#endurance athlete Archives -

164 – Strengthening Mental Skills with Pat Spencer

In episode 164, Jill and Chris talk with Pat Spencer, owner of Getting Your Mind in Gear, who helps endurance athletes hone the mental skills needed to achieve their endurance sports goals.

Pat is an avid gravel cyclist, former long course triathlete, marathoner, and open water swimmer. A licensed clinical social worker and a therapist with a private practice in central New Jersey, she has worked in mental health for 25+ years in a variety of settings, including directly with clients, as a supervisor, as a adjunct professor and providing a number of professional trainings.

In 2022, she decided to combine her understanding of mental health with her love of endurance sports. She knew she was not the only athlete out there dealing with all of the mental challenges that come with endurance sports.

“As an athlete I have experienced the pre-race jitters, the nagging self doubt and the lulls and low motivation that occurs in training. Using a mix of tools and skills I get through these challenges to help you crush your goals.”

When not working you can find her lifting heavy stuff at the gym, exploring the roads in the northeast USA or scuba diving somewhere in the world. She also enjoys watching college football or Jeopardy with her wife and their cats.

We discuss:

What makes a good goal? How does she help people define their goals?
How to best commit to a goal and why is that so important?
How to deal with that internal voice “inner critic” that so many women seem to have
Harnessing motivation, habits, discipline and ways she helps others stay focused
Her workshop “Menopause, Mindset and Mental Health”
Self talk, visualization and her RUNER technique of getting thru a tough mental roadblock
R=recognize, U=understand, N=name the emotion, E=explore options, R=respond
Hydration and the importance to maintain a strong mental attitude during endurance challenges
Finding your WHY to learn where your motivation comes from.
Identifying yourself as a runner or a biker and then asking “what do runners do? swimmers do?”
Reframing from “I have to” so that you feel like “I get to”
Tools like Mindset Monday on her Instagram account
Finding ways to celebrate what we can do and what we do have
Dealing with a DNF (Did Not Finish)
Overcoming Fear

Links:

Website – Getting Your Mind in Gear
Resources – Forms and Worksheets
Facebook – Getting Your Mind in Gear
Instagram – Getting Your Mind in Gear
YouTube channel – Getting Your Mind in Gear

Improving as an Endurance Athlete – Jess Elliott Episode 62

Fit Strong Women Over 50 – Episode 62 – Jess Elliott

Jill and Chris talk with Jess Elliott, owner of TAG Performance, a Sports Performance Coaching & Education company, located in Boulder, Colorado. Angie Ridgel and Pam Semanik, who talked about performance training in episode 44, met Jess at a conference and recommended that we speak to her. It was a great suggestion.

Improving as an Endurance Athlete

Jess has an extensive coaching background in strength and conditioning, working with athletes of all ages and backgrounds, from high school students to professional athletes.

In this episode, we start off by discussing strength and conditioning for endurance athletes and then move to discuss the differences and similarities of the endurance and adventure communities. Living in Boulder, Jess participates actively in both groups. She discusses her adventures above the tree line and her love of alpine lakes.

Jess shares how women over 50 can continue to be fit and strong and take our fitness to the next level and says that it’s never too late to improve our fitness.

Also, Jess discusses her view on mastering recovery for athletes. She describes a great recovery exercise that she teaches her athletes.

Because so many events have been cancelled in 2020, Jess shares her ideas on keeping ourselves motivated and how to use this year to improve our performance in the future.

Jess also helps demystify fueling for endurance events. She discusses the value of using real food for energy. In addition, she shares with us her use of intermittent fasting.

Links to contact Jess Elliott

Want to follow Jess Elliott or ask her a question? You can find her at these places:

Jess on Instagram:

YouTube Channel: Tag Performance

Facebook : Tag Peformance

Website: Tag Performance

Tag: #endurance athlete

Strengthening Mental Skills with Pat Spencer

Improving as an Endurance Athlete: Jess Elliott

Improving as an Endurance Athlete

Links to contact Jess Elliott