One thing people noticed about the New England Patriots in the Brady/Belicheck era was how even in the last five minutes with a two touchdown lead they’d be throwing or driving to the endzone. Prevent defense and running out the clock, while not unused in that period, were rarer than on other teams.
I often say, “they always played 60 minutes of football.” I think this is one of the big advantages they had. When they needed to pull out a rabbit at the last minute it wasn’t something new. I was just playing the full sixty minutes of football.
In reading Rentless I was reminded of this idea when I read the following passage:
I want you in a routine, and I don’t want that routine to vary, whether it’s a meaningless preseason exhibition or the championship game of the Finals.
Relentless by Tim S. Grover, page 65
The penciled annotation in the margin is “Always play 60 min of football”.
So, how do I apply that mindset to everyday life. After all, you can read the best 1,000 self-help books and if you don’t implement any of the ideas it’ll be less effective than finding the worst idea in the worst of those 1,000 books that matches you life and implementing it.
Tomorrow is day of week 2 of ZERO to 1650 in Six Weeks. I will complete the workout and then add single lengths of 25 yards on 1:30 to get to a 45 minute workout for #75HARD. Now, I usually get over exactly 45 minutes either while swimming the last length or during the roughly 30 seconds of rest after.
When I’m resting after any interval (they start at 200 this week in the program and drop to 100, 50, and finally 25), I stay low in the water, ready to go as soon as it is time to start the next interval.
I have started doing that after the final interval. Only when that interval’s 1:30 is over do I stand up. Why? Because the work interval isn’t over until it is over. Even if I’m resting it is an interval and I should be ready for the next one.
Is that a big change? No, but I think it is the start of a change in mindset. It’s the “just learning” version of 60 minutes no matter if it is the first interval or the last.
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