Working on mental fitness

Your mind will quit before your body will quit. You must understand this to be successful.

There is A LOT on the web on this topic so take a google search. You can also read some books on mental training as well. And of course the discussion points on BT can be good as well.

Here is an article in relation to IM training.
http://newtotri.com/2012/04/triathlon-building-your-mental-fortress...

Some things I practice in training to build my mental strength

Do session where ultimately I will fail, but how badly i want to succeed dictates when I will fail.

Sessions that replicate the hard part of the race, run your hardest segments in the last part of hard runs

Bike trainer rides facing a wall, you don't watch TV when racing do you?

Train with people that are faster then me, learning to suffer when you are getting beaten teaches you a lot

I agree that a lot of it is mental, but I also think one needs to get to a certain level of fitness before the mind is able to keep the body pushing. So, you have to build up the body to the point that it can be forced by the mind to keep going. I think Chrissie said that she like to build in some really hard days, to give confidence that you can get through them. That also has the benefit of training the body too. Last year I had my best HIM, and a lot of it was mental, but it was the knowledge of knowing that I had put in some hard work, so that when the time to really focus came, my legs were able to respond.