Latest / INSPIRE STORY / #013_Optimize Spring Training
Transcript
- 0:26Speaker 1: Good to see you. Yeah, you're wearing the same shirt
- 0:29Speaker 1: you were wearing last time.
- 0:31Speaker 2: I have a very limited wardrobe.
- 0:33Speaker 1: Yes, we are now in mid I want you to imagine,
- 0:37Speaker 1: close your eyes and imagine we are in mid March. Now.
- 0:41Speaker 1: We had a very successful live event, although because of
- 0:44Speaker 1: some warp in the space time continuum, we can't seem
- 0:48Speaker 1: to summon the memory of that experience, but it did
- 0:51Speaker 1: indeed happen, and we are convening to talk to you
- 0:56Speaker 1: guys today about how to enter the spring season. Engaged,
- 1:01Speaker 1: excited about your fitness athletic journey.
- 1:06Speaker 2: Well, you made it through the winter, right, and you
- 1:08Speaker 2: start somehow come out of the cave and it's spring,
- 1:12Speaker 2: and you're excited that the work you put in is
- 1:16Speaker 2: now starting to be able to be used outside this
- 1:21Speaker 2: thing called fresh air, and your skin is actually touching
- 1:25Speaker 2: sun versus being layered up.
- 1:27Speaker 1: And well, careful though, because March is a very tricky
- 1:31Speaker 1: time of year for people that live, particularly in the Northeast,
- 1:35Speaker 1: because you think, because it's March that winter is over,
- 1:38Speaker 1: but there's still a couple last gasps grown before those
- 1:46Speaker 1: flowers bloom. I don't want to get too much false
- 1:49Speaker 1: hope here that's true.
- 1:50Speaker 2: But that's the classic scene that you see in late
- 1:52Speaker 2: March on in the northeast. One day it's sixty five
- 1:56Speaker 2: seventy and everybody's out running without their shirts on Central Park,
- 2:01Speaker 2: and then two days later there's a snowstorm.
- 2:03Speaker 1: Oh God, bless him. Yeah, good for that. So yeah,
- 2:07Speaker 1: so we took your advice, Chris, and we got through
- 2:10Speaker 1: those winter months staying engaged as consistent as we could
- 2:14Speaker 1: with releasing that pressure that we put on ourselves to
- 2:17Speaker 1: be perfect. It's time to go outside. It's time to
- 2:21Speaker 1: start thinking a little bit more precisely about that race
- 2:25Speaker 1: that we've got our eye on, or perhaps the one
- 2:28Speaker 1: that we're just now summoning the courage to sign up for.
- 2:32Speaker 1: Ye and spring is on the horizon.
- 2:35Speaker 2: Yeah, here we are, And now it's more about what
- 2:38Speaker 2: did I do over the winter that now will translate
- 2:41Speaker 2: to the outside, right, and how do I reward myself
- 2:45Speaker 2: with the hard work and the consistency that I put
- 2:47Speaker 2: in and put forth an event that I'm excited about
- 2:52Speaker 2: that I'm a little bit fearful of that will really
- 2:55Speaker 2: challenge me. But then also it's going to be fun
- 2:59Speaker 2: and I'm really happy be on this end. Of the
- 3:02Speaker 2: winter in this case of having done the work and
- 3:05Speaker 2: now I'm really excited to go do it, Like it's
- 3:10Speaker 2: now on the horizon, it's six, eight, twelve weeks away,
- 3:14Speaker 2: and so that's powerful. Now we can feel it, now,
- 3:16Speaker 2: we can sense where we have the ability to train
- 3:20Speaker 2: for it. We don't know we can do it yet, right,
- 3:22Speaker 2: but we know we've put in good time and that
- 3:26Speaker 2: we're sort of going to have that slingshot effect out
- 3:29Speaker 2: of the winter and push us forward to do something
- 3:32Speaker 2: that we haven't done for right, something scary, something exciting
- 3:36Speaker 2: out there.
- 3:37Speaker 1: What are the mistakes that we want to avoid.
- 3:40Speaker 2: Well, one is to write off more than we can chew. Right,
- 3:44Speaker 2: We've made it through the hours of the winter, which
- 3:46Speaker 2: are always limited, and now because it's the spring and
- 3:49Speaker 2: the days are getting longer, we think we'll have more
- 3:52Speaker 2: hours magically available. Right, the schedule will free up. It
- 3:58Speaker 2: doesn't work like that unfortunately as Masters athletes, So we
- 4:02Speaker 2: want to be careful not to add too many more
- 4:05Speaker 2: hours to our training that we think will be able
- 4:07Speaker 2: to do, and then that create a false reality and
- 4:11Speaker 2: then in a couple of weeks we're disappointed about what
- 4:13Speaker 2: we just signed up for. So Maybe it's a fifty
- 4:16Speaker 2: k instead of a fifty miler. Right, Maybe it's the
- 4:20Speaker 2: next progression from a fifty k to a fifty miler,
- 4:22Speaker 2: but not doing one hundred mile or one hundred k.
- 4:25Speaker 2: Maybe it's a seventy point three instead of an iron man. Right. Again,
- 4:30Speaker 2: test the waters to see what you're capable of doing,
- 4:33Speaker 2: and gradually grow the schedule versus trying to all of
- 4:37Speaker 2: a sudden jump into a twenty hour week where all
- 4:40Speaker 2: winter you've gotten really good, your family's gotten good, your
- 4:43Speaker 2: work's gotten good around this routine and schedule that you've
- 4:46Speaker 2: created very diligently around ten hours. And we don't want
- 4:51Speaker 2: to create any type of animosity in any respect and
- 4:54Speaker 2: any part of the three legged stool, as I say,
- 4:57Speaker 2: where they suddenly see, we'll owe now how the training
- 5:01Speaker 2: is really beginning. We knew it here it comes right.
- 5:04Speaker 2: You don't want that now, you want that gentle sort
- 5:06Speaker 2: of all right, you know I'm going to go out.
- 5:08Speaker 2: It's earlier.
- 5:09Speaker 1: Yeah, the gradual aspect of it is super important. And
- 5:11Speaker 1: I know that I've confronted this and my own experience
- 5:15Speaker 1: of coming into the spring months excited about the season
- 5:19Speaker 1: ahead and feeling engaged with my fitness and having to
- 5:24Speaker 1: resist the urge of going harder and going longer because
- 5:28Speaker 1: it's a beautiful day out right, and you've always been,
- 5:30Speaker 1: you know, reeling me back and reeling me back against
- 5:34Speaker 1: my impulse, which is like I want to I want
- 5:37Speaker 1: to go. I want to go, you know, and I
- 5:39Speaker 1: think you know, in retrospect, looking back on that, that
- 5:43Speaker 1: has been crucial in ensuring that I don't get injured
- 5:47Speaker 1: or I don't get burned out or overtrained. We together
- 5:52Speaker 1: were so careful in my ultraman training, years of airing
- 5:59Speaker 1: on the side of us to avoid injury, particularly with
- 6:03Speaker 1: run volume, like so careful and like being very incremental
- 6:07Speaker 1: and diligent about not doing too much running too soon.
- 6:11Speaker 2: Yeah, it's important. Again, we want longevity, right, and we
- 6:14Speaker 2: want you to be in this for a while and
- 6:18Speaker 2: in order to build that volume, that foundation ever so gradually.
- 6:23Speaker 2: The only way that works is if you're actually able
- 6:25Speaker 2: to do it healthy right, and that keeps you motivated,
- 6:29Speaker 2: that keeps you excited, It keeps the confidence growing for
- 6:31Speaker 2: your event. And again you're out there doing it, so
- 6:34Speaker 2: the more you're out there doing it, you can have
- 6:37Speaker 2: your own sensations avoiding injury is key, but also, as
- 6:41Speaker 2: I was saying, avoiding creating tension around your training. Many
- 6:47Speaker 2: of us have been in situations. I definitely have been
- 6:50Speaker 2: in situations where I'm out there wondering what I should
- 6:53Speaker 2: be doing at work right now, or wondering, actually, I
- 6:57Speaker 2: should have been home right now for my family like this,
- 7:01Speaker 2: and then we're compromised. We're not going to have as
- 7:04Speaker 2: good of a training session because we're not as focused
- 7:06Speaker 2: and diligent about it. We might even cut it short
- 7:09Speaker 2: and we're still not there at work and family. So
- 7:12Speaker 2: now everything is done only fifty percent as well as
- 7:15Speaker 2: we could have. So a gradual build creates those those boundaries,
- 7:21Speaker 2: and it creates that patience and that tolerance by everything
- 7:24Speaker 2: in your world around you. In order to well in
- 7:28Speaker 2: a healthy, sustainable way, maybe grow the volume or just
- 7:31Speaker 2: do a better, stronger, faster, smarter in the limited hours
- 7:35Speaker 2: that you do have.
- 7:37Speaker 1: Yeah, Reires, We've talked about this before, but it requires
- 7:40Speaker 1: a different kind of discipline, the discipline of restraint, right,
- 7:43Speaker 1: which sometimes, at least I know for myself, can be
- 7:47Speaker 1: harder than the discipline of going hard. You know, like
- 7:51Speaker 1: I don't have a problem getting up early and getting
- 7:53Speaker 1: after it. Like, I'm not challenged in my motivation with
- 7:58Speaker 1: respect to that, but I am challenged in holding back
- 8:02Speaker 1: when I feel good or when I have the free
- 8:05Speaker 1: time on this particular day. But it's not my best
- 8:09Speaker 1: interest physical preparation wise, to you know, let that horse
- 8:14Speaker 1: out of the barn.
- 8:15Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you touched on two things. That one
- 8:18Speaker 2: is absolutely There are days in the schedule where I
- 8:22Speaker 2: tell all my athletes, if you have more time today,
- 8:25Speaker 2: Today is a good day for that, right you have
- 8:27Speaker 2: the week leading up this is an endurance week. We're over.
- 8:31Speaker 2: We're adding extra volume, low intensity all this week to
- 8:34Speaker 2: get extra hours in. So there's times for that. There's
- 8:37Speaker 2: other times absolutely where we need to show restraint. But
- 8:40Speaker 2: the first part that you said is I feel good today,
- 8:44Speaker 2: I want to go harder. That's very most often actually
- 8:49Speaker 2: a bad idea because there's an intent and a purpose
- 8:52Speaker 2: to that workout and blowing it out just because you
- 8:54Speaker 2: feel good now compromises many workouts down the road. It
- 8:59Speaker 2: feels so good, it feels it's it's a temporary hit
- 9:03Speaker 2: and then you pay the price down the road. Whereas
- 9:05Speaker 2: we have maybe a workout in three or four days
- 9:07Speaker 2: where it's way more important to do that intensity, to
- 9:10Speaker 2: do that harder effort, to do that higher speed, and
- 9:15Speaker 2: by blowing it out today because it felt so good
- 9:19Speaker 2: is never the ideal. I answer, right, you want to
- 9:21Speaker 2: see how that fits into the bigger picture.
- 9:23Speaker 1: Well, I'm lucky enough to have somebody like you to
- 9:26Speaker 1: hold me back or to hold me to a certain
- 9:28Speaker 1: kind of plan. Most people don't have the luxury of
- 9:31Speaker 1: working with a coach. So for the people that are
- 9:34Speaker 1: listening who have a goal, fitness goal, a race, they're
- 9:37Speaker 1: preparing for some kind of challenge, who are out there
- 9:41Speaker 1: trying to figure it out on their own, how can
- 9:45Speaker 1: you counsel them to best navigate these treacherous waters of
- 9:49Speaker 1: trying to figure out what's best on a particular day
- 9:51Speaker 1: to day.
- 9:52Speaker 2: For much of that I have them, I always suggest
- 9:55Speaker 2: write down your intentions for the week ahead, one long bike,
- 9:59Speaker 2: one short bike, one high intensity bike, let's say, one
- 10:04Speaker 2: long run, one short run, one high intensity run, so
- 10:08Speaker 2: that you have a skeleton for the week of what
- 10:11Speaker 2: you want to accomplish. And then a lot of times
- 10:14Speaker 2: how you schedule that depends on a your own life schedule,
- 10:18Speaker 2: let's say maybe the weather, but also how you lead
- 10:20Speaker 2: into the week of well, I need that. Everybody knows
- 10:23Speaker 2: for intensity, I can't be completely shelled and exhausted. So
- 10:28Speaker 2: once you put that intention into it, and you've done
- 10:31Speaker 2: that a few weeks in a row or a few
- 10:33Speaker 2: times where you've seen it done successfully, then you get
- 10:37Speaker 2: better at sort of putting that skeleton together for yourself.
- 10:41Speaker 2: And as we've talked about before with regards to a journal,
- 10:44Speaker 2: you know, then, okay, last time, after an intense workout,
- 10:48Speaker 2: I needed two days so that I actually enjoyed the
- 10:51Speaker 2: workout again, that long run or that long ride. I mean,
- 10:55Speaker 2: there's so many athletes that I come across in training
- 10:59Speaker 2: logs where they wonder why they were cranky and didn't
- 11:02Speaker 2: enjoy their long ride because they shuffled the week around
- 11:05Speaker 2: and put the high intensity the day before a long ride,
- 11:09Speaker 2: and then they're just miserable. Right, and now you're out
- 11:12Speaker 2: there for four or five hours on a bike and
- 11:14Speaker 2: you're already tired the first few pedal strokes. It just
- 11:18Speaker 2: sets you up for not enjoying the training as much
- 11:20Speaker 2: as you can, as well as it should be, because
- 11:23Speaker 2: some of the best athletes in the world, they love
- 11:27Speaker 2: their training the way it's structured because they know their
- 11:30Speaker 2: bodies responding to each one of them and they feel
- 11:33Speaker 2: good doing it.
- 11:35Speaker 1: What are the are there, like resources that you can
- 11:39Speaker 1: point people towards who are attempting to get ready for
- 11:43Speaker 1: a certain kind of race. Like I'm just thinking, I'm
- 11:46Speaker 1: trying to live in the mind of somebody who's kind
- 11:48Speaker 1: of new to all of this, like doesn't even really
- 11:50Speaker 1: necessarily know what periodization is or even how to like
- 11:56Speaker 1: why one long ride a week and not to you know,
- 11:58Speaker 1: like just the very basics of how to approach whether
- 12:02Speaker 1: it's an obstacle course race or a five k or
- 12:06Speaker 1: you know, the twenty nine to zero twenty nine or
- 12:08Speaker 1: something brand new. Where do people Where can people just
- 12:13Speaker 1: learn the fundamentals about how to approach these sorts of challenges.
- 12:18Speaker 2: A lot of it can be found online right and
- 12:21Speaker 2: a lot of it in publications, magazines, even books are
- 12:24Speaker 2: out there. You know, my first five k, my first
- 12:27Speaker 2: Olympic distance triathleon, my first trail run, things like that,
- 12:32Speaker 2: and then it becomes important to truly listen to your body,
- 12:35Speaker 2: to see how your body responded to that super simple plan.
- 12:39Speaker 2: And the other thing there is, even with the most
- 12:41Speaker 2: simple plan, you want to see how your body responds
- 12:44Speaker 2: to it, how it feels to it, and not hold
- 12:46Speaker 2: yourself to the exact well on Thursday, it says, to
- 12:50Speaker 2: do this, right, it's okay, Like, see how your body
- 12:54Speaker 2: and your schedule and your life responds to it, and
- 12:57Speaker 2: just continue to grow from there. So let's say it
- 13:00Speaker 2: has four hours in the first week of training, right,
- 13:03Speaker 2: four to thirty minute workouts with a couple of stretching
- 13:06Speaker 2: exercises and so forth. Well, you don't have to do
- 13:09Speaker 2: that exactly the way they say it. Just take the
- 13:12Speaker 2: basic ideas and grow with it, and eventually you might
- 13:15Speaker 2: get to a point where you're actually adhering one hundred
- 13:17Speaker 2: percent to it, to a shorter week or something like that.
- 13:21Speaker 2: But again, keep yourself from judging yourself too harshly on
- 13:26Speaker 2: how you're progressing in your own exercise, in your own training.
- 13:30Speaker 2: It's yours and it's your own special time. So use
- 13:34Speaker 2: that to say, this is my intention for today, this
- 13:37Speaker 2: is what I'm looking to get done, and I will
- 13:38Speaker 2: do my best to get it done.
- 13:40Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that sound advice. I mean one of
- 13:43Speaker 1: the things that I had to learn in my swimming career.
- 13:47Speaker 1: You know, when you're young, you progress very rapidly, right,
- 13:51Speaker 1: and like every week you can go faster in the
- 13:53Speaker 1: pool than you could the week before. And you have
- 13:56Speaker 1: a similar experience when as a master athlete you get
- 13:59Speaker 1: involved in it new sport like triathlon or long distance
- 14:03Speaker 1: running something you've never done before. You can see pretty
- 14:06Speaker 1: quick results. But at a certain point that curve is
- 14:10Speaker 1: going to taper a little bit and you have to
- 14:12Speaker 1: get used to the fact that you're not going to
- 14:15Speaker 1: be You can't like go hard every day. You're not
- 14:18Speaker 1: going to get a pr every workout, and mentally, I
- 14:21Speaker 1: think that can be a challenge for somebody who's new
- 14:24Speaker 1: to this, thinking like, well, I'm not getting better, or
- 14:27Speaker 1: trying to understand that every workout has a purpose and
- 14:31Speaker 1: those purposes are not always going to be It's not
- 14:37Speaker 1: about like going as fast as you can or breaking
- 14:40Speaker 1: the ceiling on your last performance.
- 14:42Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, It's like a puzzle, right. I Mean, some
- 14:45Speaker 2: puzzle pieces are nicely the outside pieces, they really fit nicely,
- 14:49Speaker 2: and you can see what the puzzle is going to
- 14:51Speaker 2: look like right based off the outside edges. But then
- 14:54Speaker 2: these individual puzzle pieces that you put into this thousand
- 14:58Speaker 2: piece puzzle, they might not mean any but they're a
- 15:00Speaker 2: critical component to what the puzzle will look like, the
- 15:04Speaker 2: image will be when it's done. And that's a lot
- 15:06Speaker 2: how workouts work right those puzzle pieces they have to
- 15:10Speaker 2: fit right there, otherwise it's not going to fit into
- 15:14Speaker 2: the picture that you're going to end up with in
- 15:16Speaker 2: the end. And our first races, in our first few
- 15:18Speaker 2: months in doing any type of athletic endeavor are those
- 15:22Speaker 2: edge pieces. They fit nice, and you see the outline
- 15:25Speaker 2: of what it's going to look like, and you feel
- 15:27Speaker 2: really good of having completed that outside edge of a puzzle.
- 15:31Speaker 2: But then the hard work begins all the individual pieces
- 15:35Speaker 2: that sort of you start the grind of those little
- 15:37Speaker 2: pieces that have to fit together that make no sense.
- 15:41Speaker 1: And I think also when you're new and you don't
- 15:45Speaker 1: know anything, you're going to be more likely to want
- 15:48Speaker 1: to adhere to whatever program you got off the internet
- 15:51Speaker 1: or in some book because you don't know anything different.
- 15:54Speaker 1: But as you progress, if you are doing the journaling
- 15:58Speaker 1: and that kind of introspect to work of connecting with
- 16:01Speaker 1: yourself to really gauge how you feel and how this
- 16:05Speaker 1: is working for yourself, you can slowly begin to take
- 16:09Speaker 1: more and more ownership of that trajectory, so you can
- 16:12Speaker 1: kind of go off script from time to time and
- 16:16Speaker 1: experience what it's like to push the edge here, hold
- 16:19Speaker 1: back here, and gauge how your body respondses.
- 16:23Speaker 2: And you'll know your body well enough that you know
- 16:25Speaker 2: I'm overdoing it today, but I know the next two
- 16:28Speaker 2: to three days, I'm going to pay for it and
- 16:30Speaker 2: I'll go easier. And I know enough about my body.
- 16:33Speaker 2: I've learned from it. I know how to listen to it,
- 16:36Speaker 2: and it works out well like this. I mean a
- 16:39Speaker 2: lot of athletes trained by the weather right because let's
- 16:42Speaker 2: say they're outside athletes. They don't have treadmills or a
- 16:44Speaker 2: gym membership. So today it's going to rain, Well, I'm
- 16:47Speaker 2: going to run today, I'm going to swim because I
- 16:50Speaker 2: don't want to be out on the bike in the rain.
- 16:52Speaker 2: Or it's sunny tomorrow, so I'm going to do my
- 16:54Speaker 2: long ride tomorrow. And it actually doesn't fit that well,
- 16:56Speaker 2: but they'll modify well enough through the week in order
- 17:00Speaker 2: to get it done right. And I tell a lot
- 17:02Speaker 2: of my athletes the first step is to get the
- 17:05Speaker 2: week done how it's written right. That's idea in a
- 17:09Speaker 2: perfect world. But then beyond that, get the totals of
- 17:12Speaker 2: the week done, all right, shuffle around, make sure the
- 17:15Speaker 2: order is not too much quality in a row. But
- 17:18Speaker 2: if you can get the sixteen hours done like that
- 17:21Speaker 2: versus how I wrote it, that's fine as long as
- 17:25Speaker 2: we keep the principles of not too much quality in
- 17:28Speaker 2: a row. And then we start pulling out pieces if
- 17:31Speaker 2: they can't even make that right where it's like, all right,
- 17:33Speaker 2: let's take that easy run out of there, and just
- 17:35Speaker 2: to make it a complete rest day. Let's take that
- 17:37Speaker 2: easy swim out of there, make it a complete rest day,
- 17:39Speaker 2: or sleep in that morning so that you're just getting
- 17:42Speaker 2: the four or five critical workouts in for that week.
- 17:45Speaker 2: Because again, at the end of the day, it's about
- 17:48Speaker 2: all right, we're successfully still moving forward, getting the key
- 17:51Speaker 2: concepts in. And then next week, when life freeze up
- 17:55Speaker 2: a little bit and there's less stress on us, then
- 17:58Speaker 2: we'll get in at all. We'll get it all in again, right,
- 18:01Speaker 2: I say so often training should not be an additional
- 18:05Speaker 2: stressor in your life. Right. You do this to get
- 18:08Speaker 2: away from stresses, to exhale, to de stress and connect
- 18:13Speaker 2: with yourself and self care and go inside. So if
- 18:17Speaker 2: training creates the stress, you're not going to have that outcome,
- 18:21Speaker 2: and over time you're going to avoid that stress and
- 18:25Speaker 2: then you're not working out.
- 18:26Speaker 1: That explains how I've navigated this past fall and winter.
- 18:32Speaker 1: I mean, we were joking at the outset about, you know,
- 18:35Speaker 1: nice to see you again, because we're taping back to
- 18:37Speaker 1: back episodes. It's actually November twenty seventh, the same day
- 18:41Speaker 1: we tape the last Coach's Corner, and yeah, No, I
- 18:46Speaker 1: wanted to take this opportunity to kind of talk about
- 18:49Speaker 1: what this experience has been like for me and to
- 18:51Speaker 1: talk about kind of what you're getting ready for this
- 18:53Speaker 1: year because I made a conscious decision to not race
- 18:58Speaker 1: this past year to focus on other areas of my
- 19:01Speaker 1: life that I felt needed my full attention or more
- 19:05Speaker 1: of my attention, I should say, because to train intensely
- 19:13Speaker 1: towards a specific fitness or race goal would I knew
- 19:18Speaker 1: well enough, would create more stress than I could manage
- 19:23Speaker 1: at the time given my other goals in my life,
- 19:26Speaker 1: and so I just said, I'm not going to put
- 19:28Speaker 1: that pressure on myself. I've stayed engaged with my fitness,
- 19:31Speaker 1: but it certainly hasn't been structured or formalized in any way,
- 19:37Speaker 1: and I'm happy with that decision because I've made a
- 19:40Speaker 1: lot of progress in other areas of my life that
- 19:42Speaker 1: I wanted to be focused on. But I'm also not.
- 19:46Speaker 1: You know, I like it when I feel super fit.
- 19:49Speaker 1: I like it when I'm ready to go, and I
- 19:51Speaker 1: miss that and I'm anxious to get back to that.
- 19:55Speaker 2: I'm putting a book in front of him right now.
- 20:00Speaker 2: That is sort of where your expectations need to maybe
- 20:03Speaker 2: be adjusted to you rich right, Like, you don't have
- 20:07Speaker 2: to win these events or be at the top or
- 20:10Speaker 2: represent as your old self to still take part in
- 20:15Speaker 2: organized events.
- 20:16Speaker 1: Did I give you the impression that I was delusional?
- 20:19Speaker 2: I just know you're an athlete through and through, and
- 20:23Speaker 2: for you to put challenges out there, you have been
- 20:27Speaker 2: successful in the past with getting it done, and I
- 20:30Speaker 2: know you add extra pressure of with your life schedule
- 20:33Speaker 2: and so forth. But it doesn't have to be quite
- 20:36Speaker 2: on switch off switch, And your off switch doesn't mean
- 20:39Speaker 2: you're not doing anything. It means you're still running and
- 20:41Speaker 2: cycling occasionally and of course swimming. But where you work
- 20:45Speaker 2: progressively towards something, there's a healthy medium in between.
- 20:50Speaker 1: This is what this is what has eluded me my
- 20:53Speaker 1: entire life. And spills over into every facet of how
- 20:57Speaker 1: I live, which is trying to find a way to
- 21:01Speaker 1: approach these things in a more balanced way where I
- 21:04Speaker 1: can where I let go of that because I have
- 21:07Speaker 1: this thing where it's like, I don't want to show
- 21:08Speaker 1: up at a race unless I'm a one hundred and
- 21:10Speaker 1: ten percent and that's just yeah, it's ego, it's it's
- 21:14Speaker 1: a whole number of things, and that's my That's the
- 21:16Speaker 1: bigger mountain to climb than to train super hard for
- 21:19Speaker 1: a race.
- 21:20Speaker 2: That's the one you want to lean into. That's going
- 21:23Speaker 2: to make you uncomfortable.
- 21:24Speaker 1: Will super uncomfortable I show up like, oh, I only trained,
- 21:27Speaker 1: I'm at sixty percent.
- 21:29Speaker 2: And I'm still show exactly to do that.
- 21:32Speaker 1: I would do most of them, the vast.
- 21:34Speaker 2: Majority exactly right. So I think there's an opportunity there
- 21:38Speaker 2: for something where you might want to explore that.
- 21:41Speaker 1: A little bit. I know, this is what this is what, Yeah,
- 21:43Speaker 1: this is this is what I wanted to talk to
- 21:45Speaker 1: you about.
- 21:45Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's where it becomes interesting too, where it's like,
- 21:48Speaker 2: you know what, as I've said in the past, helping
- 21:51Speaker 2: you navigate through that schedule, we've tested it a little
- 21:56Speaker 2: bit a few times, and also for Atillo. We definitely
- 21:58Speaker 2: did test it, but again we had a vision of
- 22:03Speaker 2: how well we wanted to do, we wanted to represent
- 22:06Speaker 2: well and so forth. We had talked about that. But
- 22:09Speaker 2: I think there's a space there where we can have
- 22:13Speaker 2: you fit enough that you feel really good about who
- 22:16Speaker 2: you are competing at that given event. And I said
- 22:20Speaker 2: to you earlier, I would never put you into an
- 22:22Speaker 2: environment where it's the super measured like everybody like robots
- 22:27Speaker 2: competing the event. That's not who you are, but something
- 22:31Speaker 2: that you feel challenged by, that you respect, but also
- 22:35Speaker 2: that you feel really fit and good about going into
- 22:38Speaker 2: not your best right and you know you in the
- 22:42Speaker 2: past would have done more, but you go, you know what,
- 22:45Speaker 2: this is who I am now. This is the fittest
- 22:48Speaker 2: I can be given my life, my age, my circumstances,
- 22:53Speaker 2: my schedule in the now right and that is the
- 22:56Speaker 2: one I want to explore.
- 22:58Speaker 1: I know. It's like I just get uncomfortable even talking
- 23:01Speaker 1: about it because it's like I am the on off
- 23:03Speaker 1: switch guy, whether it's doing the podcast or writing a
- 23:06Speaker 1: book or being a parent. Like I liked, I go
- 23:09Speaker 1: all in on one thing. Everything gets blocked out and
- 23:13Speaker 1: it's not.
- 23:13Speaker 2: A good no. They say, there's a lot on the
- 23:17Speaker 2: periphery that can be really really exciting and fun and beneficial.
- 23:22Speaker 2: Because that's what they say about in that book Drive
- 23:27Speaker 2: Daniel pink Any. He talks about when we reward and
- 23:31Speaker 2: focus motivationally on one thing, we miss a lot of
- 23:35Speaker 2: the opportunities that come along with it on the periphery.
- 23:40Speaker 2: And this is the same thing for you, where you
- 23:42Speaker 2: might be surprised how good you are when you're asked
- 23:46Speaker 2: to apply all your fitness, knowledge, strategy intelligence to do
- 23:51Speaker 2: the event versus just knowing you've trained outtrained your the
- 23:57Speaker 2: others right, and I think you're knowledge and your experience
- 24:02Speaker 2: and doing this for many, many years, I think you'd
- 24:04Speaker 2: be surprised how much better you'd be than what you
- 24:08Speaker 2: think you would not be right at the event, as
- 24:12Speaker 2: well as how much you would enjoy it because without
- 24:15Speaker 2: any pressure, without any type of like, I can only
- 24:19Speaker 2: be who I am here at this starting line, right,
- 24:22Speaker 2: and that'd be fun.
- 24:25Speaker 1: That is Yeah, it's weird how I interpret that as
- 24:29Speaker 1: a greater challenge than to go all in preparing for
- 24:33Speaker 1: a race, because that I know how to do.
- 24:35Speaker 2: That's our younger stand of ourselves.
- 24:37Speaker 1: Yeah. Right, it's a younger version, but it's also it's
- 24:41Speaker 1: a mentality thing, right, and you as an Olympian, like
- 24:45Speaker 1: if I say to you, Chris, you're going to go
- 24:46Speaker 1: to this race, but you're only allowed to train, you know,
- 24:49Speaker 1: eight hours a week.
- 24:50Speaker 2: Now, you know, I've done a few travels like that, right,
- 24:56Speaker 2: falling into the anonymity of the field is there's something
- 25:01Speaker 2: very liberating about that and.
- 25:04Speaker 1: Completely let go.
- 25:05Speaker 2: You can completely let go and you feel your body
- 25:08Speaker 2: just sort of exhaling and absorbing the day. And it
- 25:12Speaker 2: was the same thing with Attillo for us. I had
- 25:15Speaker 2: an amazing experience at a Tillo when we had to
- 25:19Speaker 2: walk a lot.
- 25:19Speaker 1: Well, I forced you to let go but expectations.
- 25:22Speaker 2: But we still I experienced that day totally different than
- 25:26Speaker 2: if we had been with blinders on the whole time. Right.
- 25:29Speaker 2: And I've had quite a few adventures like that where
- 25:32Speaker 2: it's like, had I just tried to grind it out
- 25:35Speaker 2: from the very beginning, I would have met the people
- 25:38Speaker 2: I've met. Right. Twenty nine twenty nine, I did that
- 25:42Speaker 2: event in Utah. One of the best experiences about that
- 25:47Speaker 2: I should describe what it is. Yeah, it's basically they
- 25:50Speaker 2: rent out a resort for a weekend and the challenge
- 25:54Speaker 2: by the twenty nine twenty nine group.
- 25:58Speaker 1: I could say it's Jesse, it's Larry. He's been on
- 26:00Speaker 1: the podcast a couple times. Yes, his company, and he's
- 26:03Speaker 1: got a team and they rent out these mountains.
- 26:05Speaker 2: Exactly the snow basin in this and so you hike
- 26:09Speaker 2: up the mountain from the base to the top and
- 26:12Speaker 2: they take the gondola down and you save your legs
- 26:16Speaker 2: like that. It's brilliant, and you bet get to ascend
- 26:19Speaker 2: to whatever mountain top you designate, all the way up to.
- 26:22Speaker 1: Everest versus nine zero twenty nine exactly.
- 26:26Speaker 2: And so I did that event in August of this
- 26:30Speaker 2: past year. And sure, could I have done all thirteen ascents?
- 26:35Speaker 2: I think it was thirteen or sixteen ascents, yes, but
- 26:38Speaker 2: I chose not to because I wanted to get to
- 26:42Speaker 2: meet the people going up the mountain every single time.
- 26:46Speaker 2: They weren't famous athletes, they weren't you know, they hadn't
- 26:50Speaker 2: trained for it. They put themselves completely into a vulnerable
- 26:54Speaker 2: place and tried one and then two and then four
- 26:57Speaker 2: or seven or ten ascents And getting to meet those
- 27:02Speaker 2: people out there and taking my time and having nice
- 27:05Speaker 2: conversations with them. Was incredibly meaningful to me, and I
- 27:10Speaker 2: still get emails from people thanking me and that it
- 27:13Speaker 2: was a great time because we got to connect as
- 27:16Speaker 2: humans as we were doing this endurance event.
- 27:19Speaker 1: That's cool. I'm so bommed I wasn't able to go.
- 27:22Speaker 2: Yeah, it really would have.
- 27:23Speaker 1: It was fun to have gone. I definitely want to
- 27:25Speaker 1: go to I think that he's got two of them
- 27:27Speaker 1: coming up in twenty nineteen.
- 27:28Speaker 2: Vermont in Utah. And what's really cool about it is
- 27:30Speaker 2: because you take that gondola down, you save your legs,
- 27:33Speaker 2: you save your joints, you know, quads don't hurt the
- 27:36Speaker 2: next day. Nothing the part that well.
- 27:38Speaker 1: For you Because I know a lot of people who
- 27:40Speaker 1: who went and thought, well, this is gonna you get
- 27:43Speaker 1: to take the gondola down. It's like, how hard can
- 27:45Speaker 1: it be? Its and on.
- 27:47Speaker 2: Our glutes because it's so steep at times that you're
- 27:50Speaker 2: hunched over sort of hiking up, pushing on your knees
- 27:53Speaker 2: and legs to get up. So but it's different than
- 27:55Speaker 2: the pounding of downhill versus the stress of uphill, right,
- 27:59Speaker 2: But it's all very well run event, completely supported a
- 28:03Speaker 2: lot of motivation, really cool unique things that they do
- 28:06Speaker 2: about it.
- 28:07Speaker 1: And they create like a village at the base, right,
- 28:09Speaker 1: you stay in tents or something.
- 28:11Speaker 2: Like that in these great yurts that are super comfortable,
- 28:15Speaker 2: sort of pretty plush. It's glamping at its best. And yeah,
- 28:20Speaker 2: and then meals and all that, and every time you
- 28:22Speaker 2: come down the gondola, you stamp your name and a
- 28:26Speaker 2: brand with a branding iron your name or the logo
- 28:29Speaker 2: of the event next to your name of each time
- 28:32Speaker 2: ascent you've made, and so when you get to the
- 28:35Speaker 2: top you get a special jersey for the final ascent
- 28:38Speaker 2: and everybody cheers you on. It's really well run. It's
- 28:41Speaker 2: a fun event.
- 28:42Speaker 1: Yet did you do panels and things like that? Were
- 28:45Speaker 1: you part of that?
- 28:46Speaker 2: Yeah, well we were part of a nutrition panel, mindset panel,
- 28:50Speaker 2: training panel and all that cool. So that was a
- 28:53Speaker 2: lot of fun. But again, it was one of those
- 28:56Speaker 2: events where you can come in not have a lot
- 28:59Speaker 2: of training and really exceed your expectations on what you're
- 29:03Speaker 2: capable of because you're with people who will want to
- 29:06Speaker 2: just see what they're capable of. You're not alone, you're
- 29:10Speaker 2: not vulnerable, you're not embarrassed. You could just go do
- 29:13Speaker 2: there's people who did one. There's people who ran sixteen
- 29:17Speaker 2: of them or thirteen of them, and so there's the
- 29:19Speaker 2: whole spectrum of athletes. But everybody gets cheered and Jack
- 29:24Speaker 2: definitely unique.
- 29:25Speaker 1: Was Colin O'Brady at that one? No oh he wasn't.
- 29:28Speaker 1: I know, he did one of them.
- 29:30Speaker 2: Probably the Vermont won the first no mass, no mass.
- 29:34Speaker 1: So he is, as we speak, trapesing across Antarctica unassisted.
- 29:42Speaker 2: Talk about a curated adventures.
- 29:43Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he doesn't stop. I mean the guy
- 29:46Speaker 1: like you know, broke the Explorer's Grand Slam world record
- 29:49Speaker 1: and then went into some other crazy speed record thing
- 29:53Speaker 1: and then went straight to Antarctica.
- 29:55Speaker 2: It's like that's evable. Of course, that's an extreme example,
- 29:57Speaker 2: but this is what I like to get.
- 29:59Speaker 1: Across the pers the most extreme.
- 30:01Speaker 2: Yeah, but how everybody has a new normal waiting for them. Right.
- 30:07Speaker 2: You might be off the couch doing your first five k.
- 30:10Speaker 2: You've done the five k and now you say, okay,
- 30:13Speaker 2: I can do that. The new normal becomes let me
- 30:16Speaker 2: go for a ten k, let me go for a
- 30:18Speaker 2: half marathon. You look back and go five k. Right,
- 30:22Speaker 2: so your new normal just continues to shift. Now, of course,
- 30:26Speaker 2: like you were talking about earlier. We all reach plateaus
- 30:29Speaker 2: where the improvements aren't that dramatic. But our new normal
- 30:32Speaker 2: is constantly moving. Our new normal with regards to nutrition,
- 30:36Speaker 2: with regards to mindset, with regards to distances, with regards
- 30:39Speaker 2: to training hours, there's new normals happening all the time. Meditation,
- 30:43Speaker 2: how we go about it. The time we spend meditating
- 30:47Speaker 2: three minutes used to be impossible. Now you can do
- 30:50Speaker 2: twenty minutes right, or an hour or just wander off.
- 30:53Speaker 2: So that's part of what I really like to tell
- 30:56Speaker 2: athletes and people that I talked to on a daily basis,
- 30:59Speaker 2: is create your own new normal, right, And that's the
- 31:03Speaker 2: beauty of training, that you're creating a new normal, and that.
- 31:08Speaker 1: New normal then becomes applicable in all these other areas
- 31:12Speaker 1: of your life because it expands your concept, your perception
- 31:17Speaker 1: of what you're capable of. And once you crack that
- 31:19Speaker 1: door open in a physical sense, in an athletic sense,
- 31:26Speaker 1: you become more amenable to the idea that you can
- 31:30Speaker 1: break barriers in your professional life, that you can have
- 31:34Speaker 1: better relationships. It's just it's incredible the applicability of what
- 31:40Speaker 1: you learn, not just skill wise, but just mindset wise
- 31:45Speaker 1: and how that can improve.
- 31:46Speaker 2: Your life bleeds into all areas of our life. And
- 31:49Speaker 2: that confidence and the ability to motivate yourself to go
- 31:53Speaker 2: do something that you had an intention to do is phenomenal. Right,
- 31:58Speaker 2: It's truly what makes us hue human beings. There's not
- 32:01Speaker 2: a lot of other beings on this planet that set
- 32:04Speaker 2: forth to do something and then methodically go about doing
- 32:08Speaker 2: it right. It's like they're either instinctually doing it or
- 32:11Speaker 2: they learn it in a different way, but not not
- 32:14Speaker 2: like we do as humans. And so again, it's a
- 32:17Speaker 2: unique trait that I would want everybody to learn about
- 32:20Speaker 2: and take advantage of. What is the challenge? What is
- 32:24Speaker 2: something that scares me? And how can I go about
- 32:27Speaker 2: learning internally and externally physically and mentally as I'm on
- 32:31Speaker 2: that journey towards that adventure.
- 32:35Speaker 1: What are you excited about personally this year in terms
- 32:39Speaker 1: of your own What have you signed up to do?
- 32:40Speaker 1: What are you getting ready for?
- 32:42Speaker 2: Well? I have it's November twenty seven. On December, first
- 32:47Speaker 2: I find out if I got into Western States. Oh wow,
- 32:50Speaker 2: let's ticket out there. I have a very very low
- 32:53Speaker 2: You've never done that before, they've done right. I've always
- 32:55Speaker 2: wanted to do it, but I have not stuck with
- 32:57Speaker 2: my entries every year, and so I reset the clock,
- 33:01Speaker 2: so I only have a two percent chance to get in,
- 33:04Speaker 2: whereas if you continue to put in every year then
- 33:08Speaker 2: you're it's a Moneti style lottery. It goes up right,
- 33:11Speaker 2: So very low chance. But as a backup on the
- 33:14Speaker 2: same exact weekend, I set up that I'll do Alaskamand
- 33:18Speaker 2: which is an iron distance race but more extreme location,
- 33:22Speaker 2: forty eight degree water. You start at three thirty in
- 33:25Speaker 2: the morning, longest day of the year January, you know,
- 33:27Speaker 2: the longest weekend day of right. Then you swim two
- 33:31Speaker 2: point four miles in that water and then you bite.
- 33:34Speaker 2: It's a little bit over one hundred and twelve. It's
- 33:35Speaker 2: one hundred and thirteen miles uphill to a mountain on
- 33:39Speaker 2: the other side of the Sewer Bay and then yeah,
- 33:43Speaker 2: then you climb and then you run up a mountain
- 33:46Speaker 2: for twenty seven miles.
- 33:47Speaker 1: Yes, similar to norse Mountain.
- 33:49Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. It's part of the series. And just this
- 33:51Speaker 2: year they introduced that Norseman is now the world champion qualifier.
- 33:55Speaker 2: These are all qualifiers for Norsemen, being the World Championships because.
- 34:00Speaker 1: Championships of what extremely crazy travel.
- 34:02Speaker 2: So they now have ten or eleven of them. There's
- 34:05Speaker 2: a lot of them. Canada Man, they have the Alaska Mand,
- 34:08Speaker 2: they have Hawaii Man, the Old Man, I felt that
- 34:10Speaker 2: had the Celtic Man, all kinds of Swiss Man, Hungaro Man.
- 34:15Speaker 2: I mean, I have athletes sending me examples of extra
- 34:18Speaker 2: eyes from all around the world. I'm like, I'm good,
- 34:21Speaker 2: I'm staying in the same time zone in Alaska.
- 34:23Speaker 1: I just remember watching a video of Norseman.
- 34:27Speaker 2: Was it?
- 34:27Speaker 1: Tim Deboom? Yeah, won that year, and I just it
- 34:30Speaker 1: was the most epic thing. Yeah, super hard.
- 34:35Speaker 2: Yeah, Tim, Tim is he made that race quite famous
- 34:38Speaker 2: because of because that was when he was winning Hawaii Ironmans.
- 34:42Speaker 2: And so we went off and did that or just
- 34:44Speaker 2: right after it and h and he won. That created
- 34:48Speaker 2: this huge curiosity around again adventurous iron Man. So you know,
- 34:53Speaker 2: I've done thirty eight forty I don't know how many
- 34:56Speaker 2: more Ironman's in my life, and so I'm ready to
- 35:00Speaker 2: try a different type of environment.
- 35:02Speaker 1: So and you this past weekend was ultramad Did you
- 35:07Speaker 1: follow that at all? You try to get for free? Yeah?
- 35:10Speaker 2: Would you be put in again? You put it in again, Yeah,
- 35:14Speaker 2: hopefully if she sees my name on there and.
- 35:18Speaker 1: This, would you do one of the qualifier ultraman though,
- 35:20Speaker 1: like I can't.
- 35:22Speaker 2: I would say no. And this is why because again,
- 35:27Speaker 2: like we talk about life's busy schedule, I'm not going
- 35:30Speaker 2: to set myself up for success with work and family
- 35:34Speaker 2: by training for two of these in a row. Right.
- 35:38Speaker 2: I just know myself and I know the tax it'll
- 35:41Speaker 2: put on my direct community, work, life, family, so forth,
- 35:47Speaker 2: that for me to do that would be asking too much. Yeah,
- 35:50Speaker 2: and I also know my body quite honestly, I've been
- 35:52Speaker 2: doing this for a long time, and to go through
- 35:55Speaker 2: two of those training cycles in a matter of a
- 35:58Speaker 2: year would be a lot could defer to the following year.
- 36:02Speaker 2: Let's say you do an ultraman in twenty nineteen and
- 36:04Speaker 2: it automatically qualifies you for twenty twenty, But that means
- 36:08Speaker 2: I'm doing two years of this type of training and
- 36:12Speaker 2: there's other adventures I want to do.
- 36:13Speaker 1: You're so well suited to that race though. Yeah, you know,
- 36:16Speaker 1: I would really love to see you on cork it
- 36:19Speaker 1: on that court.
- 36:20Speaker 2: But I'm going to be fifteen next year. That's all right, man,
- 36:23Speaker 2: I'm not getting any younger. None of us are, and
- 36:26Speaker 2: those guys are getting faster.
- 36:28Speaker 1: Yeah. The guy who won this year is thirty three,
- 36:30Speaker 1: I think, but I think like Mirra Krieger was up
- 36:32Speaker 1: there again, he still ran under seven hours. He's like
- 36:35Speaker 1: fifty five or something like that, by ezy crazy.
- 36:39Speaker 2: Those guys are a good though, at that distance because
- 36:42Speaker 2: they've done it a few times, like Miro, especially those
- 36:45Speaker 2: every year. Yeah, so that's he knows the course, he
- 36:48Speaker 2: knows how he needs to train for it. It's sort
- 36:50Speaker 2: of like me for Ironman. Right. Last year, I was
- 36:53Speaker 2: able to just go do Whistler out of my training,
- 36:55Speaker 2: and I didn't. I wasn't in the fittest place of
- 36:58Speaker 2: my life. But again, and I've done enough of them
- 37:01Speaker 2: where I can navigate my energy for ten hours well
- 37:06Speaker 2: enough that I'll know where I am at the finish.
- 37:08Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Should we talk about nutrition a little bit?
- 37:12Speaker 2: Sure?
- 37:13Speaker 1: What is your general guidance.
- 37:16Speaker 2: In life or for the training?
- 37:18Speaker 1: Well for the training? Training specific people are like what
- 37:21Speaker 1: do I eat? What do I eat when I ride
- 37:22Speaker 1: my I mean I get this question all the time.
- 37:24Speaker 1: What do I eat when I ride my bike? What
- 37:25Speaker 1: do you bring with you when you go running?
- 37:27Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 37:28Speaker 1: That kind of stuff.
- 37:28Speaker 2: Well, biking and running are going to be two different things, right,
- 37:31Speaker 2: because of the stress on the stomach. Biking you're in
- 37:33Speaker 2: a smoother situation without the rattling and the bouncing and
- 37:38Speaker 2: the jumping around. So I often say cliff bars or
- 37:42Speaker 2: something like that, something solid. I'm a big believer in
- 37:45Speaker 2: solids as much as I can. On training rides, I'll
- 37:48Speaker 2: actually make little sandwiches even and things like that, fruit
- 37:51Speaker 2: and little sandwiches because my body will be able to
- 37:55Speaker 2: process that and the intensity isn't that high that I
- 37:59Speaker 2: need to have any thing sugary or two glucose based, right,
- 38:05Speaker 2: that's just going to go glycogen based right into my blood.
- 38:08Speaker 2: For shorter intervals and cycling classes and ninety minutes or less,
- 38:13Speaker 2: I rarely take any food. So what do I recommend.
- 38:17Speaker 2: I recommend that athletes create a stomach and a habit
- 38:21Speaker 2: that they know that they're suited to take on all
- 38:24Speaker 2: kinds of different foods because something will always go wrong. Right,
- 38:29Speaker 2: So if you think you're great every weekend after an
- 38:33Speaker 2: iron Man, I get a race report from somebody that
- 38:36Speaker 2: says I thought I was fine on cliff bars or
- 38:39Speaker 2: power bars, but after seven of them, I couldn't get
- 38:43Speaker 2: another one down, or after four of them or whatever,
- 38:46Speaker 2: And so I want my athletes to have as much
- 38:49Speaker 2: range as possible from it. I've had the shot, the gels,
- 38:54Speaker 2: I've had the choose, I've had the bars, I've had
- 38:58Speaker 2: the potato chips, I've had the ore cookies. I've tried
- 39:01Speaker 2: it all, and I've narrowed it down to a plate
- 39:03Speaker 2: of food that I know I can bring to any race.
- 39:06Speaker 2: That's what weekends are for, to test and train all
- 39:09Speaker 2: the possible foods so that you have a good list
- 39:12Speaker 2: of items that you know you're safe with that you
- 39:15Speaker 2: can find anywhere in the world or bring anywhere in
- 39:17Speaker 2: the world and have a successful nutrition plan.
- 39:22Speaker 1: I have this thing where I've eaten so many bars
- 39:26Speaker 1: over the years that just thinking about eating a bar
- 39:28Speaker 1: right now makes me like I've gone more and more
- 39:32Speaker 1: to just real food. Yep, because it's like I can't
- 39:36Speaker 1: handle the sugar or I don't know what it is,
- 39:38Speaker 1: but like I have this Pavlovian kind of reaction when
- 39:41Speaker 1: you start talking about like that performance nutrition stuff. But
- 39:44Speaker 1: that's a.
- 39:44Speaker 2: Great example of what happens because you pushed you went
- 39:48Speaker 2: over the edge, thinking I must eat more cliff bars
- 39:53Speaker 2: for your events, whether it was for Epic five or
- 39:55Speaker 2: for Ultramen. That's why I want athletes to when they're
- 39:59Speaker 2: done with to stop it, because you're going to be
- 40:02Speaker 2: more successful with fueling over a long period of time
- 40:05Speaker 2: if you eat up until when you can of that
- 40:08Speaker 2: type of food and then move on to another option.
- 40:11Speaker 2: Because we want calories in you. You need to fuel
- 40:14Speaker 2: right on average, I tell people two hundred ish calories
- 40:19Speaker 2: one fifty to two hundred calories an hour for women
- 40:22Speaker 2: and two hundred to two hundred and fifty calories an
- 40:24Speaker 2: hour for men during cycling and running events. Right, So
- 40:29Speaker 2: that adds up over many hours. Right, that's a cliff
- 40:32Speaker 2: barn hour right there. But again, you want to have
- 40:36Speaker 2: a good knowledge of a variety of foods that work
- 40:39Speaker 2: for you. And that way you can sort of open
- 40:42Speaker 2: that special needs bag that has options in it. You
- 40:44Speaker 2: can get to a race at an ultra run where
- 40:46Speaker 2: they have anything from potato chips to Smarties to Eminem's
- 40:50Speaker 2: to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all around there, right,
- 40:54Speaker 2: so that you can take in food that you need.
- 40:57Speaker 2: And I agree with you all the sugars no matter
- 41:01Speaker 2: how much somebody has a sweet tooth or they say
- 41:03Speaker 2: they'll be fine. At some point your body just stops.
- 41:06Speaker 2: Your taste buds say no more.
- 41:08Speaker 1: I was great on the iron Man, and then I
- 41:10Speaker 1: got to mile eighteen. I couldn't stop barfing, Like I
- 41:13Speaker 1: had fifty gels. Yeah, over the last twelve hours.
- 41:16Speaker 2: It's like, But then there's winners, and there's athletes out there,
- 41:19Speaker 2: and they're not just saying that for their sponsors. They
- 41:21Speaker 2: truly do twenty five gells, thirty jels. They're able to.
- 41:25Speaker 2: And so nutrition is the ultimate and plus one right
- 41:30Speaker 2: that where you are the only sample. If you know
- 41:33Speaker 2: what works for you, and you've tested in a variety
- 41:35Speaker 2: of temperatures and conditions and intensities that you know your
- 41:39Speaker 2: palette and how it's going to work for many hours,
- 41:42Speaker 2: ten to thirty hours, then stick with that.
- 41:45Speaker 1: You can't test enough. I mean, you can't overstate how
- 41:49Speaker 1: important it is to constantly be experimenting in your training
- 41:53Speaker 1: with this. Even the very very best, the most elite
- 41:57Speaker 1: of athletes and durance athletes out there run into problems
- 42:01Speaker 1: when they miscalculated because of whatever external reason and have issues.
- 42:07Speaker 1: So the more the better in terms of that experimentation.
- 42:11Speaker 1: But I think also it's worth noting. I'm interested in
- 42:14Speaker 1: what you think about this. You know, I know that
- 42:17Speaker 1: when I go out on the trails around here, I
- 42:20Speaker 1: see so many people who I know they're they're out
- 42:23Speaker 1: on a they're going out for forty five minutes or
- 42:25Speaker 1: something like that, and they've got their vest and they're
- 42:28Speaker 1: just loaded to the gills with all kinds of bottles.
- 42:31Speaker 1: And it's like, you don't need all that stuff. Somebody's
- 42:35Speaker 1: marketed to you to convince you that you can't leave
- 42:38Speaker 1: your house without literally enough nutrition to survive for a weekend.
- 42:43Speaker 2: You know, Well, in some cases, I'm not saying this
- 42:47Speaker 2: is all the cases. In some cases they might be
- 42:49Speaker 2: testing weight and fair enough with the gear that they
- 42:52Speaker 2: want to do, because I'll have my athletes do that too,
- 42:55Speaker 2: but not with the food. I'll have put water bottles
- 42:57Speaker 2: in there for weight, right, because for long endurance events
- 43:01Speaker 2: you got to get used to that self supported way.
- 43:03Speaker 2: But yeah, there is also this industry brain feeding right
- 43:10Speaker 2: where they've told us you need to eat, eat, eat, eat,
- 43:12Speaker 2: and drink drink drink drink, and electrolytes electrolytes, electrilights and
- 43:15Speaker 2: salt salt salt, and people overdo that dramatically. You're right.
- 43:20Speaker 1: Killian told me he goes out for seven or eight
- 43:23Speaker 1: hours without anything.
- 43:24Speaker 2: That makes my head explode. As a coach, that just
- 43:28Speaker 2: makes me because others will hear this, yeah I, and
- 43:34Speaker 2: then think that that's okay, and you can. He has
- 43:37Speaker 2: trained his body to go without food. I had a
- 43:40Speaker 2: coach way back in the day. He asked me to
- 43:44Speaker 2: go out for two three hour bike rides not eating
- 43:47Speaker 2: at all. He wanted to build up the tolerance that
- 43:50Speaker 2: you can go on less. Luckily I got away from
- 43:53Speaker 2: that theory because that is completely not true. Our body
- 43:58Speaker 2: needs fuel to operate, and at the lower intensities where
- 44:01Speaker 2: you're burning primarily fats, you technically have enough storage on
- 44:06Speaker 2: your body for about a thousand days of exercise without food,
- 44:10Speaker 2: but you can't utilize that and your intensity is way
- 44:14Speaker 2: slower than that. So no, it don't go out for
- 44:19Speaker 2: seven hour runs without food. Right. And the other interesting
- 44:23Speaker 2: thing that you said is that the palette also changes
- 44:26Speaker 2: over the years. So what you might have liked five
- 44:30Speaker 2: years ago and needed changes as you become fitter and
- 44:35Speaker 2: stronger and do different distances or even the same distance.
- 44:38Speaker 2: What worked for me five years ago in an iron man.
- 44:41Speaker 2: I no longer eat that. I have to completely turned
- 44:44Speaker 2: mine upside down because it was too much and I
- 44:48Speaker 2: went to too little. Then I had up it again.
- 44:50Speaker 2: You're constantly testing, Like you.
- 44:52Speaker 1: Said, let's talk about swimming. Yeah, so this might get
- 44:56Speaker 1: granular for people that aren't interested in this, but if
- 44:59Speaker 1: you're listening in you're a triathlete, or you're interested in
- 45:03Speaker 1: a swim run or becoming a master swimmer, I think
- 45:07Speaker 1: it is worth spending a few minutes talking about this
- 45:10Speaker 1: because the most common thing that you hear, I know
- 45:15Speaker 1: I hear, I'm sure you do, is people who are
- 45:18Speaker 1: interested in exploring this world of multi sport, but they
- 45:21Speaker 1: didn't grow up swimming. They don't really know how to
- 45:23Speaker 1: swim all that. Maybe you know, they may know how
- 45:26Speaker 1: to swim in general, but have never put themselves in
- 45:29Speaker 1: any kind of competitive swim environment. And it's very intimidating,
- 45:32Speaker 1: and I think it scares a lot of people away
- 45:36Speaker 1: from a sport that they might enjoy if they could
- 45:40Speaker 1: wrap their head around a way of, you know, learning
- 45:43Speaker 1: how to get comfortable in the water.
- 45:46Speaker 2: I love master's swimming programs from that aspect because you
- 45:51Speaker 2: get some coaching, and there's a social aspect of it,
- 45:54Speaker 2: and there's a structure to it. There's many choices usually
- 45:57Speaker 2: during the week to get in the pool, and it's
- 46:00Speaker 2: not like these are all former NCUBLEA swimmers at every
- 46:04Speaker 2: master's workout.
- 46:05Speaker 1: It's intimidating, though. It's scary for somebody who's never done anything, like.
- 46:08Speaker 2: Absolutely, but so is doing anything else right and having
- 46:13Speaker 2: an embracing, warm community that all started as beginners at
- 46:19Speaker 2: some point. Maybe not the nc DOUBLEA guys at the
- 46:21Speaker 2: far end of the pool who don't even remember when
- 46:24Speaker 2: they learned how to swim. But in every master's program
- 46:27Speaker 2: I've ever come across, there's always a few swimmers who
- 46:30Speaker 2: you can see they just started a couple of months ago,
- 46:33Speaker 2: and you'll swim with them and they'll be open to
- 46:37Speaker 2: having you in their lane and growing from there as
- 46:40Speaker 2: a swimmer, and you get instruction with it too.
- 46:43Speaker 1: Yeah. It takes a little bit of courage though to
- 46:47Speaker 1: kind of walk through that door. I mean, I remember
- 46:51Speaker 1: when I first was thinking like maybe I want to
- 46:53Speaker 1: do a triathlon, and I was terrified to just walk
- 46:58Speaker 1: in the door of Helen's bikes, which is like kind
- 47:00Speaker 1: of a Tony high end bike shop here in Los Angeles,
- 47:02Speaker 1: and I'm like, I swam at standard, like I'm an athlete,
- 47:06Speaker 1: and I was like, I didn't know the questions to ask,
- 47:09Speaker 1: and like, you know, those guys in there, they all
- 47:11Speaker 1: are pro cyclists or whatever. It's very it's it's.
- 47:14Speaker 2: Very all the sports like that are intimidating when you
- 47:17Speaker 2: walk into most of those shops, probably trail running the least,
- 47:21Speaker 2: because they're sort of pretty chill, pretty chill, yeah, but
- 47:27Speaker 2: track on and cycling and swimming for sure. And the
- 47:31Speaker 2: aspect of swimming is that, I mean, you have a
- 47:35Speaker 2: evolutionary response to drowning, right and a fear of that,
- 47:38Speaker 2: So it makes sense. And that's why I always recommend
- 47:44Speaker 2: a master's program where you can stand and take your
- 47:46Speaker 2: time and not be intimidated because of what they're doing,
- 47:50Speaker 2: but more because you're comfortable just being there. And that's
- 47:53Speaker 2: the social aspect, right where people just are having fun.
- 47:57Speaker 1: Yeah. I think beyond that though, it's important to make
- 48:01Speaker 1: sure that you're getting instruction. Like a lot of master's coaches,
- 48:05Speaker 1: they're they're they're they're creating a workout, but sometimes there
- 48:08Speaker 1: isn't a lot of individual attention so I think it's
- 48:11Speaker 1: if this does intimidate you or you feel like you
- 48:14Speaker 1: really want to progress, to find somebody who can give
- 48:19Speaker 1: you some one on one because there's nothing like having
- 48:22Speaker 1: somebody just look at your stroke and and give you
- 48:26Speaker 1: a couple things to work on, and then a couple
- 48:28Speaker 1: of weeks later give you a couple more things to
- 48:30Speaker 1: work on, because you really can only master one or
- 48:33Speaker 1: two tweaks at a time, and generally somebody who doesn't
- 48:36Speaker 1: have a background in this will have twenty things wrong
- 48:39Speaker 1: with what they're doing, and you've got to really take
- 48:41Speaker 1: it step by step and be patient with with it.
- 48:47Speaker 1: I think the biggest mistake that most inexperienced swimmers and
- 48:51Speaker 1: triathletes make is they're so worried about their conditioning and
- 48:56Speaker 1: their fitness that they just want to get in the
- 48:58Speaker 1: water and some back and forth worth for a certain
- 49:01Speaker 1: amount of time to feel like they got to work
- 49:03Speaker 1: out in.
- 49:04Speaker 2: They land their watch to make sure that they get in.
- 49:07Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, there's no structure to the workout, there's no
- 49:10Speaker 1: real intentionality behind it. And at the same time, they're
- 49:15Speaker 1: not working on their fundamentals or their stroke technique in
- 49:20Speaker 1: such a way that they would be better off just
- 49:24Speaker 1: scrapping that whole program and starting from zero and spending
- 49:29Speaker 1: three months on nothing but drills to perfect their shrup
- 49:32Speaker 1: because they're fighting the water. They're inefficient, they're creating all
- 49:36Speaker 1: this resistance, they're expending all this energy they don't need
- 49:39Speaker 1: to because they don't understand how to make the water
- 49:41Speaker 1: work for them.
- 49:42Speaker 2: Yeah, there's levers in that water for us. Yeah, to
- 49:45Speaker 2: make us work work less and swim faster. There's also
- 49:49Speaker 2: a few programs out there. I really like the swim
- 49:51Speaker 2: Smooth program. I never heard about it regards to learning
- 49:55Speaker 2: how to swim. They have animation and so a lot
- 49:57Speaker 2: of it that you can swim on your own. And
- 49:59Speaker 2: then you have certified swim Smooth coaches around the country
- 50:03Speaker 2: and the world in this case, who you then can
- 50:07Speaker 2: schedule video sessions with and one on one time with.
- 50:10Speaker 2: And what's really cool about those swim Smooth certified coaches
- 50:14Speaker 2: that's a lot to say swim, is that they're often
- 50:17Speaker 2: they run a master's program on the side anyway that
- 50:21Speaker 2: you could join or they'll know where you can find
- 50:24Speaker 2: a program to work with. But again, like you were saying,
- 50:27Speaker 2: seeing yourself swim and then working with animation, and then
- 50:31Speaker 2: getting one on one instruction. Combining all three of those,
- 50:34Speaker 2: you're going to learn a lot quicker than just on
- 50:37Speaker 2: your own.
- 50:38Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's different from running or riding a bike.
- 50:41Speaker 1: It really is technique driven. It's much more like learning
- 50:46Speaker 1: how to swing at golf club than it is how
- 50:48Speaker 1: to ride a bike.
- 50:49Speaker 2: I compare swimming the way we swim in the pool
- 50:53Speaker 2: a lot to track running. The times are shorter, just
- 50:57Speaker 2: like that forty sixty seven seconds, and most of the
- 51:02Speaker 2: time for a track athlete at the track is drills,
- 51:05Speaker 2: warming up, stretching, doing a few short bursts, and then
- 51:10Speaker 2: being done and focused on technique. And swimming is similar
- 51:14Speaker 2: warm up, a variety of drills, a main set with
- 51:18Speaker 2: some bursts and efforts, and then warmed down, focused on
- 51:21Speaker 2: technique all the time. And so you wouldn't go to
- 51:25Speaker 2: a track if you want to be a four hundred
- 51:27Speaker 2: meter runner and just run four hunimeters over and over
- 51:30Speaker 2: and over again at a slow speed. You want to
- 51:32Speaker 2: have variability and drills and bounding and strength and explosiveness
- 51:37Speaker 2: and drills all built into that workout. And similar in swimming.
- 51:43Speaker 1: And if you're not coming from a swimming background and
- 51:46Speaker 1: you're interested in triathlon, you have to understand that you
- 51:51Speaker 1: don't need to go fast, and you're not going to
- 51:54Speaker 1: be competitive anyway because you didn't grow up with the sport.
- 51:57Speaker 1: So you need to forget about all of that and
- 51:59Speaker 1: understand that the goal or the priority should be getting
- 52:02Speaker 1: out of the water feeling good, learning how to swim
- 52:05Speaker 1: efficiently enough so that you are moving forward in the
- 52:09Speaker 1: water with some degree of aptitude and efficiency, but that
- 52:14Speaker 1: you're getting out excited about the next stage. You're not
- 52:17Speaker 1: going to be in the front pack, you know, forget
- 52:19Speaker 1: about all of that kind of stuff, which.
- 52:22Speaker 2: I feel most most don't have that expectation, but they
- 52:25Speaker 2: do have an expectation that it would go better or
- 52:29Speaker 2: there's a different strategy.
- 52:30Speaker 1: But you would have to the amount of time you
- 52:32Speaker 1: would have to put into it doesn't make sense, and
- 52:34Speaker 1: ultimately it doesn't matter because the swim the way triathlon works,
- 52:41Speaker 1: with the exception of ultra Man, the swim is almost irrelevance.
- 52:45Speaker 2: It's a means to an end. I call swimming the
- 52:48Speaker 2: first part of a trithlon. It's a longer warm up.
- 52:51Speaker 2: It's a means to an end. It's designed to get
- 52:53Speaker 2: you from the starting gun to T one and nothing else. Right,
- 53:00Speaker 2: So if you can get through the swim efficiently, using
- 53:02Speaker 2: the least amount of energy, but still in the time
- 53:05Speaker 2: that you wanted to in order to then have a
- 53:07Speaker 2: more significant bike and run, that's the goal, right, And
- 53:11Speaker 2: a lot of swim coaches, and this is my biggest issue.
- 53:15Speaker 2: I don't have a lot of issues with swim coaches,
- 53:18Speaker 2: but my biggest issue with swim coaches is that they
- 53:21Speaker 2: teach triathletes how to be swimmers versus traffon swimmers or
- 53:26Speaker 2: open water swimmers. And there are clear differences between the two. Right,
- 53:31Speaker 2: one is more shorter speeds, shorter bursts and speed for
- 53:35Speaker 2: hundreds and two hundreds and four hundred meters let's say
- 53:38Speaker 2: that's a total of six minutes maybe, Whereas if you're
- 53:41Speaker 2: getting ready for thirty forty to fifty an hour and
- 53:43Speaker 2: a half worth of swimming, it's a different workout, right.
- 53:48Speaker 2: I don't need you to perfect your butterfly, backstroke, comb
- 53:51Speaker 2: brushtro I don't need you to have good streamline off
- 53:54Speaker 2: the wall and to dolphin kicks off the wall. I
- 53:57Speaker 2: don't need your flip turns to be great. If you're
- 53:59Speaker 2: going to do open water swimming. I need you to
- 54:01Speaker 2: be able to get through that efficiently, like you said,
- 54:04Speaker 2: in order to have an effective bike and run, and to.
- 54:07Speaker 1: Be able to maintain your equanimity and your composure in
- 54:10Speaker 1: a stressful situation where there's people kicking you in the
- 54:13Speaker 1: head and there's a lot of chaos, to be calm
- 54:16Speaker 1: and relaxed and to understand how to site. You know,
- 54:19Speaker 1: you have to be able to raise your head and
- 54:21Speaker 1: see where you're going.
- 54:23Speaker 2: See where you're going. You're often dragged along by a
- 54:26Speaker 2: lot of other swimmers when you're in the middle of
- 54:29Speaker 2: the pack, so you sort of know that part, okay,
- 54:33Speaker 2: you just sort of follow all the minnows. But the
- 54:37Speaker 2: part of being comfortable when you swim is also important
- 54:40Speaker 2: because wetsuits can feel incredibly restricting, and a lot of
- 54:45Speaker 2: athletes get great athletes get panic attacks, anxiety and almost
- 54:51Speaker 2: have to stop the swim because they have shortness of
- 54:54Speaker 2: breath and the whole thing and what I always say there,
- 54:57Speaker 2: understanding the dynamics of a wetsuit is very very important
- 55:01Speaker 2: because a dry wet suit, the liner hasn't gotten wet
- 55:05Speaker 2: yet to absorb the moisture so that it properly stretches
- 55:09Speaker 2: and sticks to your skin and can become a second skin.
- 55:14Speaker 2: When it's dry, it's just a tight plastic suit constricting
- 55:19Speaker 2: your breathing around your neck and everywhere on your body.
- 55:23Speaker 2: And it's pressure on your body, and we have a
- 55:25Speaker 2: response to that, same as when we hit the water.
- 55:28Speaker 2: Everything seizes. In general, it's a response of our way back,
- 55:32Speaker 2: of our great ancestors that can make the swim in
- 55:37Speaker 2: the beginning very very panicky.
- 55:40Speaker 1: I still am not used to wet suits that cover
- 55:43Speaker 1: the shoulder, like unless it's freezing and we're in Sweden,
- 55:46Speaker 1: like I would rather have a sleeveless like that restriction
- 55:49Speaker 1: around the shoulders like I just cannot acclimate to that.
- 55:54Speaker 2: I've never swum without them because I love that extra
- 55:57Speaker 2: pointance on my arms.
- 55:59Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think is the future of iron Man?
- 56:05Speaker 1: You know, when you look at these races, there's so
- 56:07Speaker 1: many of them now they sell out a year ahead
- 56:09Speaker 1: of time, thousands and thousands of people. And you see
- 56:14Speaker 1: these clips on the internet or if you track this
- 56:17Speaker 1: stuff where all they're just massive packs of people. It
- 56:21Speaker 1: looks like a giant drafting peloton. I mean, what is
- 56:25Speaker 1: going on?
- 56:26Speaker 2: The sport has definitely changed and it's become an everyman's sport.
- 56:31Speaker 2: The uniqueness of an iron Man and a seventy point
- 56:34Speaker 2: three has definitely shifted. It's still quite unique, but I
- 56:38Speaker 2: think iron Man in general knows the customers. It's getting
- 56:43Speaker 2: a certain type of person. And when I say the customer,
- 56:48Speaker 2: I'm talking repeat customers, ones that do it for many years.
- 56:52Speaker 2: And I think Ironman and their parent company is completely
- 56:56Speaker 2: happy and fine with that. They're not willing to spend
- 56:59Speaker 2: the dollars orsments in order to grow that. They have
- 57:02Speaker 2: a very religious following in that space, and everybody else
- 57:08Speaker 2: is sort of on the periphery. They do it once
- 57:11Speaker 2: or twice and then they either go on to other
- 57:13Speaker 2: adventures or they move on to something else. Right, And
- 57:17Speaker 2: so the future, I think is those people who are
- 57:21Speaker 2: already in it and love it and are religious about it,
- 57:25Speaker 2: They're going to continue to accept those price increases and
- 57:28Speaker 2: that drafting type of racing because that is what it is.
- 57:31Speaker 2: It's their sport.
- 57:33Speaker 1: But I think that is now going to be challenged
- 57:38Speaker 1: with future generations of young athletes who now have a
- 57:42Speaker 1: lot of options absolutely in terms of what they want
- 57:45Speaker 1: to specialize in and what they want to explore and experience,
- 57:48Speaker 1: whereas the people that are kind of from our age
- 57:51Speaker 1: bracket and above. It was iron Man, was it?
- 57:55Speaker 2: That was the ultra endurance?
- 57:56Speaker 1: There was a cultish sort of allegiance to this and
- 58:00Speaker 1: you know, a fervor around these races that created a
- 58:05Speaker 1: lifestyle for a lot of people, which is a great,
- 58:07Speaker 1: you know me, amazing thing. But I you know, if
- 58:10Speaker 1: you're a twenty four year old aspiring endurance athlete or
- 58:14Speaker 1: you know a younger even younger, now you look, you
- 58:17Speaker 1: can canvass this landscape and there's so many options.
- 58:21Speaker 2: So what is that adventure?
- 58:22Speaker 1: How does that bode for iron Man twenty years from now?
- 58:25Speaker 2: In my personal opinion, I don't think it bodes well
- 58:30Speaker 2: because again, there's so many other adventures out there and
- 58:33Speaker 2: choices as well as being associated in a certain group
- 58:39Speaker 2: for that in that way is also what the younger
- 58:42Speaker 2: generation doesn't like. They rather be associated with a variety
- 58:48Speaker 2: of endeavors and the versatility of doing other endurance events.
- 58:53Speaker 1: Right, So, like being an iron Man athlete is kind
- 58:55Speaker 1: of like having a job. And the mad Man era
- 58:58Speaker 1: and now the freelance economy, gig economy, young people they're
- 59:03Speaker 1: going to be doing all different kinds.
- 59:05Speaker 2: Of ye and exactly they'll be able to do an
- 59:07Speaker 2: iron Man and an ultra un and an adventure race.
- 59:11Speaker 2: And you know it's like, why would we put a
- 59:14Speaker 2: full year of training into something that we already know
- 59:17Speaker 2: the outcome to, Right, that's the hardest part for a
- 59:20Speaker 2: lot of endurance athletes. I can already close my eyes
- 59:25Speaker 2: and see myself crossing that finish line of an Ironman.
- 59:28Speaker 2: I've done it before, and they're all the same. So therefore,
- 59:33Speaker 2: I would rather apply my time, my dollars and all
- 59:36Speaker 2: those weekends to something that is unfamiliar to me too,
- 59:41Speaker 2: that is more creative or more scary, or more dangerous,
- 59:47Speaker 2: or more instagram worthy or I mean again, like we
- 59:52Speaker 2: just got to be real. I mean, we're going to
- 59:54Speaker 2: do a lot of these adventures for the coolness factor,
- 59:58Speaker 2: and that coolness factor, in my my opinion, will run
- 1:00:01Speaker 2: out within iron Man after a while.
- 1:00:03Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see.
- 1:00:05Speaker 2: Yeah, I think. Well, I've already seen the numbers be
- 1:00:08Speaker 2: quite flat in their growth, actually not negative really, but
- 1:00:12Speaker 2: sort of flat. But you know, they came the seventy
- 1:00:16Speaker 2: point three series is what really grew them so quickly
- 1:00:21Speaker 2: because it became way more approachable, less training hours.
- 1:00:26Speaker 1: So, in your experience of competing at a very high
- 1:00:32Speaker 1: level over many decades, and your experience working with so
- 1:00:35Speaker 1: many athletes over the years, what can you distill from
- 1:00:40Speaker 1: all of that in terms of the mindset, principles or
- 1:00:45Speaker 1: the habits or practices that you've employed and that the
- 1:00:50Speaker 1: successful athletes that you've worked with have employed to great benefit,
- 1:00:55Speaker 1: Like are there you can you canonize like the things
- 1:00:59Speaker 1: that you've you've seen work for yourself and the athletes
- 1:01:02Speaker 1: that you work with that seem to come up time
- 1:01:04Speaker 1: and time again.
- 1:01:05Speaker 2: I would say the longevity aspect of it is what
- 1:01:09Speaker 2: works best over time for the athletes, and of course
- 1:01:12Speaker 2: longevity and over time. But what I mean by that
- 1:01:15Speaker 2: is that the athletes that have the most success and
- 1:01:19Speaker 2: can last the longest in the sport, because a lot
- 1:01:22Speaker 2: of this is outlasting too, is the ones that truly
- 1:01:27Speaker 2: enjoy the training, the journey, the self exploration, nature outdoors,
- 1:01:32Speaker 2: daily self care, and so forth. Those that are just
- 1:01:36Speaker 2: focused on an outcome on a placing on a time,
- 1:01:41Speaker 2: they do not last long in the ultra endurance world.
- 1:01:45Speaker 2: And I've noticed it for myself, but a lot of
- 1:01:48Speaker 2: the athletes that I coach, if they have certain numbers
- 1:01:52Speaker 2: or times in mind for their whether it's an Ironman
- 1:01:56Speaker 2: or other events that are measured, and they don't achieve, that,
- 1:02:01Speaker 2: frustration just grows. And those that love the activity, the fitness,
- 1:02:06Speaker 2: the health benefits, the joy of doing it, the outdoors,
- 1:02:10Speaker 2: all the adventure with it, those seem to progress naturally
- 1:02:15Speaker 2: and out they're not outcome driven. They're process driven. And
- 1:02:18Speaker 2: you know, we hear that in all kinds of facets
- 1:02:21Speaker 2: of life, not being outcome driven, being more process driven.
- 1:02:25Speaker 2: And it works really, really well in ultra endurance athletics
- 1:02:28Speaker 2: because again, there's too much that can happen on that
- 1:02:31Speaker 2: day then in that event, whether it's many days or
- 1:02:35Speaker 2: one day, that will affect your outcome. But if you
- 1:02:40Speaker 2: already enjoyed the process, the journey so call it, then
- 1:02:44Speaker 2: you're already ahead of the game and you're winning.
- 1:02:48Speaker 1: So what do you do if you're working with an
- 1:02:50Speaker 1: athlete who's very outcome driven to try to nudge them
- 1:02:55Speaker 1: or contole them into being more process driven.
- 1:02:57Speaker 2: Well, the important piece there is to understan and that
- 1:03:00Speaker 2: the a they choose to do this every day. Right,
- 1:03:02Speaker 2: This back off a little bit and realize and look
- 1:03:06Speaker 2: at yourself and realize this is your choice every day. Now,
- 1:03:09Speaker 2: I understand if your choice is to be outcome driven,
- 1:03:13Speaker 2: but you can only do your best right if you
- 1:03:16Speaker 2: compare constantly to others. You're stuck in this quagmire of
- 1:03:21Speaker 2: constantly having to do better and better and better, and
- 1:03:23Speaker 2: you will out that will out put, that will push
- 1:03:27Speaker 2: out the joy and your best because you will never
- 1:03:30Speaker 2: achieve that right. And so the more I can work
- 1:03:34Speaker 2: with them realizing that family and career and this whole
- 1:03:38Speaker 2: choice of doing this, it's their hobby, not their career,
- 1:03:41Speaker 2: it's not their identity. That then I can gradually move
- 1:03:44Speaker 2: them into more enjoying the process. And quite honestly, I've
- 1:03:48Speaker 2: lost a lot of clients because of this over the years,
- 1:03:51Speaker 2: right because we don't see eye to eye on this,
- 1:03:53Speaker 2: and not every workout is going to fit perfectly in
- 1:03:57Speaker 2: line to the outcome in four months from like, you're
- 1:04:00Speaker 2: going to have bad workouts. You're going to have bad weeks,
- 1:04:02Speaker 2: you might even have a bad month or two. But
- 1:04:05Speaker 2: we're doing the work, and we feel good about it
- 1:04:07Speaker 2: and we're enjoying it, and this is what I would
- 1:04:09Speaker 2: be doing today anyway. So accept that and you're always
- 1:04:13Speaker 2: learning as well. Right, if you're in the process, you're
- 1:04:16Speaker 2: learning about your nutrition, you're learning about your mindset, you're growing,
- 1:04:19Speaker 2: You're you're already a better person than you were yesterday. Right,
- 1:04:23Speaker 2: What was that that quote? You know you never step
- 1:04:26Speaker 2: in the same river twice because the river's changed and
- 1:04:28Speaker 2: you've changed, Right, It's always a different river. And so
- 1:04:32Speaker 2: that's what training in the process is. You are never
- 1:04:35Speaker 2: going to be the same person as you were yesterday
- 1:04:37Speaker 2: because there just something you learned in that workout about yourself,
- 1:04:41Speaker 2: about your fitness, about your mind, about your nutrition. I
- 1:04:45Speaker 2: can spin that into twenty different angles of why you're
- 1:04:48Speaker 2: a better version.
- 1:04:50Speaker 1: And so, what do you think is the hardest lesson
- 1:04:53Speaker 1: that you've had to learn in this evolution from you know,
- 1:04:57Speaker 1: super elite Olympic German precision driven you know fitness machine
- 1:05:03Speaker 1: into you know master's athlete and coach, Like, what was
- 1:05:08Speaker 1: the hardest piece of advice that you had to digest
- 1:05:11Speaker 1: for yourself?
- 1:05:13Speaker 2: That the path isn't linear right for me? And you
- 1:05:17Speaker 2: know from a swimming background, everything seemed to fit orderly
- 1:05:21Speaker 2: into a linear progression. If I do this work, these yards,
- 1:05:26Speaker 2: this training, Sure not every single lap, but over the
- 1:05:29Speaker 2: weeks and months, the outcome will come no matter what.
- 1:05:34Speaker 1: Well, it's such a controlled environment. I mean, the world
- 1:05:37Speaker 1: of ultras ultra running versus swimming is you know, yeah,
- 1:05:41Speaker 1: I guess they're both you know, individual sports that are
- 1:05:45Speaker 1: have some level of endurance, but a pool is the
- 1:05:48Speaker 1: pool is always the same, the time standards. It's like
- 1:05:54Speaker 1: you couldn't control an environment more, you know, completely than
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: a swimming sport. And so yeah, yeah, it must tap
- 1:06:01Speaker 1: into that precision mindset of like I do these things,
- 1:06:04Speaker 1: this is the time I need to do.
- 1:06:06Speaker 2: Yeah. And I used to coach like that with regards
- 1:06:09Speaker 2: to saying, if you put in the work, the results
- 1:06:11Speaker 2: will come, I guarantee it. And I had to accept
- 1:06:15Speaker 2: that that doesn't always work. We're all human beings and
- 1:06:18Speaker 2: life gets in the way.
- 1:06:19Speaker 1: But if you it depends on your time window though, right.
- 1:06:22Speaker 2: Your time window. Sure, I mean we could, we could
- 1:06:25Speaker 2: always play that super long window. But I also want
- 1:06:29Speaker 2: athletes to understand that, you know, because it doesn't line
- 1:06:33Speaker 2: up like that, you might be you might have different
- 1:06:36Speaker 2: goals in eighteen months from now on different interests and
- 1:06:38Speaker 2: different priorities, and so hopefully you're enjoying the training and
- 1:06:43Speaker 2: the healthy lifestyle versus just must complete race in X
- 1:06:48Speaker 2: amount of time otherwise I'm not good. Of course you're good.
- 1:06:52Speaker 2: You have four kids, you work sixty hours a week,
- 1:06:56Speaker 2: and then you're fitting in this training. That's amazing. There's
- 1:06:59Speaker 2: not a lot of people that are doing that. But
- 1:07:01Speaker 2: you're comparing yourself to the guy who's a lifeguard and
- 1:07:05Speaker 2: has no kids and has you know, works out all day, right,
- 1:07:12Speaker 2: And so we're stuck in this world of like what
- 1:07:14Speaker 2: we're constantly comparing, Well, these guys do have Ironman in
- 1:07:18Speaker 2: under five hours. If I don't do it in under
- 1:07:19Speaker 2: five hours, I'm not really good. Well sure, if you
- 1:07:23Speaker 2: look at it a black and white on paper like that, Yeah,
- 1:07:26Speaker 2: but they don't work like you do, or have family
- 1:07:28Speaker 2: commitments like you do, or you know, volunteer at the
- 1:07:31Speaker 2: church like you do, or you know the sillian things
- 1:07:34Speaker 2: you can pick at.
- 1:07:37Speaker 1: And so, was there a specific moment in your athletic
- 1:07:42Speaker 1: career where you had to meet your maker with that?
- 1:07:46Speaker 2: Well, I mean I saw it with Ironman Triathlon quite honestly.
- 1:07:50Speaker 2: I mean I didn't win my age group in Hawaii
- 1:07:52Speaker 2: for many years, despite knowing that I should be able to,
- 1:07:57Speaker 2: but there's too many factors that come into play and
- 1:08:00Speaker 2: too many outcomes that I'm not in control of. Or
- 1:08:03Speaker 2: that little difference was the difference between second, third, and fourth,
- 1:08:07Speaker 2: and fifth and sixth. I had every place in the
- 1:08:09Speaker 2: time over ten years, I hit them all. But yeah,
- 1:08:13Speaker 2: it wasn't that easy to just say I've put in
- 1:08:16Speaker 2: the work, I've seen the numbers. I know I can
- 1:08:19Speaker 2: hold this wattage, I know I can run this pace.
- 1:08:21Speaker 2: It's not going to give me that result. Actually, I
- 1:08:24Speaker 2: had to let go and just sort of train truly
- 1:08:27Speaker 2: for the fun of it and the joy of it,
- 1:08:30Speaker 2: in order to win my age group in Hawaii.
- 1:08:32Speaker 1: Right, that's the lesson. Right, when you finally were compelled
- 1:08:36Speaker 1: to let go is when you had the success that had.
- 1:08:39Speaker 2: Alluded and I relied on others. I mean, I had
- 1:08:42Speaker 2: friends who said, no, this year, we're going to train differently.
- 1:08:44Speaker 2: Let's go do adventures, let's go do cool rides and
- 1:08:47Speaker 2: cool different places, and create this training that was completely
- 1:08:51Speaker 2: different than when all the years of structure. In May,
- 1:08:54Speaker 2: I must be doing this, and then therefore in August
- 1:08:57Speaker 2: I'll feel like this, and then therefore in Hawaii, now
- 1:09:00Speaker 2: we did it. Completely differently, and we trained differently and
- 1:09:04Speaker 2: that was what I needed.
- 1:09:05Speaker 1: Right. How many athletes from your generation of professional triathlon
- 1:09:13Speaker 1: iron man are still getting after it?
- 1:09:16Speaker 2: Not a lot, Yeah, not a lot. There's still I mean,
- 1:09:19Speaker 2: there's still some you know, the Ken Glass of the world,
- 1:09:22Speaker 2: still doing Hawaii. But yeah, there's I mean again, I'm
- 1:09:27Speaker 2: not sure what other adventures they've stepped into, but many
- 1:09:30Speaker 2: of them are still active in some way. Yeah, but
- 1:09:33Speaker 2: not racing or looking for the next adventure the way I.
- 1:09:39Speaker 1: Write, all right, we got to wrap this up. But
- 1:09:42Speaker 1: let's let's leave all the athletes and aspiring athletes that
- 1:09:46Speaker 1: are listening and watching with a couple takeaways to fuel
- 1:09:52Speaker 1: the spring months to come.
- 1:09:54Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, we came out of the winter
- 1:09:57Speaker 2: with some strength work and hopefully we're on a stronger platform.
- 1:10:00Speaker 2: But because of those hours and those reduced hours over
- 1:10:02Speaker 2: the winter, hopefully were healthy and fresh and ready to go.
- 1:10:07Speaker 2: But one thing I would tie in is set up
- 1:10:10Speaker 2: these training adventures that I just talked about. Look at
- 1:10:13Speaker 2: your calendar and see maybe a Memorial Day weekend or
- 1:10:17Speaker 2: July fourth weekend, and create something exciting or a mini
- 1:10:20Speaker 2: event that you yourself or your friends or your family
- 1:10:24Speaker 2: and you do to create a training weekend, enjoy the
- 1:10:27Speaker 2: fitness that you've built and been consistent about over the
- 1:10:31Speaker 2: last month's weeks, whatever it is, and enjoy it with
- 1:10:35Speaker 2: your community. That's something I try to tell my athletes
- 1:10:38Speaker 2: all the time. Create your own adventure, even if you're
- 1:10:41Speaker 2: on a path to something that you've already signed up
- 1:10:44Speaker 2: for that was a really cool weekend. Or I took
- 1:10:47Speaker 2: up trail that I never take and I ran down
- 1:10:50Speaker 2: it for an extra hour and a half and I
- 1:10:52Speaker 2: saw corners of my park that I never see right
- 1:10:55Speaker 2: or run to a location. Last year, I was getting
- 1:10:58Speaker 2: ready for to Low and other events, and I ran
- 1:11:03Speaker 2: forty miles in one direction to a town that I
- 1:11:06Speaker 2: usually cycled through, stayed there overnight, great restaurants, cool little places,
- 1:11:11Speaker 2: and then ran back the next day. I know that's
- 1:11:14Speaker 2: a little.
- 1:11:15Speaker 3: Extreme, yeah, but what I'm sacked to back forty create
- 1:11:20Speaker 3: the adventure right like run ten or bike somewhere or
- 1:11:24Speaker 3: you know, bike somewhere, swim the next day, bike the
- 1:11:27Speaker 3: third day back or some you know.
- 1:11:29Speaker 2: So that's what I don't like to have too many
- 1:11:32Speaker 2: structured aspects to my training. I like to create many
- 1:11:36Speaker 2: adventures all the time. And I think if more people
- 1:11:38Speaker 2: did that and their community and understanding their immediate environment better,
- 1:11:43Speaker 2: they'll enjoy the training in a completely different process. Again.
- 1:11:47Speaker 1: Yeah, that was one of the things that you encouraged
- 1:11:49Speaker 1: me to do when I was training for Ultraman is
- 1:11:52Speaker 1: to you know, when when that long bike or that
- 1:11:56Speaker 1: long run, you know, a distance that I'd never done
- 1:11:59Speaker 1: before came up, like to make it like create a
- 1:12:04Speaker 1: route that would be exciting and interesting, that would be
- 1:12:06Speaker 1: a point to point so a you know, I can't
- 1:12:09Speaker 1: bag out, but also to make it like an adventure
- 1:12:12Speaker 1: in and of itself. And I remember, I mean it
- 1:12:15Speaker 1: was transformative. I'd I'd never you know, run such a
- 1:12:19Speaker 1: great distance. And I had that forty mile I think
- 1:12:21Speaker 1: it was a forty mile run that you'd put on
- 1:12:22Speaker 1: the on the on the schedule, and so I decided
- 1:12:25Speaker 1: to run from Venice to Point Doom and back like
- 1:12:28Speaker 1: a long pH which is like not the best advice
- 1:12:32Speaker 1: in terms of like a road to run on, but
- 1:12:35Speaker 1: it made it like super epic to like run along
- 1:12:38Speaker 1: the beat, like because you I could wrap my because
- 1:12:40Speaker 1: you can see point you know, it was like and
- 1:12:42Speaker 1: I chant that that was like that changed my life,
- 1:12:45Speaker 1: you know, to think like, wow, I never would have
- 1:12:47Speaker 1: thought I've been able to do that, rather than running
- 1:12:50Speaker 1: in circles or you know something like that.
- 1:12:52Speaker 2: I tell a lot of athletes on long bike rides
- 1:12:54Speaker 2: to ride to a lunch spot, stop there for literally
- 1:12:58Speaker 2: an hour, learn what that feels like, and then ride
- 1:13:01Speaker 2: home like four hours one way, sit, hydrate, fuel, enjoy yourself,
- 1:13:07Speaker 2: get lethargic, and then re engage to ride home. And
- 1:13:10Speaker 2: it's an adventure, you know, pick a point on a
- 1:13:13Speaker 2: map and explore. You create the coolest part about endurance
- 1:13:17Speaker 2: athletics is that you create fitness that you can apply
- 1:13:21Speaker 2: on any type of adventure. You're with your kids camping, cool,
- 1:13:25Speaker 2: do something around that right where you hike in or
- 1:13:28Speaker 2: you carry an extra load, or you're off getting stuff,
- 1:13:31Speaker 2: or you run to the store to get them a
- 1:13:34Speaker 2: milkshake or something right and they're like, WHOA, you did what?
- 1:13:39Speaker 2: Or that you're with friends at a high school reunion
- 1:13:41Speaker 2: and they want to do something cool and you have
- 1:13:44Speaker 2: the fitness to actually just jump in, right. That's what
- 1:13:47Speaker 2: I talk about endurance fitness, that you have the ability
- 1:13:50Speaker 2: to take on adventures that come up and just go
- 1:13:52Speaker 2: do it. That's all around fitness. And that's truly taking
- 1:13:56Speaker 2: it to not just structured events, but like cool tidbits.
- 1:14:01Speaker 1: Yeah, that is process, not outcome exactly. It is the journey,
- 1:14:06Speaker 1: not the destination, right.
- 1:14:09Speaker 2: It is it is and I know it's cliche these days,
- 1:14:11Speaker 2: but for understanding that for athletic outcomes is quite important
- 1:14:17Speaker 2: because you will have us liberating sort of freeing experience
- 1:14:21Speaker 2: with him. Cool.
- 1:14:23Speaker 1: All right, my friend. As always great to talk to you.
- 1:14:26Speaker 1: Thanks for dropping the wisdom. All the athletes out there,
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: come back and talk to me anytime. Let's do more
- 1:14:34Speaker 1: live events, Let's do more stuff.
- 1:14:36Speaker 2: Man. Yeah, I love talking about this and as all
- 1:14:40Speaker 2: my athletes and listeners know, you know, it's just I
- 1:14:43Speaker 2: sit there on my own podcast and talk for an
- 1:14:45Speaker 2: hour and a half and I have to stop myself,
- 1:14:48Speaker 2: I know, continue.
- 1:14:49Speaker 1: Like I said last time, like I don't know how
- 1:14:51Speaker 1: you do that now? The Weekly Word, Yeah, everybody check
- 1:14:53Speaker 1: it out. If you want to go super down the
- 1:14:56Speaker 1: rabbit hole and get really granular on these concepts that
- 1:15:00Speaker 1: Chris knows so well specific to endurance, multi sport, training, fitness, lifestyle,
- 1:15:06Speaker 1: all of that, check it out at a I m
- 1:15:10Speaker 1: P Coach on Twitter a I m p coaching dot com.
- 1:15:15Speaker 1: Sign up for his newsletter. He will send you every
- 1:15:18Speaker 1: month tasty titbits.
- 1:15:20Speaker 2: December January one. I don't know if i'll make ja.
- 1:15:24Speaker 2: That's a tough one.
- 1:15:27Speaker 1: And good luck at Alaska.
- 1:15:29Speaker 2: Man, Thank you. We'll get you out there, we'll get.
- 1:15:31Speaker 1: You to figure something out. All right, cool man, all right. Peace,