Coping with the COVID-19 Social Media World - An athlete’s observations
In this article coached athlete Heather Mayer writes about her personal experience over the last few weeks with regards to social media and her reflections on her and potentially our sporting ‘why’. Heather has been working in some form or another with Tri Training Harder for a number of years on Training Camps before she began working with Coach Alan a couple of years ago. Since then, she regularly stands on AG podiums, rides the legs off most of her male contemporaries and has been to the 70.3 World Championships as well. Read on to hear her very honest reflections on the impact of COVID-19 to her self-confidence and ability. Hear how she turns this around to rise above the noise and become truer to her self.
‘Grinning to yourself whilst doing what you love’
Back in pre-COVID-19 days, everyone already knew that social media could cause issues for self-esteem and mental health. Coach Philip even wrote a blog post to that effect, focusing on the effects of social media on female athletes. Personally, I think the pandemic is exacerbating those same issues, although in my experience my anxiety is not arising because of the companies pushing products or pros undertaking extraordinary challenges; rather, the significant increase in activity and posting about it among age-group athletes is what has me stressing out.
We have certainly all seen that athletic brands, trainers, Insta-stars, and pro athletes have been pushing ways of being active, or being more active, or pushing yourself during this period of isolation. It’s visible in the sheer number of group rides available on Zwift on a daily basis, Jan Frodeno’s indoor IRONMAN, Geraint Thomas’ 3x12hour Zwift Shifts for the NHS, the ten different daily workouts that pop up from various sources, or the 500 emails from every sporting brand advertising a new sale. But in my view, this isn’t really new or pressurising to me in any way. If it weren’t Zwift group rides, there’d be club runs and the temptation of local bike races. If Frodo and G weren’t indoors doing ridiculous feats, they’d be outside doing even more impressive things. And the brands are always trying to push their products, this isn’t really that different.
Moreover, there genuinely has been a shift in focus visible on many Instagram accounts. Roger Federer’s mini-challenges promote staying at home and doing something gentle and safe (and fun if you like tennis!). Laura Siddal has specifically posted about her decision to take her bike rides inside and posts photos of doing things with her family, rather than a dedicated focus on ramping up training. Daniel Ryf provided some early comic relief showing how she was resorting to swimming in a bathtub, but then more seriously demonstrating adaptation under difficult circumstances. Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon/SRAM rider) had an interview with Rouleur during which she noted that she’s actually taking it pretty easy right now. And yes, on a relative basis, their training volume is higher than mine, but that’s nothing new. Overall, my sense from the pros’ Instagram accounts is that they’re working out how to operate under severe constrictions, where realistically their very jobs are threatened since they cannot race.
Meanwhile, the age-group athletes and coaching groups I follow on Instagram and Strava are a completely different beast; they are the ones that initially caused me to question myself and worry that what I wasn’t doing enough. Given that most age-groupers have day jobs, suddenly everyone seems to have significantly more time with no commuting and potential job losses as well. Couple that with feeling isolated because, well, we all are, and the obvious next step seems to be telling everyone what you’re doing every moment via social media apps. One friend put up a post with all his training for the week - 14 sessions, 4 Zwift races, new TSS record was broken, new FTP set, along with daily updates on the Zwift races and runs that he’s done. Another friend posted selfies on the turbo with her training group, all targeting building FTPs over the next few weeks. A friend posted a ride on Strava that’s 130km and has QOMs and trophies galore. An ex-colleague posted long runs that are suddenly more frequent and faster and faster. Zwift tells me to go do a race every day or join a group ride. Yet another challenge pops up on Instagram. And all the while here I am following the advice of my coach and staying well within the boundaries of my playing field when the rest of my world appears to be running around me, using every corner available on the pitch. I feel like I’m giving up penalty strokes and not even putting up a keeper.
Very quickly, I started to doubt myself. If most of the top age-groupers are now suddenly gifted extra time to train and have embraced it, am I not going to be at the back of the pack if I don’t push myself to the same extent? Why aren’t they heeding the same advice? I can only talk myself into feeling smug about how smart my training is for a split second before I think, yeah, but when we hit a start line on the other side of this, I’m screwed. This mindset caused me significant angst for a good week of stay-at-home.
After a week of despair and a phone call with my coach (Alan) on which we discussed some of this, I tried to figure out how to address my angst. Under normal circumstances, I’d try to focus on what I’m doing on a regular basis in various aspects of life. For me, this would include training for target races and trying to establish a new life (I moved country at the beginning of March), meeting new people, creating a new network, and trying my best to get on with this new life I’d finally jumped into.
Of course, these aren’t normal circumstances. I can’t just bury myself in my daily life and avoid social media, because it’s a good way for me to feel a little more connected to the people I’ve just left, and also to find out about things around where I am. Moreover, all plans I had (and all plans just about everyone else had) are currently being chucked out the window. I have no race to train for. I don’t have a job to focus on as I was about to start searching for one when I arrived in the US and COVID-19 shut the economy down, so I’m mostly left with little to do and a smartphone close at hand.
On reflection, however, I think the rules of normal circumstances do still apply here, just that the motivation and the discipline required are a little different. Fundamentally it boils down to a different question: how can I be okay with myself, regardless of what’s going on around me?
“How can I be okay with myself, regardless of what’s going on around me?”
I currently see two main prongs on how to approach the question with regards to triathlon. Firstly, there is trusting the process: I trust my coach, I know that he understands my short- and long-term goals, and I know that TTH is aiming to do what is best for all of its athletes. Those three things being the case, whatever my coach is getting me to do right now is “enough”. This part really isn’t different than a normal season, and during a normal season, I tend to drown out other people’s plans for how to get to race shape because I know they aren’t me and I know my coach is trying to do what is right for me. Having worked with my coach for over two years, I know this works.
Secondly, however, and perhaps more importantly, I have to go back to the basics and remember why I do sport at all, and why this sport. The simple answer is, I love it. Sport has always been the one place in my life that I forget about the rest of the world. I am a highly self-critical and self-conscious person, but when I do sport, and in particular when I do a triathlon, I fall into a sort of meditative state, my “poison parrot” melts away, and I can focus on just simply swimming, biking, or running. More recently, I’ve found that the chance to do sport without the pressure of a race actually emphasises that central meditative quality. I’m enjoying pedalling uphill in a way I never have before. On Saturday, I chose to ride up a mountain, and every time I went around a hairpin I looked back down the valley and gasped and smiled, and I didn’t really care about the speed I was going or the QOM that might be there. I’m enjoying discovering running trails away from crowds and grinning to myself throughout as I find little bits of beauty in nearly every step. I’ve also found myself looking forward to the sessions that include a bit more push, feeling like they are a treat rather than something one might dread. As I slowly settle into this new rhythm, I’m actually enjoying the sport for itself more and more, and I remember that I do this sport for me, not for QOMs or photos. The more I can remember that, the less I care about the fact that one friend is killing himself on a daily basis, or that another friend is setting a new FTP.
I have learned over my sporting career that when I do sport for anyone other than for myself, I become self-conscious and self-critical in a way that ruins my love of the sport and hampers my ability to perform. The challenge of social media and sport for me has always been a sense of worrying that others are judging me for what I do or don’t do, and that they won’t approve for whatever reason, or that I’m not doing enough because I’m not doing what they are doing. It’s a challenge that was exacerbated at the start of this pandemic due to the uptick in the volume of content from my peers as I compared myself to them. I’m hoping that one of the good things to come out of this pandemic personally, is a stronger ability to turn off the outside noise and focus on doing what I can do.
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