Athletics and resilience: Sport is rewarding, but brutally unforgiving, in equal measure
Frank McGrath (Lagan Valley AC) races to the finishing line, to claim his U20 silver medal, at the All Ireland Cross Country Championships at Castle Irvine Estate, Co Fermanagh, on November 17. Picture: Perri Williams
Anyone with a child who plays sport will know the acute levels of pleasure and pain that can come with watching them compete.
I have often felt a stab of anguish as my son Frank (McGrath), a middle-distance runner who is now 19, finishes a race that has left him saddled with disappointment.
At that moment, my concern is never about minutes on the stopwatch or his position but the mental effort it takes to haul himself out of a dark hole to set himself back on track.
Athletes are remarkable in the ways they deal with failure and frustration.
Nothing matches the rush of relief, and euphoria felt when you witness their dedication finally paying off, as happened last week when Frank overcame the odds to run his way onto the Ireland team for the under 20 men’s European Cross Country Championships in Antalya, Turkey, in two weeks.
Every athlete in every race or competition has a backstory, each unique in helping them form the mental resilience required to persevere even when it seems a long shot that they will succeed in reaching their goals.
When it all comes together, it is relished because the moments that make the challenges of sport worthwhile are few and far between.
Frank started running in local league cross-country races with dozens of school friends when he was nine. In the decade since, there have been some successful races, but also things that other people don’t see: The performance plateaus, the growing pains so severe he could barely walk when he once grew six inches in a year, failing to make county or even club selection, friends drifting away from the sport taking much of the fun it entailed with them.
Having parents who were athletes themselves — Frank’s dad Paddy (Patrick) ran for Ireland in the 1980s, and I ran for Wales in my late teens — can also be a double-edged sword.
While you have likely blessed your child with some genes that might help them on a physical level, the mental aptitude for dealing with the hours of training, with the peaks and torturous lows of sport and, in the case of athletes in individual sports such as running, with the many miles of running in solitude before and after school while juggling part-time jobs to pay for kit, must be all their own.
Over the years, as a coach to other young athletes, I have come to realise that talent for sport is complex and multi-layered. It’s not enough to be naturally strong and fast.
Instead, talent is an umbrella term for attributes that include a mindset that must be self-cultivated to overcome defeat and setbacks, to commit to years of training, much of it alone, on cold nights, and to somehow convince them to keep inching towards their long-term goals for decades.
A high percentage of young athletes lose the will to keep going in their teenage years — and who can blame them for quitting when the draw to try other things becomes too great? Sport is rewarding but brutally unforgiving in equal measure.
Last year, the blows came thick and fast. In the Spring of 2023, mid-exam season, Frank saw an ear, nose, and throat consultant who diagnosed a visible lump on his upper cheek as a tumour of the salivary gland, rare in someone so young.
Although the tumour was benign, surgery to remove it was advised as left untreated, it could become malignant over time.
In July, he underwent a parotidectomy, an operation performed under general anaesthetic in which a long laceration is made from the front of the ear down to the neck, with some of the nerves to the skin being severed.
A 48-hour stay in hospital and a six-week recovery period during which the wound had to be padded and covered to mop up saliva leakage meant his training was put on hold.
However, Frank resumed gentle running with his cumbersome wound dressing in place after just five weeks.
In August 2023, he flew to the US, where he secured a scholarship to a top National Collegiate Athletic Association university, following the well-trodden path of many Irish athletes.
Although he hoped that this move would be the catalyst for improvement in his athletics, the intense training regimen so soon after his operation took its toll. By early 2024, he had the first significant injury (to his hamstring) of his career.
Weeks later, his university track and field coach announced he was leaving his role, leaving the team rudderless.
At his lowest ebb, Frank decided to move closer to home, opting to study sport and exercise science at St Mary’s University (SMU) in Twickenham, which counts many world and Olympic champions as former and current students.
In May this year, he returned from America battered and broken. As parents, our only goal was to cocoon him at home.
We encouraged him to immerse himself in things that brought him joy: Music, football, friends, and family.
Only after several months did the tension, anxiety, and despair begin to lift, allowing the flicker of hope that he might make the Ireland team for December’s European championships.
Since starting at SMU in September, under the guidance of coach Mick Woods, who represented Ireland at the marathon, and with the support of the university’s Endurance Performance Centre’s physiologists, psychologists, and conditioning specialists, Frank hasn’t looked back.
How do athletes develop the inner strength to push on when every outcome looks bleak?
In his book, Do Hard Things, American performance expert Steve Magness says the model of mental toughness that prevailed in the 1970s and 1980s — based on fear, false bravado, and showing no signs of weakness — is outdated.
Instead, Magness says, navigating life’s challenges to achieve the mental resilience needed for high performance requires working with the body and mind rather than against it.
“Toughness is about having the space to make the right choice under discomfort,” he says.
“To face the reality of the situation and what we can do about it, to use feedback as information to guide us, to accept the emotions and thoughts that come into play and to develop a flexible array of ways to respond to a challenge.”
There are lessons for us all in an athlete’s journey to overcoming adversity.
When things are going badly, it helps to break down the challenges into bite-sized pieces.
I did this by sometimes taking things hour by hour, day by day.
There were many times when I struggled to get out for my training run, wondering if it was all worthwhile.
But setting yourself to autopilot and getting these things done, however much of a slog it feels, eventually pays off.
Setting mini goals can help you inch forward.
For me, this meant adjusting my goals for the summer track season.
Cut yourself slack and allow self-praise for the slightest move towards your longer-term goals.
What motivates you to keep at it must be that long-term goal at the back of your mind.
Sometimes, the goals seem so far removed from where you are right now that it’s a struggle to convince yourself they are realistic.
So, touch base with them from time to time.
Stand back to observe your current situation from afar.
Ask yourself how others might perceive your situation and how you might feel about this in six months.
However tough your situation seems, remember it is likely a temporary blip. Things will get better if you work through them.
Good sleep is essential for improving performance in sport and other goals.
If you don’t wake up feeling refreshed, your ability to focus and motivate yourself through the day ahead will be on the back burner.
It is easy to allow negative thinking to get in the way of progress.
To clear my mind, I use a simple mental trick of imagining I am using a windscreen wiper.
I do it last thing at night to make sure I sleep well.
Meditation can also help.
Friends and family are the best support system in sports.
I prefer running with big groups of friends when we chat and motivate each other along the way.
Be ruthlessly honest with yourself. Take stock regularly and evaluate how you are doing.
After a training session or race, I look at what went badly and find something positive to focus on.
You learn more from the bad times than the good, so don’t be too hard on yourself.
Competition is unavoidable in sport, but try to limit comparing yourself to others as much as possible if it drags you down.
When I was struggling, I streamlined my social media accounts as it didn’t help me to see posts about times and races that were far removed from what I was achieving.
When it comes to goals and big dreams, you have two choices: Stick with it or walk away.
Six months ago, I was close to walk away from athletics, but I didn’t want to do that until I felt I had squeezed every last ounce of enjoyment and effort from my sport.
Ask yourself honestly if you have given everything you can to achieve your goals before giving up on them.
If you decide to quit, set a new goal for something different.
- Instagram: @frankmcgrath88
