Cooperate With Reality

I work with an athlete who wants to finish Leadville in under nine hours.

If you know Leadville, you know what that means. The Leadville 100 MTB is a hundred miles of Colorado mountain terrain, most of it above 10,000 feet. A sub-9 finish demands focused preparation, and he’s willing to do it all: altitude camps, long days on the mountain bike, strength training, dialing in his nutrition.

He's motivated, he's experienced, and he's already been to Leadville. He knows exactly what he's signing up for.

He's also a parent, with a full-time job.  And this year, when he looked honestly at his calendar, Leadville didn't fit.

So he's not going. Not this year.

Here's what I want you to notice: he didn't abandon the goal. He just refused to chase it at the wrong time. The altitude camp, the long training blocks, the race travel expenses and entry fee — those are real investments of time and money. Doing them halfway, in a year when life won't allow the full commitment, isn't a path to a sub-9 finish. It's just expensive, exhausting and frustrating.

What this athlete understands — and what I think separates the athletes who keep improving over the long haul from the ones who stagnate — is that the goal has to fit the season. Not the other way around.

Cooperating with reality is NOT giving up on a goal because it’s too hard — it’s a big step towards setting yourself up for success.

Leadville will be there next year. So will he. And he'll be ready.

Take a look at your own list of goals. Are those goals matched to this season? Or are you trying to fit a square peg into a round hole?

See you next week,

Steve