As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I participate in a fast from food and water for 24 hours each month. Today was fast Sunday, and I was reminded of how weak I am. Of how weak we all are.

Take away something as simple as food and water for a mere 24 hours and it’s suddenly a lot harder to have a lot of energy, or motivation to do much more than relax. Well, it’s a lot harder to do things for yourself, but what I thought about today was how much easier it is to stay motivated if you remember why you’re fasting, and if you do things for others.

Without purpose, fasting is simply going without food and water. It’s hard.

Without purpose, training is just riding a bike. It’s not as effective.

It’s really important that as you train you understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. Ask yourself, “What is the purpose of this ride?” As you do, you’ll be more intentional, and you’ll more quickly progress.

The purpose of every ride doesn’t need to be something super training focused, sometimes it can be to simply have fun. But having an understanding that that is the purpose will be beneficial.

It will also increase motivation. You’ll ride further, you’ll hard harder, and you’ll also ride easier, a lot easier because you’ll know that you need to in order to go fast.

Purpose. Figure what what the purpose is. You’ll race faster. You’ll train slower when you’re supposed to go slow, and faster when you’re supposed to go fast. Purpose.