When preparing Rich for his Vendée Globe voyage, we worked on three aspects of his training. One was getting him physically prepared, another was mental toughness and the third was training him emotionally so that he would be able to better deal with extenuating physical or mentally exhaustive days and nights on the boat. Each workout had a beginning, middle and a final stretch very much like what he is doing while racing, although on a much smaller scale.
We would begin each workout with a warmup period. He would do a five minute dynamic warmup increasing blood flow the muscles in his body that we were going to be working. We would then concentrate on core strengthening. At the Midpoint of the workout we would be focusing on training his muscles to have as much strength, endurance and agility as possible. The Midpoint of each session was the toughest section of the workout because it had the most intensity. We were exhausting him physically which also simultaneously exhausted him mentally and emotionally. During this section of each workout I would remind Rich to stay focused, to take it one exercise at at time, one rep at a time. I knew if he could get through this section of the workout the rest of the workout would be smooth sailing!
The middle section of any competition is always humbling. It is the time when your mind wants to drift, your body wants to quit and you may question why you are doing it. Rich is probably having some of these thoughts right about now but I am confident that because of his preparation, both physically and mentally, he will not question whether or not he can finish but will instead look ahead with excitement to completing his race. He may have a few moments of doubt for that is part of being human but I know that positive thoughts will mainly be filling his mind. I believe that once he passes through that Midpoint of the race he will have a sudden surge of confidence that he is well on his way to a very successful voyage.