Ep. 5 – Scott and Kim Brennan on the mental side of training for Olympic rowing gold

Podcast – The Endurance Mindset

https://theendurancemindset.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/thebrennans.mp3

The podcast is available through iTunes and the other usual sources.

In this episode I interview couple Scott and Kim Brennan, who have both won gold at the Olympics. Scott in 2008 in the double scull and Kim in 2016 in the single scull.

I’ve never spoken so deeply to such high quality athletes before. I had some expectations that they would be oozing a competitive attitude but was surprised instead to find that they more embodied the pinnacle of the attitude most amateur athletes also hold – the drive to be the personal best they could be – in competition with themselves as much as with others. Kim summed it up well when she put it like this:

“In the years leading in to the Olympics I used to race at local Canberra regattas I’d try to work myself into a nervous tiz because I thought I was going to be so nervous at the Olympics because it matters so much to me. But the reality was that by the time I got to the Olympic final, I was actually remarkably calm on the start line because it was the realisation that I am never in my life going to be as prepared for something as this. That’s where the confidence came from. Knowing that every session I’d done, I’d done as well as I possibly could have. I believed in the work that I’d done, and that, within myself, was the best I could possibly be at that point in time. And so for me, confidence has always been about creating that [mindset] with the training and the practice.”

Another highlight for me was Scott’s thoughts on willpower:

“If you’ve got enough meaning in what you do, then the idea of will power becomes redundant. A lot of people say ‘how do I get that kind of will power?’ but it’s putting the cart before the horse… Will power is just a side effect of having such a strong meaning… So for people looking for willpower, I would suggest think less about willpower and more about the why of what it is that you’re doing”

But we talk about a lot of things. The conversation flows, here’s a taste of what we talk about roughly in order:

• Commitment to the 4 year Olympic cycle and the nature of the build-up/training
• Dealing with pressure
• Perspective on pain and discomfort
• Motivation (amped up versus calm)
• What’s harder – getting out of bed or the third 500?
• What does it feel like to win a gold medal (going deeper than the clichés)?
• Confidence – if it’s unfounded then it’s fragile.
• Inoculating yourself against self-doubt
• The importance of having purpose
• The role of identity in finding your why

And here’s some other great quotes I enjoyed:

Scott: When I was younger I used to attach an emotional meaning to the sensations I was having. So I’d ‘row hard’ and it ‘hurts’ so it’s ‘hard’ or it’s ‘bad’. And as I got further along, rather than talk about fighting things it was much more of a surrender. It was like ‘this is just part of the job’ and you’re never going to get away from that, and the sooner you can give up that bit of the struggle, that’s energy you’re no longer wasting. Once I thought ‘it’s just part of it’, it became a lot easier. It helps you get above the noise. ‘working hard’ – that’s entry level stuff.

Kim: Be aware but not alarmed by your surroundings

Scott: You don’t win a gold medal by focusing on the gold medal…. Even the next five seconds are irrelevant… The only thing you’ve got control over is each stroke… If you get dragged too far outside that awareness of all I’ve got to do is right here right now, that’s just not helpful.

Kim: There’s something quite constraining about trying to do something perfectly. You’re trying to make each stroke better than the one before it. There’s no point that you stop learning along the way. But I think sometimes coming back to the fact that all you can do in that Olympic final is what you’ve trained to do. And you just have to not get in your own way.