This year I am really trying to figure out how to mentally get over the “oh crap, I hurt so much” hump.  You know the feeling, watching your GPS ¾ into a longer race go slower and slower even thought you are not doing anything different when your head starts to tell you how much you hurt – BAM!  Game over.    Who knows, maybe you really did just bonk or did the current just switch and you let your doubts take over.

I’m wondering what kind of mental games other paddlers play to just let your training take over and shut down mental doubts.

This year I’ve almost stopped using the GPS and rely on a music playlist for any changeups that I want. I am also really trying to paddle with “blinders” and just go at a pace my body tells me is a good effort for a certain time ( I do have a watch).  Just getting into the rhythm of the music has helped a lot to get my head out of the game.

Get a beer. You just opened a can of worms and we have some free time. This is going to be a long answer. Long because we need to cover A LOT of ground to sort out exactly what is going on. With this one – we have as many questions as answers but only charlatans and hucksters have all of the answers. Here goes….

Is hurting really the issue? If so – put down the headphones

Step one in this discussion is make sure that you are asking the right question. Is the hurting really the issue?  If so, this article about cognitive approaches to pain might help – research says that music may not be the answer. Go into to the pain….

Are your goals realistic? A heart rate monitor will help

That said, helping endurance athletes over the last 20 years, my bet is that is not the whole story. Many (not all)  endurance athletes know how to hurt and when they get to the point of asking the question you are asking something else is wrong. You allude to this in the second paragraph of your question when you talk about watching your speed while you workout or race?  Is there any way that what is really going on is that you think you should be doing “A” but “A” is not realistic?

What I am getting at is that if you are looking at speed – that is a terrible metric to use to base any kind of decision making relative to performance. Current, wind, chop will all affect speed. So, if you have it in your head you should be going 5.7 mph and you are only going 5.4 mph you could be going great but hurting like hell and then your head gets all screwed on sideways when there is no possible way that 5.7 is a realistic or even reasonable goal. I guess what I am asking is are you playing the wrong game?

In cycling we use watts to tell us about performance. Watts don’t care about headwind or hills or anything. Your power output is your power output. If you are putting out your expected watts and you feel good – you are going great. If you are putting our your expected watts and it hurts – that is expected. If you are really hurting and your watts are in the dumper  – you are having a bad day. With using wattage as a gauge of performance, there is no question about what is going on.

In paddling, unfortunately, there are no watt meters. The next best bet  metric is heart rate. Is there any chance you would be up for paddling with a heart rate monitor during training? That way you know how much you should  be doing so you don’t do too much, and you know how much you should be doing so you know to push yourself even if it hurts. There are heart rate monitors that will work for prone and SUP: We highly recommend checking out the NK Speedcoach SUP 2 if you are a SUP athlete. It is a great little tool.

• To get started training with heart rate check out this link:
• To get an idea of where your heart rate should be when racing check out this link:

If you are the kind of athlete who goes out on a training paddle and says “I am going to be doing 25 miles today” maybe it is time to change things up and focus on time and intensity rather than distance. Our recommendation is to start thinking in terms of “I am doing 4 hours today and whatever distance that gets me at the intensity I should be training at is how far I will go.” It probably goes without mentioning that all of the workouts in our training programs are based on time and intensity and not distance.

Is your nutrition dialed in?

Another major influence on whether you can hurt or not is nutrition. If you are underfueled or you do not have the proper electrolyte intake you are going to hurt like hell because you are depleted. Your mind can only go so far to overcome the effects of poor nutrition. We talk a lot about nutrition in the book and you can also check out these articles. Shoot for a minimum of 200 calories per hour. 300-400 would be even better if you are going long or are racing.

Here are a few articles to get you started:

• Nutrition strategies using maltodextrin: NOTE: Carbo-pro is one of our sponsors and we have been using their products for as long as we can remember. If you want to shorten this discussion get some Hydra C5 and follow the label.
• What to eat during long training sessions:

Overtraining will wreak havoc on your ability to tolerate pain

One last question I have for you is is there any way you are overtrained? When some athletes get overtrained one of the first things to go is that they cannot tolerate pain. It seems like there is a stress load that athletes can handle and if they go over the edge their body says – “No mas. I am shutting down. I will not hurt and there is nothing you can do to get me to do it.” There is no amount of caffeine, no amount of that boost you get on race day, nothing you can do to overcome it. Conversely – when  the same athletes are fresh they can hurt until the put themselves into the hospital.  It is like there are 2 different people inside some athletes. Is there any chance you are showing up on race day a little overtrained or over stressed from work/family stuff? As they say it is better to be undertrained  than overtrained

How do you know if you are overtraining?  Answer that one and you will win accolades and be famous.

The problem with overtraining is that it can take years to learn where that line is. There are, however, tell tale signs that you might be in a hole.

For many, the first thing that happens is that you will have a few crummy nights of sleep and I get a bit irritable. Some athletes feel puffy like they gained a few pounds despite a stable diet and loads of training. Some actually do gain weight. This is an article we wrote about overtraining previously:

Failure to taper appropriately before your race will do it too

Another aspect of overtraining (going too long, doing too much, and going to hard are the common culprits) is poorly tapering before a race. If you have been training consistently for several months and you are prepping for a long race like Molokai, or Catalina, or any of the distance races on the east coast at the end of the year you need to allow your body to rest up and assimilate all the training you have done. A three-week taper might do wonders to help you deal with pain of a big race

In conclusion….

The bottom line on all of this is that if you want to better tolerate pain you need to make sure you have everything in order with your training, nutrition, and race prep. Then, and only then can you explore cognitive tools to help you handle more  pain. Doing it the other way around is missing the forest for the trees.