JESSE: I think of almost even if I remember right, and I don't know who to attribute this to. But I remember somebody talking about fear in the context of anytime you're afraid of something, you have to deal with that or confront that. Because if you know you're afraid of it that it's important to you in one way or another. If it wasn't important to you, then essentially the consequences of that situation, then you wouldn't be afraid of it because you’d pay it no mind. So, it's like, fear is almost like this indicator that something's important to you and you should pay attention to it rather than kind of cower away from it. ANNE: Well, it has control over you at that point. If you're too afraid to do it, or it makes you shy away from an opportunity or a task or a trail, I mean, it had control over you. And that's no fun. JESSE: Right. You mentioned earlier, kind of throughout the years of training you've had injuries. Have you ever had any, I guess acute injuries from crashes or anything like that? ANNE: Yeah. Yeah, fair number of the usual, broken bones, mostly broken bones. I've been pretty lucky, knock on wood, wrist, fingers. I did a lot of skiers thumb but it did it on my mountain bike handlebars. Like I went over the bars and my thumb got caught, tore all ligaments in my thumb. So, I needed that reconstructed. Most of my injuries, honestly, were from sports long before mountain biking. I've done lots of other sports too. So, I tore my ACL at 12 doing gymnastics. JESSE: So, it's like old tat-- It just reminded me of a conversation I had with pro triathlete, Cecila Davis Hayes, I think it was back in episode five. So, very early on in the show. And so I actually broke my collarbone in a bike crash in a race last year. It seems like very long ago, but also recent, so it's hard to put the timing. And I know like I had trepidation getting back on the bike and feeling comfortable at speed downhill. And she went through a more traumatic event where like I just broke my collarbone. She had like-- she was racing crits professionally, and got in a crash, like broke her pelvis and multiple other bones. And she also kind of went through that. So, because you've gone through that I’m curious like, when you get back on the bike when you're going downhill again, do you have to kind of, I'll say fight the demons back after that injury? ANNE: Yes. Absolutely. We call it having a monkey on your shoulder. And you can have a monkey on your shoulder for one individual technical feature or you could have a monkey on your shoulder period. Yeah, it's very real. That's a very real feeling coming back from injury and honestly, I don't know anyone who doesn't have that. And I was recently talking to a woman in one of my clinics about this very thing. She had injured herself the year prior, she was feeling very timid, and just sort of lost a lot of her confidence. She wasn't willing to try some stuff in the clinic. And she said that, she told me she was embarrassed. She was embarrassed that she was afraid and so timid. And that was kind of a red flag for me, because this happens to everyone. And I told her that and she had no idea. She had no idea that everyone feels that monkey on their shoulders when they came back. She thought she was the only one. So, everyone feels that and it just comes down to patience, you just have to have patience and you have the skills to do these things, you've done them before. They're scary now, but you've done them before. So, you know you have the skills to do them, it just comes down to patience and building up your confidence. So, usually what happens is you take a step back, and you do some easier stuff. You know, like if I get hurt on a 40 foot gap, then as soon as I come back, I'm not hitting 40 foot gaps right away. I'm going back and I’m doing 20 foot gaps until I feel really dialed and then I'll bump up to 30. And then maybe I'll try 40 again. So, it's usually just taking a step back and being super patient and working your way back up to that level. But yeah, it happens to everyone, and it takes longer than you’d like. JESSE: Right. And that's always the thing where it's like I want to be back at it now, but there's still that fear in the back of my mind, that gnawing sensation where it's like, uh, maybe you shouldn't do that or ?? 4:47>. ANNE: Yeah, so the danger of trying to push through it too fast and I’ve seen people who try to just jump right back in. They're like, I've got this monkey on my shoulder but I’m just gonna ignore it. The danger of that is most of the time in mountain biking at least, you get hurt because you hesitate, right. You hit your brakes after you've already committed to a feature or you try to avoid something at the last minute. Hesitating is usually what causes most of the problems. So, if you're trying to push through and ignore the monkey on your shoulder, you have a pretty high chance of panic breaking at the last second, and maybe causing another problem. So, that patient workup after taking a step back is really key. JESSE: And funnily enough, that's almost exactly not necessarily the same verbiage, but almost exactly the same thing Cecilia said, where it's like we're on the road, you're on the trail, but we're both on bikes or all three of us are on bikes, and it's a matter of like, I get fear about going 40 miles an hour downhill, you got tiny tires on a road bike or triathlon bike and gravel was the situation with me. I was going around a turn and nobody touched me. It was just gravel in the wrong place and bike just came out from under me. So, that's not even-- Then there's that fear of like, do I hit gravel wrong or sand or anything like that? But yeah, you mentioned because of that fear, yeah, you get more in your own head and then you start braking downhill when you probably shouldn't be. And then you can fishtail a bike and then it can come out from under you and make things worse because you're going at it too hard too soon. So, it's just kind of interesting to see you guys both say essentially the same thing from that experience. ANNE: So, that gravel situation is really important because I think this time when you're working back from a monkey on your shoulder is the perfect time to work on your basic skills. Because one, you've already had to take a step back, and you have to kind of slow down a little bit and be patient. And two, you're trying to build confidence back up again. Well, the best way to build confidence is to build your skills and so that's the best time to do it. If you're scared about riding gravel, take a skills clinic for mountain bikes and learn how to skid and learn how to fishtail a bike on gravel and be okay. I find myself doing stuff like that on my commuter bike all the time. I might slide through something and think oh, if I didn't have my mountain bike skills that could have ended badly. So, it’s the perfect time to work on bike handling or whatever type of skill because that really helps with your confidence building during that process. JESSE: Yeah, I've been taking it as-- I say gravel, it was more like sand. So, what happened with me, in particular, is we were going around a blind corner. Again, we're on the road, a guy came on the inside of me during the turn when he really shouldn't have to pass, which forced me out where there's sand on the side of the road and I just didn't see it. So, the bike was out from under me. Even with those, in my particular case, even with better handling skills I don't think there's anything I could have done. It happened like that quick. Like I was sliding on the road before I realized what happened. ANNE: There are always freak accidents, right, always freak accidents. But in terms of building your confidence, it can just really help build it back up quickly. JESSE: Yeah. Yeah. Right. I'm with you. And I know there are times when I've taken a corner and ended up off the road on the ground. Like bike is not supposed to be off the road, but I'm somehow riding on the grass or riding on gravel on a triathlon bike when I really shouldn't be. So, yeah, I'm sure those skills along with the confidence do have a lot of practicalities as well. ANNE: Yeah. See, then you just bunny hop back onto the road and you're all good. JESSE: Right. I think I get more afraid of popping a tire in especially these last couple of years just with a series of mechanicals in it because those tires are so thin. It's just so easy to pop a tire because of nothing you did, it's just ?? 9:08> you pop a tire. ANNE: Do triathletes run tubeless? JESSE: I do. But not always. It just depends on the person’s setup. But yeah, my setup is that for the particular race wheels I have that's what fits. I can use the other, losing the name. But yeah, I can't use the tube tire on my particular race wheels. ANNE: Got it. We always carry those tire plugs because when you're racing and you get like a puncture, you can pop a tire plugin and be back racing before, you don't have to like quit halfway ?? 9:59> on my road bike I’ve done it. Say what? JESSE: Can you see where the puncture is? If I punctured a tire, it'll take me a good five minutes, if not longer to find where the puncture even is. ANNE: Well, if it's big enough to flat a tubeless tire, it's going to be pretty big because the sealant will seal anything smaller. So, if it's big enough to flat a tubeless tire, you should have an actual--
Smart Athlete Podcast Ep. 33 - Anne Galyean - EMBRACE FEAR - Part 3 of 3
I think of almost even if I remember right, and I don't know who to attribute this to. But I remember somebody talking about fear in the context of anytime you're afraid of something, you have to deal with that or confront that. Because if you know you're afraid of it that it's important to you in one way or another.
