When laying out race strategies for my athletes, I place the greatest emphasis on the third quarter of the race. The third quarter of any sports competition is usually the toughest. This is where athletes struggle with motivation, fall off pace, or make crucial errors while the greatest among us thrive. The reason for this is that we are far away from the excitement of the start and not close enough to see the finish in sight.
We need to train for the third quarter. This is done by being mindful of our mental state and being laser focused when we enter this crucial period. Knowing this is when others will struggle the most, we need to train ourselves to be the strongest here. It is a good idea to even plan workouts where the toughest efforts are done during the third quarter of the workout.
This is not isolated to sport. You will often find parallels in life during a long business meeting, a long family trip in the car, or even a lifecycle. During all of these, we need to be sharpest in the third quarter as this is when we will separate ourselves from the competition.
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