Anorexic to GBR triathlete

What’s your Story?

So, last week was defo not one of my finest hours but I am realising that sometimes we must hit the bottom to start to climb back up again, therefore this week I have made a conscious decision to concentrate on the positives not the negatives. I took on my friend’s challenge and each evening I have taken time to reflect and write down a minimum of 6 wins/positive things that have happened. It’s amazing how just taking that 10/15 mins at the end of the day has set me up well for the next morning and when challenges have come, I haven’t let them overwhelm me but have taken a breath and tackled them head on. I have also taken time to read my bible in the mornings and spent time praying, it’s amazing how when life goes crazy, we forget to do the things that ground us, and we wonder why we get in a mess!

On Monday I had a chat with one of my clients who is also a life coach and this conversation is the basis of this week’s blog. She challenged me look at the story that I tell myself daily.

Let me explain what I mean by this…

As a competitive triathlete I am my biggest critic and I realised through talking to her that the story I tell myself is that if I don’t come top 3 or top 10 in bigger races, I am a failure and that people will think I am rubbish and will lose respect for me. If I don’t qualify in a race, I am just confirming that I am an imposter and not good enough! I will always struggle in the run, and it will always feel heavy as it’s my weakest leg and it will always be my downfall.

Owning that and how I really feel made me realise why sometimes I forget the love that I have for competing, the reason I do it and the buzz it gives me. It showed me that the pressure I feel is from myself as I never feel good enough, which in the cold light of day is sad as triathlon is my passion and happy place, when I race, I feel myself click into gear and I thrive on the competitive side of me. The buzz after a race is something else my sometimes my own self talk takes that away as I am so busy to criticise myself and not sit in the moment and celebrate the wins.

In conjunction with this and as a Sports Therapist, Personal Trainer, and Group Exercise Teacher, I struggle to not compare myself to others and worry that clients will walk away as they don’t think I am good enough. A. perfect example of this was yesterday when I was seeing a new client who is resident in a care home. They are 96-years old and following surgery for a broken hip 4-weeks ago now want to be able to walk again. I was anxious and was telling myself that I was out of my depth and not good enough, but without me conveying any of this to her, Sarah, on her way out of the door to work, shouted upstairs, ‘STOP worrying babe she is privileged to have you as you are the best and YOU CAN FIX IT, just go and do what you do’.

In that moment I took a deep breath and settled my nerves and decided to hold onto the story she was telling me not the one I was telling myself. I walked into the care home confidently and trusted my gut to work out the BEST way to move forward. I left that appointment buzzing as she loved me and in just 30 mins her son-in-law and herself could already see progress. I did something rare for me in that moment and told myself, ‘Charlie you are awesome at what you do, you are enough, and YOU CAN FIX her!’ I can’t put into words how liberating that felt.

As well as this win, I am looking at a race at the weekend and then a week away from my wifey before we re-unite the Friday before the Standard World Aquabike Qualifier. We haven’t been apart for more than one night since COVID and in terms of the racing calendar this has fallen at a bad point. So, I have a choice, I can consciously challenge the dialogue in my head that says  ‘You won’t cope without her’, ‘you are not strong enough’, ‘you will fall apart’, ‘you can’t hold your nerve for two races in a row,’ ‘you will get fat if you TAPER and reduce your training!’ Or I can listen to it, lose myself down a blackhole and mentally screw myself over.

Reality is that the timing for Sarah to go away would never be right, but for our future its important, she has worked so hard to get this job and I will support her in it, thanks to technology we can stay in regular contact. When it comes to racing, I know what I need to do, keep my head together, train well, eat well and put it all out there. My previous results this season speak for themselves and no matter how much I doubt myself I need to speak over myself that, ‘I am strong, I am powerful, I am a strong competitor, I deserve my place in the GB team and I can look after me food and training wise as I need to be the BEST ME that I can be.’

Sometimes we must stand still in the waiting room and chose what we are bringing into it to help ourselves. Let me explain what I mean by that; this week I can chose to wake up in the morning and take into it my fears, worries and negativity or I CAN chose to take into it positivity, my successes, my race head and my PT and Sports therapy hat. I know the latter will help me whilst the former will cause me to stumble and fall. I can choose to step out of the waiting room and deal with these when I am ready but for now, I need to hold tight and stay focused.

So, lets fast forward to the end of this week and onto the next one with Sarah being away. The good news is that in my first race not only did I keep my head together, but I went out and won it by over 13 minutes in terrible conditions – torrential rain isn’t fun on a bike! I also had quality time with Sarah, and we set ourselves up well for her week away. In fact, she left me a little note to encourage me through the week – which I will share next week.

 As I sit here typing, I am less than 48-hours away from possibly the biggest race of the season so far and I am giving myself a pat on the back as I am tapering well, I haven’t broken down and I have picked up new clients. I have missed Sarah so much, but I have held myself together and the niggling anxiety about this race at bay. I am holding onto the success of last weekend and using it as a driver. Don’t get me wrong the negative voices are still there but I am choosing to write my own story to talk myself through each day and remind myself that I have GOT THIS!! Tomorrow, I get to see my wifey for a hug and as I cross that line on Saturday whatever the result I am going to know that I have done all I can to be the strongest me and that is all anyone asks of me.

Sometimes we have to dig deep and find a strength within ourselves that we don’t know we have. There will always be highs and lows but how we enter and exit these times is really important. So, this week ‘WHAT IS THE STORY THAT YOU ARE TELLING YOURSELF?”