A Day in the Life of Relentless Pursuit

I talk about mindset a lot (in this newsletter, and just about anywhere I go.) 

But I’ve been thinking that, when telling my bobsled story that transitions from 06 to ‘10, I have a tendency to skip over the grueling part. The part that was the day-to-day of going from 7th to 1st in the world.

A proper mindset enables you to do the work. But the work still needs to be done. And, in my case at least, that work was really, really hard. When I look back on it, it was so wildly disciplined it’s hard to believe.

A typical day in the off-season would go like this. 

You wake up. You’re sore. Your muscles are yelling at you, and you haven’t even gotten out of bed yet. You ignore the soreness, obey the alarm.

Eat breakfast right away, even if you’re not hungry: 6 eggs plus spinach, dry cottage cheese and fruit. (You’re going to be eating 5,000-7,000 calories that day, and your nutrition—both when you eat, what you eat, and how much - is precise.)

Make two shakes containing both carbohydrate and protein. One shake you’ll sip on during training; the other you’ll hammer down as soon as your session is done.

After breakfast, head over to training. There is no wiggle room for sleeping in or running behind. If you’re 15 minutes early, you’re late.

Spend 45-60 minutes warming up. No skipping over it. Foam rolling and stretching; side shuffles, karaokas, high knees, skips, jogs, and so on. Then move onto scorpions, iron crosses…all this just for starters. 

Then you do your first workout of the day. This changed based on where we were in the training micro and microcycle but often: Vibration platform, 5 sets of 5 plyometric hurdle hops 42-inches high and 9-feet apart, 5 sets of 5 power cleans. Other various explosive work.

When the workout is complete, scarf down that other shake. Drive home. Immediately have lunch. You prepped it one or two days before so it’s ready to eat. Likely 2-3 chicken breasts, giant spinach salad, and potatoes. 

Soon thereafter it’s time to make another shake and go back for your second training session. Repeat warm-up. When that’s done, you do your workout, and you do it with everything you’ve got. Don’t even think about phoning it in. There are no shortcuts. Whatever your workout is, lifting (Power cleans, squats, etc), sprinting, plyos… you’re all-in.

By the way, you’re drinking water the entire time. If you notice you’re thirsty, it’s too late—you’re already dehydrated. (The goal, of course, is to ensure you have enough energy to train at the level you need to, and maintain or add mass. I was the lightest guy on the team at 215 pounds. My natural body weight is closer to 195. Energy intake will obviously vary by sport and needs; this was what it was like as a bobsledder.)

Once your workout is complete, chug back another shake, and go home. There you’ll have dinner (more lean protein and starchy carbohydrate), then go through your evening routine — some stretching, some foam rolling, etc.

Have another snack. Get ready for bed. If there is something else going on that’s important - from a disagreement with your partner or anything else life throws at you - learn to compartmentalize it and continue getting ready for bed.

Stress is stress is stress and you have to control it and recover properly.

Then have a bedtime snack. Then, go to bed with enough time to get 8 hours of sleep, minimum. And be prepared to have to get up constantly during the night to pee because you’ve been drinking liters of water all day long. 

And through it all, you never cut corners. You don’t dare stop taking each of those things seriously, because anything less than taking every single moment seriously would not do your dream justice.

You must be RELENTLESS. All of the time. One lazy thirty minutes and your entire life’s work could be shot. Injuries were the real enemy. One hamstring pull, strain, tear… that could be it. 

You’re doing explosive things with and to your body on a regular basis and the risk of injruy is always redlined. Not to mention the whole - the actual job of bosledding can kill you on any given day.

You must do all of this, knowing full well that you may never get to realize your dream.

When training for the Olympics, you do all of this just for a shot. If everything lines up perfectly and the injuries don’t break you or your spirit, then maybe you’ll get a chance. And I can rattle off 1000x more guys I trained and competed with (or against) who didn’t get a shot—not Olympic Trials, not a national team tryout—than those who did.

By the way, you must do all of this, knowing you may never realize your dream, while making pennies. I made nothing my first two years. Then I made $12,000 a year for about three years; after that it went up to a whopping $24,000 a year. If you’re fortunate and you happen to be in the top three in the world at the end of the year, you can split some prize money. If you have a big year, that’s another $10,000. If you don’t, it’s nothing.

You do all of this for a shot at winning. If everything comes together, and you’ve got some luck on your side as well as all the hard work and the right mindset, maybe, just maybe you’ll get a shot.

And, by the way, I did all this for over 3,000 days, close to in a row, as a bosledder and another 3,000 before that as a track athlete.

So there you have it… one tiny snapshot of what it’s like training for the Olympics, in the off-season no less.

I’ve been thinking about this lately because I want to make sure I’m sending the right message when I talk to people - especially kids. 

We tell kids things, “Dream big,” “You can be anything you want in life,” and “Shoot for the stars.”

But rarely do we admit to them exactly what it takes and just how hard it can be.

You have to have the right mindset, which is incredibly hard to maintain. But then it’s about the work.

For young people who want to achieve a big, audacious goal, I want to say: be relentless. 

Listen to people who know what they’re doing and emulate them. Seek out the most accomplished people you can find, people who have done what you want to do. Learn from them.

Do the work. Don’t cut corners. Again, be relentless.

Believe in yourself and keep at it. Keep doing the hard things necessary to make it happen.

Repeat.

That’s it. It’s that simple. And through all that, recognize you might not win. You might not even get your shot. But you’ll have the knowledge that you were relentless. That you have what it takes to persevere and pursue what is most important to you. And that knowledge will serve you well and unlock doors for a lifetime. 

- Steve