This month Endurance Corner is addressing limiters, with the idea that there may be a key skill or weakness that is holding back your best performance. We each vary in our specific physical limiters, but the most common limitation we all face in performance may be the ability to focus for extended periods of time. As Roy Baumeister and John Tierney discuss in their enlightening new book "Willpower: Discovering the Greatest Human Strength", the energy to exert self-control, one of the most valuable human traits, is easily exhausted.

When I put together an ambitious fall racing schedule, I knew it would be met with some skepticism. I was careful not to share it all at once. Some things are better digested in bite size pieces.

In short I had decided to race the Vegas 70.3 world champs, then Kona, followed by ITU long course world championships and Ironman Arizona two weeks after that. “Why are you doing this?” my husband asked. He was the only one who had been given full access to the schedule. “Because I can,” I answered. He looked at me quizzically, shook his head and went back to his reading material. We have learned not to get in the way of each other’s goals.

If a naive observer were to land in Kona during the Ironman world championships, he or she might get the impression of a hard bodied version of a Trekkie convention. There is something vaguely cult-like about the “ironman family”, and it’s no surprise that the IM corporation’s marketing department seems to take some not-so-subtle cues from the church.

I was recently discussing with a patient the distinction between preoccupation and passion. He raised concerns over what he feared was an obsessional focus on a particular pursuit. Are there any triathletes that can relate?

It’s world-championship season, and no matter what kind of volume we have put in over the summer, no matter how consistent our training has been, much of our success in the final big A race will depend on the execution of our endgame. How is your endgame?

For our 25th reunion, my alma mater sent out a survey to members of the class, asking about various aspects of their lives, work, health and habits. One question was the following:

I need more (pick one only):
• love
• money
• recognition
• sleep
• responsibility
• sex
• time
• will power

A good friend who is living the dream (or his dream, anyway) pointed out that all he really wanted more of was will power. Ah, the ever elusive sense of will power and self control... if only there were a way to summon up more mental discipline. This month EC focuses on what it takes to be a fast age grouper, and aside from hard work (which seems obvious), it appears that of the commodities listed above, will power trumps all.

People wear busyness as a badge of honor. Ask most Bay Area parents how they are, and they often reply “crazy busy.” Every profile I’ve ever read of top age groupers emphasizes the athlete’s time management skills: how they get up at 5 a.m. (or 4 a.m. or 3 a.m.) to train, how they are great at multi-tasking, and how they juggle a busy schedule of child rearing, work and training. It may well be true (though somehow everyone finds time to tweet). But, when it comes to going fast as an age-grouper, busy may not always be better.

We all know marriage has it’s stress points. There is the dual career marriage, marriage with toddlers, and the more recently documented phenomena of divorce by triathlon, as exposed in the February 1, 2011, Wall Street Journal piece entitled, “A Workout Ate My Marriage.”

Gordo asked me to write a piece on managing oneself as an endurance athlete in a marriage to a non-training spouse. First, a disclaimer: This article intends to share some wisdom from a leading marriage expert, and should not be construed to imply that I have successfully minimized the impact of triathlon on my marriage. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Sports and morality have an intertwined relationship. Many of us expose our children to organized sports at least in part to promote social behavior and good sportsmanship. Athletics are seen as a vehicle for moral development that encourages and rewards qualities such as courage, honesty, tenacity, self-control and respect.

Yet displays of unsportsmanlike behavior are apparent throughout competition, and there is ongoing debate about whether sports participation actually leads to increased social development. Even among adult age group athletes, where there is arguably little at stake, we still witness immature and destructive competitive behavior at times -- between social peers no less. So what gives? Why are some athletes able to be good sports? Why is winning (or losing) a bigger deal for others?

The term “gut feeling” originates from the notion that the enteric nervous system acts as a primitive brain and that our guts are closely tied to our brains. The neurotransmitters that regulate our brain function are also active in the gut. Given this physiological link, it’s no surprise that we often feel emotion in our gut.  

Many of us have gut reactions to racing. At least 50% of endurance athletes have experienced gastrointestinal (GI) distress during races. But, just as our muscles adapt to training, so can we train our guts.

Injury is a subject most athletes would rather avoid. While it’s easy to take our health for granted, many of us have faced our own injuries, or those of a friend.

Physical pain is awful, but the psychological sense of loss associated with injury can be even worse. There is much to learn about the psychology of injury, both to help others through setbacks, and also to prepare in case the unthinkable happens.

When the news of Alberto Contador’s doping scandal hit the media last fall, my 8 year-old daughter said with complete confidence and utter solemness: “I think he must have taken ‘5-Hour Energy’.” It was funny, but it also drove home advertising’s pervasive influence on our culture.

What about the notion of energy from a bottle? Energy drink producers advertise that their beverages “boost energy,” and they usually do not emphasize the energy in the form of the sugar they contain, but instead emphasize a variety of stimulants, vitamins and herbal supplements.

Much has been written about the dreaded grey zone of training. The “grey zone” is usually defined as the training zone that falls between aerobic endurance and intensity work. The zone is considered grey because it is a training intensity that is too hard for long endurance sessions or proper recovery, but not hard enough to trigger specific adaptions to higher intensity intervals.

There may, however, be a role for grey zone training this time of year.

In this month of New Year’s resolutions, conversations turn towards the question: “So, what’s in store for this season?” A new year is a clean slate, full of promise, ready to be inscribed with training blocks, events, and we hope, new personal records.

In considering how to mark up that slate so that it will deliver your most satisfying season, I’d like to explore some principles behind the psychology of satisfaction. I hope that reflecting on these ideas will help with the approach to your season plan.

Dealing with winter isn’t just about holing up in the basement with your two trusty foul-weather friends, the indoor trainer and the treadmill. In a quest for race specific fitness, triathletes can overlook the benefits of snow as a training venue. Snow blindness is such a common multisport illness, that I thought I would write a piece in praise of thin white lines -- that is to say, tracks in the snow.

Snow doesn’t tug at the hearts of most lava obsessed triathletes. Of all the weather systems, snow is the least celebrated and least likely to grace the pages of multisport magazines. But to me, triathlon is a jealous mistress, relentlessly demanding my time and efforts until winter brings a welcome respite and lets me reconnect with my first love, the snow.

Stepping back and taking the bird’s eye view of a season offers a perspective that is not always available mid-season. In the tunnel of a build, the worm’s eye view predominates as we plow through the workouts, buried in fatigue, with a myopic focus on the next key session or event.

It’s possible to accumulate a lot of experience without stepping back to learn from it. Here are a few lessons from other fields to help analyze the big picture of a season.

by Mimi Winsberg, M.D.

Since October is body composition month, I thought I would take the opportunity to discuss an important triad of disorders particular to female athletes. This triad is most often seen in sports that emphasize leanness, or where low body fat offers an advantage. Having just returned from Hawaii where the typical athlete looked to be about 5% body fat, I can safely say that triathlon falls in this camp.

by Mimi Winsberg, M.D.

In part one, we looked at how engagement and focused attention fosters a graceful, confident and winning mindset in sport. How do these skills more broadly apply to success in life?

Controlling one’s attention and managing mental energy is not only a successful race strategy, but also fundamental to taking charge of one’s life and experience. The explorer Ernest Shackleton said “Life to me is the greatest of all games... And even to win the game is not the chief end. The chief end is to win it honorably and splendidly.” It’s how you play the game, and your approach that matter most.

by Mimi Winsberg, M.D.

When October gets underway, all eyes in elite triathlon circles turn to the big island as athletes make their annual pilgrimage to the Mecca. Hawaii’s lava fields will test an athlete’s physical limits, but also test their mettle. At a race where intense preparation and superior fitness are almost a given, performance differences may boil down to mental fortitude, courage and plain old guts.

by Mimi Winsberg, M.D.

Showing your work was routine in high school and college math classes, and usually necessary for full credit. It always seemed like an extra requirement. In the real world isn’t getting the right answer all that matters?

If you think you have graduated from the days of showing your work then think again. Welcome to triathlon training: the world of workout logs, power files, training stress scores, intensity factors, calories consumed and kilojoules burned.

by Mimi Winsberg, M.D.

Pumping milk in the front seat of her car is not Tina Pretre’s typical pre-race routine. But as the new mom prepared to dive into the 58-degree San Francisco Bay waters to race in an olympic distance triathlon, she found herself doing exactly that. To her surprise, she was not alone. A competitor next to her was also breastfeeding her baby.

Despite the unusual warm-up, Pretre went on to place fourth in her age group. Her daughter was among the spectators at the finish line. She was eight weeks old.

by Mimi Winsberg, M.D.

I often joke that the endurance sports community is rife with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD is defined as an anxiety disorder characterized by recurrent intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors and rituals aimed at reducing anxiety.

Nowhere is this more manifest than in athletes' pre-race rituals and superstitions. As an important race looms, triathletes find themselves needing to eat specific foods, wear lucky clothes, look for significance in their race number, groom in particular ways (shave, paint nails, braid hair), listen to certain music, and do ritualized pre-race workouts and warm-ups. Some athletes need to carry a family photo or lucky charm on race day.

by Mimi Winsberg, M.D.

After spending months preparing for our A-races with laser-like focus, we toe the line and give it our best effort. A great outcome can make for a big rush of excitement, and a less than desired outcome can leave us with regret or disappointment.

With successful results the euphoria might last hours or even days. But, regardless of outcome, there is a point when the post-race buzz fades and we are left wondering, “OK, now what?” In considering how our minds work, this is probably a pretty typical response.