H E A LT H
Yes, You’re an Athlete
Simon Marshall and Lesley Peterson give us their advice on
Don’t believe us? Sometimes you have to fake it till you make it
creating your athletic alter ego.
BY SIMON MARSHALL AND LESLEY PATERSON Co-authors of The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion. BRAVEHEART COACHING
LESLEYDOESTRI
WWW.BRAVEHEARTCOACH.COM Re-printed by permission from The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion, VeloPress 2017.
T
ell me about yourself as an athlete.” You would be amazed at how athletes respond to this simple question. On the face of it, it’s an invitation to talk about routine and quantifiable aspects of athletic life: the event an athlete competes in, the type and amount of training she does,
recent results, PRs, and so on. However, far more revealing is how athletes talk about themselves–the words they use, what they choose to focus on first and second and, sometimes more importantly, what they don’t mention at all. One aspect of your inner world is your athletic identity, which is the degree to
78 I 30th Anniversary Issue 2021 I IMPACT MAGAZINE
which you identify as being an “athlete” and how you look to others to confirm or validate your beliefs about your athleticism. Athletic identity is all about thinking and feeling like an athlete. Athletic identity has nothing to do with how fast you are, how much racing you do, or how much you train.