Motivation – What drives me.

Hello all, i’m back again! Like many others I have been struggling with motivation during lock down. So it seemed fitting to talk about it and how it has fluctuated throughout my sporting career. From initially starting rowing as a 16 year old, through the early stages, during university, through injury and recently in lock down, from now 23 year old Grace’s perspective. 

The early days…

My motivation to start rowing was to win things. It wasn’t because I necessarily loved it (or was actually any good at it to be honest)! It took a long time to be reasonably competent in a boat, and even then you wouldn’t look at me and see tonnes of potential. I was lucky, I was in the right place at the right time I guess, being put in a double scull with another girl at Bewl – Georgie. She was a year younger than me, but so many years ahead in rowing terms. I owe her so much of the early rowing successes, as i’m pretty sure she pulled more than half the boat along! Nevertheless, I think we were good for each other and the special bond you create when in a boat with just one other person builds a partnership that can never be broken.

Starting rowing I was set on becoming a ‘START’ athlete. British Rowing’s talent ID system which selects new rowers who have the right physical attributes to be moulded into olympians further down the line. I tried so hard to get onto this programme, but never actually got tested. Looking back this was probably a blessing in disguise, because I don’t think my love for the sport would have blossomed if I had started training in such a result driven system so early on. 

So as you can gather my motivation during the early days was purely based on my competitiveness. But also because i wanted to be the girl at school (state school i must add) who did sport at a high level. I also wanted to do a sport that no one else did and which would provide me with clear pathways to success. Generally the harder you work, the better your results will be with rowing. My determined nature thrived from this, but I also found it challenging not coming from an endurance background with no real base fitness behind me – I thought I was fit, until I started rowing. 

University

Moving to Oxford Brookes University aged 18, my motivation was still about success – how I could get fitter and stronger. I knew I had to go to the best place I could to help further my progress. Oxford Brookes in 2015 won the senior women’s 8+ at Henley Women’s Regatta and I watched it happen from my boat (as Georgie and I also made the final that year and raced just before the Brookes 8+). Their result and celebrations confirmed to me that i had made a decision not only to go to a high performing club, but also to join what looked like an amazing squad of people. 

I was so excited to join in the coming september, but was daunted by the prospect of being bottom of the pack. I had a summer job that year washing up at a catering company of my mum and dads friends. It was a hot summer, I remember sweating so much next to the industrial dishwashers, but every day after work I would come home and row on my ergo, the fans on full blast and windows wide open. My attempt to increase fitness, so i could join Brookes and be in with a shot. I was extremely motivated by having to prove my worth, which is something that has always driven me. 

The influx of new students that year was huge, maybe the biggest the Women’s squad had ever seen. I was looking around me and seeing all these names I had previously seen on results from junior racing days and thinking ‘wow this is going to be tough’. Blissfully unaware of the athletes already established within the team. But I can honestly say joining that year was the best decision I ever made. Brookes is an incredibly competitive atmosphere to train within, (with every stroke in the boat being monitored via telemetry, numbers in the gym put up on a whiteboard and everyone trying to be their best every session) but it’s also a family where I made some of my best friends. The atmosphere was exhilarating and I moulded from mediocre junior rower into a university athlete quickly. Within 6 weeks of joining I somehow bagged myself a seat in the 1st 8+ for the British Rowing Senior Championships. 

I remember scrolling through entries on my phone and being blown away to see my name in the ‘A’ boat next to names such as Olivia Carnegie-Brown (who went on to win a silver medal later in the season at the Rio De Janeiro 2016 Olympics). As well as the rest of the crew who had numerous GB U23 accolades to their name. I was pulled across the line to a Bronze Medal. My motivation to retain my seat for the rest of the season was sky-high. I could continue to describe the rest of the season as it was probably the best I ever had, but in years 2,3 and 4 at Brookes my motivation changed completely.

Year 2

In 2nd year, as previously described in my first blog, I spent the majority of the season in a pair with my partner Sophia. At the start of the year we went to the GB Rowing Teams first assessment in Boston (Lincolnshire) and came last. Dead last. Enough to kill anyones motivation after months of strenuous training in the run up. But instead it did the opposite for me. I started analysing literally everything – Our time wasn’t actually that slow, (about 5 or 6 seconds between us and 2nd/3rd place over 5km) and we rowed pretty terribly in the fast paced tail-wind conditions. So my confidence actually increased along with my motivation. I was driven to make gains at the next trials in 2 ½ months, and that we did, climbing several places by now starting to row effectively as a unit. 

I’ve always been the sort of person that turns failure into something that drives me. Most of the time this is actually fuelled by anger or a feeling of injustice. I tend not to stop until I feel I have a true representation of the result I’m capable of. And this mentality really carried me through the 2016/17 season. 

After that 2nd set of GB trials we were invited as a pair to ‘Final Trials’ in April 2017 – a regatta like format where you race against everyone (U-23s, aspiring seniors and senior GB athletes). What an opportunity we had bagged ourselves! We finished 3rd U-23 W2- and 9th overall – Not bad from a boat that had come last in November. 

Seat racing followed, which is a means to test athletes singularly in a crew boat. You complete numerous races in a day with people being swapped between boats (which is meant to show who is actually moving the boat and give individual rankings). It’s a bit of a political party if you ask me, most of the time coaches already know who they want in selected crews. And that was clear to me after my first experience of this. After a sweltering weekend of seat racing with varied results in my boat, but mostly towards the bottom end of the rankings I finally got switched boats, (from one that had just won to one that had just come last) so of course now i needed to pull my finger out and win, to show i was the person making that boat move. We crossed the line with clear water. 

It seems all sunshine and roses, but I wasn’t even going to get a race to show my ability until my coach kicked up a fuss. So my motivation quickly turned to proving a point. I guess it worked in the end, and I’m pleased i found this part of myself, because i always performed the best and reached heights I didn’t even know i was capable of when i was angry or trying to prove something. However, this side of my personality and motivation was less helpful when injury struck.

Injury

Injury struck in the January of my 3rd year at Brookes. I went through the classic, denial, anger, frustration, bargaining, acceptance model time and time over. It was an emotional roller coaster but my motivation seemed to stay at an all-time high. Watching everyone around me literally live and breath rowing was tormenting, but i got on with it and made sure i was training as hard on the bike and doing lots of upper body conditioning. The physios were great, creating new and innovative plans to get me back to rowing numerous times, but nothing hugely worked for a long time – When the people you trust most can’t seem to figure you out, that sinking feeling in your stomach comes out to play. But they never stopped trying and i am so thankful for that, but it was difficult trying new things for so long. I would get excited about the prospect of something new working, and then come back down to earth again when it didn’t make much difference a few weeks later. 

My motivation to train still remained high. I overdid it if I’m honest and just made things worse. But it’s hard when you feel like things are slowly slipping away from you. I was scared of losing my fitness, losing all the work I had put in for so many years. And not being able to trial, whilst watching my pairs partner Sophia get in a boat with someone else – that was a hard pill to swallow. But watching her get selected as the stroke seat of the GB U23 8+ for the world championships that year, all i felt was incredibly proud. After feeling awful about getting injured and leaving her without a stable foundation to compete within, I was relieved that at least half of us had achieved what we set out to do. 

As injury progressed and there was no clear path back to rowing my motivation to train and rehab kind of turned into holding on for dear life. The pain at this stage was another obstacle, and it got to the point where i was just happy to be able to live a normal lifestyle again – if that meant not rowing but being pain free i was okay with that. I couldn’t do the normal stuff a 21/22 year old girl would be doing without what felt like being punished for it. I would go shopping with friends, walk to uni, go on nights out, go to concerts, you know the normal stuff. But when i woke up the next morning i could hardly move (and the motivation to even get out of bed when you feel like that is horrendous). I had to hype myself up to stand up and get dressed, because I knew physical pain would plague my day and emotional pain would top it off too, whilst still being in that rowing environment. 

My motivation for university also fluctuated. I found it really hard to focus on doing any work because i felt so emotionally drained from everything and couldn’t get comfortable in any position. Somehow I scraped through and it became easier to navigate once writing my dissertation on ‘The effects of personality on sports injury rehabilitation behaviours’. Something I was genuinely interested in since training with other injured people and analysing how they were dealing with the situation compared to me. So it was a tough time to stay motivated not just in a rowing capacity. 

When i stopped rowing, i felt liberated, like a weight had been taken off my shoulders. I was no longer asking my body to cash cheques it couldn’t afford. But my motivation to train in the gym and for the first time ‘look good’ rocketed. All of a sudden I was scared of losing my athlete identity. My motivation shifted towards aesthetics – a dangerous game when your body is injured. I was now hurting myself by training more and not having a coach or programme telling me what to do. This did get better once I knew I was going to have an operation, but my mindset turned into ‘ doesn’t matter how broken I get, i’m going to get fixed’ – a horrible cycle to be in. 

Post operation my motivation was high initially to do my rehab. But when i got to about 3-4 months post op and it felt worse than beforehand it dropped dramatically. I would go through weeks of not doing anything to try and make my body feel better, then feel terrified to try and train again because I knew I would become obsessed and reliant on it. However, with time things began to improve . And i did get better at not training so much! My physios always said it would take a year to recover from the operation, I reached the 1 year milestone and like a switch things dramatically improved. 

Lock down

The 1 year milestone happened in lock down along with many others. Although this has been a terrible time for many, it’s been a turning point for me. Having time to train at my own pace, fit in enough rehab, recovery and improve my relationship with food has allowed me to take huge steps forwards. At the start of lock down I was training a lot, doing 2-3 hours of cardio per day and 2-3 S&C sessions per week. I was extremely motivated to find out whether I could tolerate a rowing specific programme again. When I received the news I had been accepted onto a masters physiotherapy course in September several thoughts of returning to university rowing crossed my mind. So that helped keep the motivation to train high, although, i was scared about making decisions too quickly and my body taking a turn for the worse again – so my options are still very much open. 

Recently getting back on the water has been great. I am lucky to row in such a beautiful place down in Kent which helps a lot with the motivation to get out there. Bewl tends to have its own weather system, so when the weathers good you have to grab the opportunity and roll with it. I have been slacking a bit lately, and tend to feel guilty when i don’t go rowing when it’s nice. But variety is the spice of life, and mixing up training is needed to allow the body to keep progressing. I just have to keep reminding myself of that. 

Getting back in a boat has also re-sparked my passion – especially being in a single scull. I used to hate singles, but throughout my injury I have felt more alone than ever. So I think that’s why I now love rowing alone. It’s almost like no-one else has experienced my individual journey, so i feel the need to do it on my own on the water too. I would love to race and achieve something in my single scull one day – My way of closing the chapter i guess.