imagined.<\/p>\n

Through this last month, I realized more than ever the value of having a great coach. \u00a0It’s not just physical, it’s very mental, also. \u00a0Having that voice of reason and experience to help you see the forest for the trees and not focus on the wrong things… it’s priceless.<\/p>\n

Heidi Littenberg, o2fitness athlete<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The month of April started with the goal of having a successful day on the bike with my Rio Strada teammates at the Rapha Prestige event in San Francisco. \u00a0This longer, much climbier ride\/race was definitely outside my comfort zone and I did as much as I could to train for the distance and elevation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-1686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletes-blog","tag-heidi-littenberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}