Welcome to Miles and Mindset, a new series on mental performance training for athletes, hosted by me, Rebecca Rusch, and my friend ‪@brentbookwalter1‬. Between the two of us we have over 50 years of combined experience racing on the world’s most competitive stages, and this series is our attempt to hand you the mental training we had to figure out the long, slow way.

This first episode is about the foundation everything else gets built on: your values and your motivation. Brent built a model for mental performance shaped like a tree, and we are starting at the roots, because none of the flashy mental skills, the visualization, the self talk, the pre race routines, work without this piece in place first.

I share my own story of transitioning out of Leadville after four wins, how scared I was to walk away from something so tied to my identity, and the trick I used instead of just quitting cold: replacing it with something new rather than leaving a hole. I also dig into fear as a motivator, including the winter bike expeditions in Alaska and Iceland that terrified me and became some of the proudest accomplishments of my life in my 50s.

Brent introduces self determination theory, a framework built on three things every one of us needs to stay motivated: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. We talk through what it actually looks like to lose those things, and how to notice when your own motivation is draining because one of them is missing.

We also get into something I think gets overlooked constantly: the question of whether a strong mindset is something you are born with or something you build. Spoiler, it is trainable, and we walk through exactly how.

This series is for anyone who moves their body with intention, whether you are chasing a podium or just chasing your best self. New episodes drop regularly, so subscribe and come build this with us.

For access to the tools discussed in this series, and to learn more about Miles and Mindset head to https://www.rebeccarus….

For more on my work and the Be Good Foundation visit rebeccarusch.com.

For more on Brent’s mental performance coaching work with athletes and teams visit brentbookwalter.com.

Chapters: 

0:00 Welcome to Miles and Mindset 

7:25 Brent’s path from pro cycling to mental performance coaching 

10:27 Rebecca’s 30 years across endurance sports 

16:27 Defining mentorship, mental performance, and mental health support 

18:27 Is a strong mindset inherited or trainable 

25:38Brent’s tree model of performance excellence 

28:55 Rebecca on revisiting your values as they evolve 

38:41 How to actually sit down and define your values 

46:41 Rebecca’s concussion recovery and finding adventure again 

52:49 The motivational menu analogy 

56:55 Self determination theory explained 

1:03:41Rebecca on the Leadville years and year to year contract pressure 

1:11:29 Replacing instead of removing: the Leadville transition story 

1:19:42 Fear as a motivator and the Alaska expedition 

1:35:21 Wrapping up episode one

Categories: mountain bike, video