Otway Odyssey Mind Techniques

Hi there readers of the Baum MTB Team blog. I am the newest member of the team, and I started off with a ride in the second Otway Odyssey.

I am sure many of you reading this have read accounts of the race - wet, muddy, much pushing of bikes up steep slippery hills, great Forrest single track etc. Rather than go into this, I will relate an interesting aspect of my experience.

Usually when I ride a long race, at some point it becomes plain old, no escaping it, hard work. Last Saturday this happened after five and a half hours. Usually I keep pushing myself, struggle a bit, worry about how much further there is and reflect on what a hero I am!

On Saturday I tried an experiment. I took my mind's focus to each part of me that was sore....quads.....triceps......trapezius.......gluts, observing the sensation in that area. After doing this for a short time, I found that it was not that hard after all! The drama of "oh this is soooooo hard" and "how courageous I am for doing this " was gone. The worrying about how far there is to go was gone. I found that the remaining, real soreness was actually not that bad. It brought me out of the drama, out of the future and into the present.

I went through the same process with another rider and he had the same response - it is not that hard after all.

Now I just have to learn to maintain that mindset for a few hours rather than a minute or two!