#17 | Part 2 Elliot Awin - Insights From Elite Psychological Training & Behind 2 Years Of Rowing Preperation

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previously in part one I saw 30 of my best mates that I've known since I was six years old.

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But if it's just part of what's happening, you never have to overcome it because your opinion of it is it just is like we said earlier about being the role model piece, because you said that when you're playing a dorking and the cult 17, 18 you're looking up to you being I'd love to be that one day and you lose that from not playing. It must be amazing. I spoke to lauren earlier on and she mentioned the role model thing. I said it's so poignant because there you just said it to have what you've gone through now and to have kids as young as five say that they look up to you. Having gone through everything you've gone through, it's amazing.

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That role model piece is then, yeah, placed and it's funny because I never intended it obviously to be a role model piece and, like I set out on to do the row for the, for like to satisfy a sense of adventure and to do something big and majestic and obviously I'm hugely competitive so I wanted to win the solo race. I ended up not winning the solo race because various reasons of competency, of sailing the boat and a bit of weather, routing, etc. Which.

I've never done before and using metrics of success and reframing what you measure success by. So the metrics of success I was thinking about for the whole campaign were winning and a nice time, as in getting a nice short time, having a nice time, of course, having a nice time.

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Um, as in getting a nice short time, having a nice time, having a nice time was actually should have been higher on my agenda, yeah, so so actually let me explain it.

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Yeah, yeah, so a quick time was annoyingly higher for me than a, than a nice time, um, but then, of course, raising money for the British Heart Foundation which I'm still doing, yeah and the ability to raise awareness for a cause. So, in in the right order it was, I wanted to win the solo race, um, have a crack at the world record if, whether, whether, conditions allowed I mean, it's always churlish to say stuff like that, because especially the weather conditions have over that long a period as well.

There's no idea what's going to happen then raise money for the british heart foundation and then sort of like that awareness piece which I didn't quite know how it was going to fit sort of came last in that sort of motivational piece so like of how I was deriving motivation for finishing the road yeah but then as having a nice time and, uh, and the sort of winning of the race with the record time like disappeared, I then realized that actually I do value that.

That, um, I hate the idea of it being inspirational, but the but they're like confidence piece that other people had gained confidence from doing, from seeing what I had done, and therefore that has like been now the metrics of success. For me is like hearing that, oh, this person has. I had a lady at a talk the other day who said I had a heart operation and I just decided I was going to stay in bed for two months and then saw you rode the atlantic and I got out of bed and came to this talk, that's all you need.

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It just gives you goosebumps to hear that sort of stuff and it's, it's super.

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Yeah, gratifying to hear those sorts of things.

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I want to go into the whole rowing thing because I just find it bananas that you've done 3,000, 3,000 miles in 44 days in one hour. What did the actual preparation go into that like? Was it years preparing? Was it like nutritional stuff, was it? You know you were rowing three, four times a week. What actually did it look like?

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because people just see the finished article and they never see what's actually behind it yeah, so I signed up to the row in december 2020, 2020, okay, and so there were three years then of preparation and I actually didn't originally think I'd do it as a solo. So Fraser, the guy who owns the gym that I go to, is an ex-British rower, so he rode in the world championships for Great Britain and he's 6'7". I thought perfect, good mate, 6'7" British rower, do you want to row the Atlantic?

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And he's stupid enough to say yes. And then he was like yeah, it sounds like a good plan.

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And then quickly we had, and I was, like most people do it as a tour or four right.

So I was like then we were chatting to other people in the gym, reese, chap in the gym who rode for road at henley for mulsey and won henley, he would be perfect to sign up. And then nico, for another friend who had penny farthings to the alps. So like, incredibly resilient, like had done three marathons back to back with no training, like bit stupid, but like, but really resilient, so that we immediately had like this team of four and then I inquired with the race as to like what the process was. And they're like there's a wait list for three years and I sort of had got this like the inception of the idea of rowing the Atlantic in in September of that year so I was obsessed with it.

I was like I could not get the idea out of my head. I like dreamt about waves every time. I sort of thought about the Atlantic. And then, with that three-year wait list, I thought how am I going to keep these three people as motivated as myself? And then what is next going to be the story of the campaign? I mean, the campaign costs about 130 000 pounds to run, including the purchase of a boat, and I thought how am I going to model this campaign? Um, how am I going to differentiate myself from the other 39 boats in the race? So I mean there's nearly five million pounds required to start the race just from raising money like for the boats. And I thought how much. What's what's going to be my point of difference? And then realized that man with pacemaker rose atlantic for the british heart foundation is quite a cool like tagline and therefore corporates would get on board for understanding that.

That motivation so, and then doing that solo. So then I came up with the charity. I then started to run the whole campaign through, started a charity called wave wrangler. So the idea of getting my waves under the waves of my ecg under control, waves of the ocean under control, um.

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But didn't quite know.

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Thanks, and love a play on words didn't quite know what the like, the real motives of the charity was going to be, so then realized that if I was going to raise a lot of money, I might as well give it to the number one heart charity in the uk that fund 450 million pounds worth of research into heart, yeah, into heart care, um, and so working with them also for the pr aspect, rather than me sort of trying to wave my flag and also look, I'm a startup charity.

Are people going to like give money a start-up charity? So yeah, talk to British Heart Foundation. And then eventually I've come up also with the idea for Wave Round to fund defibrillators in underfunded sports centres.

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I mean.

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Dorking Rugby Club. Our bus driver had a sudden cardiac arrest after getting off the bus from a way journey and our physio saved his life with a defibrillator at. New wave.

Someone has had a sudden cardiac arrest and his life was saved with a defibrillator, so so, of course, if you're a, rugby club with a bit of cash or a gym with a bit of cash, then of course you're going to spend money on a defibrillator, or should spend money. But if you're a grassroots boxing gym or football club that doesn't have a lot of cash, you're going to spend money on pads or coaches or footballs, not necessarily also very expensive as well. Yeah, two thousand pounds, yeah and so wave wrangler will continue past my campaign which raised money for the bridge that's brilliant.

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Let's go to uh. Before you get on the boat, what was what was going on in your head? Were you just like I'm ready now? Or was it like, yeah, so I go back to prep? Like?

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so three years of basically the first piece of prep that you have to do is raise enough cash to fund the boat. And so purchase of a boat, and I spoke to mark schlatz, who holds the world record for solos and pairs. Uh, sailed around the world solo twice and I found that he also did it as part of the Golden. Globe, which is the the same technology that they had in the 70s. So like no sat phones, no.

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GPS. Yeah, beast, just him and him. Yeah, I mean, what does that do to you mentally?

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as well. Well, he's completely nice. This is the guy who won a kickboxing tournament in australia at like the age of 19, bought a boat with the money, but then didn't have enough money to train to like training. So then he just sailed the boat back and learned on the way with a manual or lunatic.

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I envy people. It's just so spontaneous.

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Yeah, it's so spontaneous, um, and so yeah. So three years of prep was like, firstly, financial and like the logistics. Speaking to mark got went, got a boat designed. He was designing a new boat. So I want I didn't want to do things traditionally like there's a boat building company that nearly do all the boats and have got sort of 1,000 crossing under their belt. So Mark was building a new boat, so I ended up going with him in a carbon fiber boat. That's a really long story, but it didn't get delivered until like the July of 2023. So ideally I wanted two summers in it but only ended up with two months in it.

So physical prep was what. What I sort of focused on. It's something that you can truck and control. Obviously, the the um, I couldn't control that. I didn't have a boat and therefore I could have tried, but the I could control my physical training. So I did three years of working with a PT who specifically designs programs for ocean rowers. So obviously, as a solo rower, if you get injured, it's not the ideal, because there's no.

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What happens then if you? If you do, is it, are there boats out there like just checking in with you?

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nothing, no so it's just like that you're just stuck yeah yeah, well, you blow, you blow there eventually, so getting injured is not a good idea, so like making sure my like joints are robust.

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So like Well, you'll blow there eventually, wherever you end up.

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So getting injured is not a good idea, so like making sure my joints are robust, so like I had a lot of like hip preparation, knee preparation, ankle preparation, core like stability work, along with a lot of like zone two work, so like low heart rate stuff, which then builds I guess it's physical resilience, because the ability to row two hours on, two hours off for 44 days, um is what you're aiming to do. So I ended up not rowing the traditional ocean rowing. Uh pattern of work to rest is two hours on, two hours off as a pair or four.

That fits in quite nicely, as solo one of the greatest things is you can do whatever you want, when you want. Also one of the worst things, because Because you're in your own doing. Yeah, because you're not accountable to anyone else obviously. So I ended up rowing three hours on, one hour off during the day, and then for the beginning bit I'd take a whole four hours off at night, a whole four hours off at night, and hours off at night, a whole four hours off at night.

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Um, and then when it got a bit tough, I did two hours on, two hours off at night through, like when it got a bit tough.

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He says that's mad and and so physical preparation and and then I also did a bit of psychological preparation. I worked with a company called matrix performance who specialize in resilience performance, so the idea of performing to a high level under duress, and they work with that. They're in still in the RAF, ptis in the RAF who design resilient performance programs for Eurofighter pilots unbelievable. So worked on a lot of models of motivation and getting to know myself. It's almost like going through therapy, so that you're not on the middle, in the middle of the Atlantic, discovering stuff about yourself and what you find important um, but that was hugely valuable when you're out there.

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Was there any a point where you're like I'm very lonely? This is weird. Like almost not not lose your head, but almost like 44 days on your own, not really speaking to many people. Like what's that?

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like it's weird like so. On day three, I cried every day, um, but most of it was happy crying like realization that people cared about this. So I um had a whatsapp group that ended up with nearly 300 people in it that were talking about me on the road nearly every day, and I then speak to one person every day who was probably who was in that group, and they'd give me feedback about what people were saying and who was saying what, and I actually think I was less lonely on the Atlantic than I have been since I've come back.

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That's really interesting.

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In the middle of the Atlantic. You don't see anyone. You know you're not going to see anyone and anyone you answer if you ring. You know that if you ring someone and they pick up, they're going to answer. Well, if they don't answer it doesn't matter, but if they do answer, they want to speak to you.

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Because you're like this is cool, he's in the middle of the Atlantic.

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I am speaking to someone in the middle of the Atlantic and I'd ring one person every day and they would be really interested in speaking to me yeah, yeah, yeah. You come back and there's lots of people to ring, there's lots of opportunity to do things, but you actually don't know who wants to speak to you ever.

And so let's say you've got a Saturday free and you're like whoa, I've got so many different options here, but I don't want to bother that person. I don't want to bother that person options here, but I don't want to bother that person I don't want to bother that person.

I don't want to, you know, yeah, and so yeah, it wasn't lonely because I knew that people were thinking about me at all, wanted to speak to me at that point in time. I think it's harder when you don't know, and you and you're and there's, there's all those options to see people, but yet you can't do that. So, yes, I'd have a free saturday, but my only option was to row right or like talk to the bird that like flew past, which I did every day, yeah.

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I'm not surprised.

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But at no point did I think I was lonely. I was like this is something I'm doing and at no point did I regret anything. I found it hard at times and then at some points I found it hard that I wasn't winning the solo race and then had to like reframe my motivation and understand why I'd lost motivation, which is like a bit of the work I did with matrix to understand, like the model of self-determination theory, so the idea that for to be fully self-determined you need that autonomy, uh the competency and uh relatedness, so like being feeling part of a community, so that autonomy piece. I knew I'd lost that autonomy because the weather was terrible. It wasn't helping me in any way, but I couldn't control that weather. I also lost sort of control of some of my electrics because batteries weren't charging, so that I then had to work out which of my electrics I was prioritizing, ie making water, which is obviously more important than steering, but at the same time because you tell me where you're going.

Because of the Auto Helm, as a solo rower. The Auto Helm is like one of your biggest crutches, so you can just row and that steers you in the right direction of the course. But of course water is keeping me alive. But I wanted the Auto auto helm because if I turned it off then I wouldn't be able to make as quick progress and if I wanted to win the race I won't need my auto help, but I also need water to keep.

Yeah, and so that was so, that loss of autonomy, saying today, actually you're just going to have to surf and hand steer to like turn everything off, which meant I probably didn't make as quick a progress as I would have done had I been sacrificed for something else, but at least I managed to drink or have a liter and a half of water, which still wasn't enough for like that day yeah so that loss of autonomy that I realized and then realized that what can I control?

that will make me feel a little bit more motivated, as opposed to trying to control the weather or the electrics or just understanding that dynamic. The competency is, I think and I prepared so well physically and I was probably the strongest, most physically fit person in the race but it means very little, and so the competency I'd focused on the wrong things when actually I should have learned how to live on the boat a bit better and have a better routine as to eating and rowing and sticking to that routine, so that I established what routine worked better for me. I know they say that it's not the routine that doesn't work for you, it's that you didn't work for the routine.

But at the same time finding a routine. That is a little bit easier to stick to rather than rowing for three hours on. One hour off didn't necessarily work for me, and the food didn't work for me also because I was dehydrated so I couldn't eat as much food because I was only having dry food rather than wet food. So kind of the routine didn't work for me and yeah, yeah um, and then the relatedness, of course.

I'm in the middle of the atlantic on my own, but then realizing that I got one text message from my weather router that says do this course and the weather's going to be like this, this and this for the next three days, and the number of days I was like the weather is not like guys. And then they and they were in holland a bit of a language barrier so I'd ring them on the sap phone and it was just this relatedness was lost and like no insult to them but it's just like there was this like disconnect, that I didn't feel like that we were a team yeah and so I ended up giving my brother a trigonometry lesson from the atlantic.

Oh my god dehydrated. Yeah, yeah, trying to like shout at my younger brother being like come on, it's like soccer, toa, don't you remember? Just to like, to like. But then to like, find he to tell me how far like um east or west the guy in first place was, and and liz, who was behind me, like who was.

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So she's sailed 600 000 nautical miles but like that's, that's like around the world, like more than 30 times and so her like knowledge of the sea is better than anyone else's. Yeah, in the world probably she's like the number one female skipper and so she was really using the weather to her advantage.

:: 17:51

She was like I think she got the most number, the biggest day in terms, like I think she got the most the biggest day in terms of miles out of any of the solo rows. She did like over a hundred miles and she was chasing me so like with Henry bringing that in. I got that relatedness and sort of felt that there was this sort of team spirit again.

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Fueled something back into you, yeah and fueled that motivation.

:: 18:09

So I like spoke to him every day on text message and that was and to understand that toolbox of autonomy, competency and relatedness. Whilst it sounds awfully like self-help, it- is it's like what is this toolbox that I could use for motivation and what am I missing? And that and what, what, what control can I? I regain over this motivational piece to try and be happier.

:: 18:36

It sounds to me like the psychological battle you had far outweighed the physical one. The physical one was obviously really tough, but the preparation you'd had would prepare you for that amount of rowing, whereas the psychological thing nothing can prepare you for that. What was that like?

:: 18:49

It was good. At the same time, I then could look back and think I'm so glad I'm this physically prepared, because otherwise I'd have that to contend with as well. Yeah, exactly, and so I'd never say to anyone don't prepare as much physically, because I there are times when I'm like pulling the boat and like every stroke felt like 150 kg deadlift and I'm like, I'm really happy that I'm this strong and I hope people, I hope no one else is struggling, but I genuinely. I was like how is like?

:: 19:17

yeah, anyway, so that was happy.

:: 19:20

I was, yeah, I was happy that I'd prepared physically and actually I didn't find it hard physically and that sounds terrible, but like I only lost five kilos of weight and like I didn't, I, I managed to eat enough, but it was the, and I don't think it's the psychological thing that I expected.

So, like I didn't I, I managed to eat enough, but it was the I don't think it's the psychological thing that I expected so like it wasn't the oh, I'm lonely, I'm at sea, oh, this is really far like I'm, I'm scared because I'm stuck in the middle of the atlantic. It was more the inability to stay present because I was too worried about winning. And hindsight of that, yeah, yeah, the reflection for me is I look back on it and think why on earth did you care too worried about winning Hindsight of that?

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Yeah, yeah.

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The reflection for me is I look back on it and think why on earth did you care so much about winning? Like you're just crossing the Atlantic, it's still pretty Like I come back and people can't get their head around the fact that I'm upset that I came second.

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Yeah, that's your inner athlete in you, though Of course it's kind of been bred in you. I'm just very incompetent.

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And so people are like, oh, you did really well, you crossed the Atlantic. I was like, yeah, but, yeah, but I didn't win.

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But I didn't win.

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And so this then goes back into the reframing and what metric of success I'm using to try and keep some sanity and sort of reflect positively on the whole campaign is now the work that I'm doing with the British Heart Foundation which is amazing which I find incredibly important, and I'm so glad that it's there to like fill that void of not coming first.

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Hi guys, I hope you enjoyed part 2. First and foremost, if you are across YouTube, make sure you like and subscribe and do comment below. It really really helps the channel out loads. Here's what you can expect in part 3.

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Enjoy as long as you remember, you can remember always wanting to win everything you did, the journey that three years has been. I think that growth mindset, fixed mindset piece is