Clyde Brolin - In the Zone

Praise for

IN THE

ZONE

Clyde Brolin truly captures the passion I experienced and translates it into words In The Zone is one hell of a book!

Edwin Moses , double Olympic 400m hurdles gold medallist who went unbeaten for nearly ten years

This is a good, good book. Its broken up into three parts Conceive, Believe and Achieve and it gets better the more you dive into it.

Chris Evans , BBC Radio 2

The mind is such an untapped resource in both sport and day-to-day life. In The Zone gives you the tools to tap the true power of your brain.

Anthony Watson , professional rugby player for Bath, England and the British and Irish Lions

In The Zone is an amazingly inspiring book! This was clearly a labour of love and I feel humble compared with the other profi les, not least Alex Zanardi.

Roz Savage , the fi rst woman to row solo across the three big oceans

Remarkable stories and insights In The Zones fascinating collection of interviews draws out the simple attributes required to achieve incredible results.

Andy Green , World Land Speed Record Holder and driver for Bloodhound SSC

It is an honour to be a part of this book. It is very well written and it can help change peoples perceptions and ultimately their lives in a positive way.

Pieter du Preez , four-time Paracycling World Champion and the fi rst quadriplegic triathlete to complete an Ironman

Clyde Brolins In The Zone is a very insightful read. When youre in the Zone, its impossible to make a wrong move!

Ryan Doyle , the fi rst World Champion Freerunner

Full of fascinating people, literally every page is quotable with a sentence you could stick up on your wall as a mantra to live your life by

Andy Jaye , TV presenter and host of Talk Radios Motor Show

This is the best zone book ever beautifully written, and a must-read for all aspiring sports stars everywhere.

Don MacPherson , sports mind coach to champions of everything from Wimbledon to Formula 1

The book inspires us to use the stories as models in our own lives, building up to a brilliant conclusion. You leave the book feeling good about yourself.

Enzo Mucci , race driver performance coach

Clyde Brolin does a phenomenal job of bringing to life the conversations hes had with these living legends. Its a compelling read.

Martin Soorjoo , mental performance coach

One of the best sports psychology books weve read an investigation into how we can apply the experts mental processes to our own training.

Runners World magazine

The descriptions of being in the Zone are almost spiritual and Brolin uncovers fantastic nuggets of advice for those who dare to dream

LoveTennisBlog.com

The joy is that while you know youll delve into the mind of yet another big name when you turn the page, you never know who is next

Autosport magazine

A Whos Who of great athletes from Djokovic to Comaneci to Bolt to Phelps. But it concludes anyone can attain the Zone as long as we dare to dream big.

Motorsport.com

Published by Blink Publishing

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Hardback 978-1-911274-55-1

Trade Paperback 978-1-911274-82-7

Ebook 978-1-911274-56-8

Paperback 978-1-911274-57-5

All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or circulated in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing of the publisher.

A CIP catalogue of this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset by Envy Design

Copyright Clyde Brolin, 2017

First published by Blink Publishing in 2017

Paperback first published by Blink Publishing in 2018

Clyde Brolin has asserted their moral right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.

Blink Publishing is an imprint of the Bonnier Publishing Group

www.bonnierpublishing.co.uk

For dreamers everywhere
(past, present and future)

PROLOGUE

W hat was he thinking? Its the Indianapolis 500, the biggest spectator event in world sport, the very last corner of the final lap. For 799 corners out of 800, JR Hildebrand looks anything but an Indy rookie, in the lead and easing towards headlines as the first American driver for 84 years to win on their debut. The neural pathways honed over JRs years of throwing fast cars around do their job immaculately. Then, with home glory beckoning at the historic race, something in the mechanism freezes.

With the chequered flag in sight after this 500-mile epic, JR has to make one last choice: go high up the oval racetracks banking to lap Charlie Kimballs slower car or back off and hope the loss of pace doesnt allow any of his challengers through. He chooses option one, having earlier nailed a similar move at the same corner. But this time as he leaves the comfort of the racing line his worn tyres are less forgiving, as is the concrete as he veers wide and hits the wall.

The mass gasp of over 300,000 fans packing the tracks miles of grandstands easily drowns out the crunch of the carnage and the screaming engines. Yet JR may get away with it even now: the momentum from his crash keeps him scraping along the wall towards the yard of bricks marking the Indy finish line. He slams his foot to the floor in a desperate attempt to keep his remaining two wheels moving for the last few hundred yards. In the end he crosses the line well clear of his rivals, all bar one.

Picking his way past the wreckage comes Britains Dan Wheldon for the most dramatic victory in Indy history, on its 2011 centenary to boot. At the line Dan is just 2.1 seconds ahead. Talk about luck. Or is it? It turns out he was close enough to profit from JRs late mishap only because of a finely tuned piece of machinery that has been firing on all cylinders: his brain.

Those last 20 laps were incredibly quick, Dan told me. People were on different strategies and in my case it was about making sure every lap was the best it could possibly be. I had to drive flat out. But when youre in the Zone especially in a confident time of your career you do things and its like really?

The team later told me Id made an adjustment to the weight jacker and anti-roll bars at every single corner for those last 20 laps. And I didnt know it. In fact I didnt believe them. I thought Id been adjusting them quite often but knew it wasnt that many, no way. So they showed me the data. I did it without even knowing. When you get in the Zone you have the ability to do things totally naturally.

This natural ability is the holy grail of performance at the highest level. This is the big payback when all the years of graft come flooding back out in a torrent of pure, blissful execution. Hard work may lie behind any outstanding feat, but when the moment actually arrives, it can feel effortless, as if it requires no input at all.

Of course the weight jacker (which switches weight between the front wheels) and anti-roll bar (affecting the suspension) dont sound the most natural element to racing a car. They are hardly as ingrained as using wheel and pedals to control speed and direction, but they are crucial to oval racing where these monster IndyCars lap at over 200mph. If you reach this level of competition, its assumed youre driving a car to its limit; these set-up changes push that very limit ever further.