How to Motivate Yourself After a Big Cycling Event

Have you trained hard all season...?

Recently competed at a big event...?

...and now find yourself pondering the sport and your ongoing commitment to it?

If so, you’re not the only one!

Whether you’re a seasoned athlete or just a recreational cyclist who has trained to compete at a targeted event, restarting the training process can often be a mentally and physically challenging process.

We're going to offer you a few tips now to reignite yourself to go on to bigger and better things.

Understanding the Programming Cycle

The first thing we recommend you do if you’ve just come out of competition, is work out where you are in your overall training cycle.

If you’re not too sure what we mean by ‘training cycle’, we’d recommend you revisit our blog on Periodised Programming for Cyclists.

Are you in the middle of a macrocycle between a few major peaks?

Or are you at the end of the macrocycle headed into a transition period?

This is crucial to know, as it will dictate the amount of time off you or your coach will give yourself following the completion of your most recent event.

It will also help you plan for the future, whether that be planning for your next event which may be just around the corner, or planning for a fresh new season.

Time Off

If you worked out that you don’t have any major events in the next few months, now might be the time to take a rest physically and mentally from the sport.

Taking time off during the ‘transition period’ will allow you to mentally refresh, and will ensure that when it comes time to restart training, you’re motivated and ready to commit.

During your time off, it’s important to keep active.

We recommend doing some cross training activities which are fun but also keep your aerobic energy system engaged.

Doing nothing tends to leave you feeling lethargic, tired, and can make the comeback road a lot longer.

Planning

After you’ve taken a break, and reflected on the season or event that has recently passed, it’s a good idea to start planning for the season ahead.

When you’re planning, we recommend jotting down some notes and consider the following:

1. 1. Did you achieve your goal? If not, where do you feel you made an error, or were your expectations too high?
2. Write down 3 things that you feel you improved on during the previous season
3. Write down 3 things that you feel you need to work on
4. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being highly motivated), how motivated are you for the season ahead? If less than 6, look deeper for some answers around your motivation to work out how you can regain motivation, or whether you need to consider your enjoyment of the sport, and your goals.
5. What are your goals for the season ahead? If you haven’t thought about them as yet, make sure you follow the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-Bound) principles in constructing them. Visit our blog that talks about goal setting and download our Goal Tracking Sheet to make a start.
6. When you’ve listed your goals, share them with the important people around you and ask them to help you remain accountable to your goals.

Have Fun

Whether you’re training to become a world champion, or just cycling for the fun of it - make sure you have fun in the process.

Working hard to achieve goals is often at times exhausting during hard training sessions, and you may have made some sacrifices in your life to achieve the things you are setting out to achieve.

However, at the end of the day, participating in sport should be a great experience and having fun is a major part of that!

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