A mindset to go big to celebrate 60 years
Imagine what it would be like to plan a big goal for your 60th birthday. It should be something epic and noteworthy. After all, turning sixty is a milestone.
Will Turner decided that the year he turned sixty he would do sixty Ironman triathlons. A full Ironman is 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles on a bike, and running 26.2 miles. Sixty of these in a year is more than one a week!
After he finished his goal for his sixtieth year, he decided to keep going to 100 Ironman triathlons. Then he discovered he could beat the world record if he did 105 Ironmans within 2 years.
Will Turner did his first triathlon in 1993. In the early 2000s he was also running marathons Then in 2009, when he turned 50, he decided he wanted to do his first Ironman. Then he moved on to ultra-endurance triathlons. There are double, triple, quintuple, deca, and double-deca Ironman distances. He has run an ultramarathon distance as part of an ultra-Ironman.
He did the quintuple Ironman before he decided to do the 60/60. He did it just as a test to push himself and see what he was capable of doing. It was a 12 mile swim, a 560 mile bike and 131 mile run. He missed the cutoff time only seven miles short of the finish line. He says it was a humbling experience, but in retrospect it was a good experience because it helped him go for longer lengths to figure out what he should do differently in his 60/60 year. In that race he basically got to the point where his back was so knotted up that he was walking like Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre-Dame.
The reason Will has stayed in the world of endurance sports for the last two decades is that he wants to be always pushing himself. It happens that every time you are training or competing there comes a moment when you want to give up and stop or walk. He calls that moment ”the sweet spot.” But when you push through and get to the other side and finish it’s like drinking a golden elixir that fills you with confidence and you realize you can do so much more than you thought you could.
When he did his first Ironman he was turning 50. A couple of years before he turned 60 he thought he wanted to do something big. He was with a friend a few weeks before he made the big decision and she asked him if he had a big race planned. She was the first to know he wanted to do 6 Ironman in the year he turned 60. She told him about another local athlete who had already done the same thing. He took the 10x principle and decided to do 60 Ironmans.
He had two years to do the mental and physical preparation work to see if it was possible. It was a lot of going out on his own and seeing how his body responded and making some adjustments along the way, as well as making sure to build confidence that he was doing it safely and sustainably and would not be injuring himself.
Will loves the mindset work that goes into endurance sports. He is always testing what works and what doesn’t work. For him the biggest part is the belief, realizing that you can do the distance. This is something he took a long time to create because. He needed time to build that belief in himself, that he can hold on and cover the distance without hurting himself and knowing that he has mechanisms to deal with different situations. Part of his mental training is also to be self-taught in those moments when the going gets tough. He says you can either let the negative mindset derail you, or you can take control of your thoughts and let them lead you in the direction of moving forward. He creates a plan for himself. He has certain affirmations that he uses if he needs them. He also relies on his support people and he can use them as part of his positive self-talk.
His friend, Chris, helped him reach his goal. Will refers to Chris as his “uber-sherpa.” They went to a lot of amazing places and Chris had only one condition, that he could go to these places to take pictures. Chris was a mountain biker, and they ended up taking the most amazing pictures together. They put Chris’ pictures into a coffee table book you can buy from Will’s website. They decided to head to various National Parks and they ended up going in a caravan, did a couple of runs in Canada, one near Whistler, and then drove 3,000 miles from Whistler through British Columbia and the Yukon in Canada and across Alaska. Will thinks the first year they averaged 1300 miles a week in driving on top of all the racing.
He was very inspired by seeing older people who are still doing endurance sports because if they are still doing it at that age it gives him the confidence that it can be done and that he will be one of those people. He plans to be doing endurance sports into his eighties and beyond. And he wants to inspire other people to reach beyond their own mindset limits and do more than they think they can.
Connect with Will:
https://www.instagram.com/liveyourbold/
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