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The Athlete You Remember vs. The Athlete You Are Today: The Endurance Comeback · The Endurance Athlete Journey

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome everyone to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host today, Coach Justin.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And today's episode is episode 130.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the topic is on the athlete you remember versus the athlete you are today.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been kicking around this topic for quite a while now.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that I've struggled to bring to fruition.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And but as I've been kicking around this idea and just formulating what I wanted to talk about, I had a conversation.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was yesterday with an athlete that I worked with.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I worked with her, and her friend recently had an injury which was a pretty significant one.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it altered her plans almost for basically an entire year.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: She was talking about how they were currently training for a local marathon that is fairly close, and they had done their 20-miler yesterday, and they were feeling great.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: But during the run, they were trying to sustain a pace that was a little bit slower relative to what they've historically run before.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: As this athlete is making this comeback from this serious injury.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I find that to be one of the most challenging things to deal with in terms of athletics.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And as somebody who's coming back from an injury, it's really easy to fall back into those comparisons on hey, I used to be able to do this.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: I used to be able to run this fast, swim this fast, bike this kind of power, go this long.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I should be able to do this now.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a gap between what they remember and what their body can do right now.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I find that this is one of the most challenging things to deal with mentally and emotionally when it comes to endurance sports.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that I've had to manage basically over the past two years.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: One of my areas of speciality is working with these athletes as they come back from this injury.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very specific and a very methodical approach that you have to take in order to make this comeback.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really easy for athletes who are self-coached to rush that process because they're trying to get back to that athlete who they were in order to feel like, oh, I'm back at square zero.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes it takes a little bit longer to get there.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so the patience factor really is hard to manage or to be disciplined with when you are self-coached.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the things that I do when I step in as a coach to help them.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start along this storyline.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So this idea of what it is that I remember versus what it is that I can do now.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So a little bit of my backstory.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you've listened to the podcast before, you probably know a little you probably know about my backstory.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: But this is if this is the first episode that that you've ever heard of from the Endurance Athlete Journey podcast, my backstory is back when I was in my 30s, I was a 365-pound smoker, almost a pack a day smoker.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I got into the sport of triathlon just from the recommendation of somebody that I had worked with.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when I crossed my first finish line, I knew I was in.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I spent from age 35 to age 40 making this journey from doing a sprint triathlon and then completing my first full Iron Man at Iron Man Chattanooga.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it took me five years to get here.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I started to develop some chronic issues that just were not going away.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, it led to me requiring surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff, a torn bicep tendon.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I had chronic tendonitis in one of my elbows.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And my last 70.3 distance race was Ironman, North Carolina, 70.3, and that was October of 2021.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I did that race with that torn bicep tendon and torn rotator cuff.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I went in and had the surgery.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: That took me a long time to recover from.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was not easy.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And during that process, I developed frozen shoulder, and that has required several years of trying to rehab it and get it to the point where it's fairly functional.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So there have been lasting range of motion limitations, weaknesses, asymmetries in terms of my strength from my right side of my body to my left side.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this has just been an ongoing journey.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: But there are times now when I'm in the pool and I'm looking at my splits in the water and I'm seeing how fast I'm swimming.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really easy for me to go back and say, man, I remember when I used to be able to swim this fast with just no problem at all.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And these are like focused efforts right now.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's a bit of a struggle when it comes to comparing myself just not too long ago, like five or so years ago, and what that feels like and the frustration that comes from it, where I think I'm not making progress, or I'm not making progress fast enough, or as fast as I would like to see it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's hard to maintain that discipline to not rush the process because I know as soon as I start rushing things, it never turns out well.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: So after my shoulder surgery and the rehab that took place from that is effectively still going on to this day as I'm trying to rebuild the strength and mobility in that shoulder.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Then I had the surgery in the elbow, which then continued to keep me out of the sport.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I made the decision last year, so this is 2025, I said, you know what?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm ready for re-entry back into the sport.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I want to get back into this.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm at a fairly decent place now where I feel like I could complete a race, whether I could perform like I wanted to, or if I could compete like I would like.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Those questions remain to be seen at that point.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I went into it with just this mindset of I just want to complete this.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just see what we've got.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was a fairly successful return, but this draws me back to this idea, this complete, perform, compete mentality that I've been flushing out over the past several months, is that a returning athlete is not a beginner.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: We have the experience and the wisdom that has come from doing it once before, but it does not mean that we get to skip the rebuilding process when it calls for it.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: That is a challenging thing to say the least to do, especially when you have an athlete who is experienced, fairly accomplished, and is highly motivated and determined.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to taper those emotions, and it's hard to control the comparison of the previous versions of the athlete.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have to start asking yourself, can I do this again?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is the limitation physical?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is it psychological?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it a little bit of both?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: How does returning to the sport become harder emotionally than it is to do it for the first time?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the answers to those questions, I think, are fairly simple.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: A, I think that the return to sport after an injury is definitely frustration physically, and there is a big component that is of frustration on psychological as you start to continue to compare yourself to your past performance, that fuels the frustration that your body is not doing what you want it to do in the way that you want it to do it, or it's not doing it like you used to be able to.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this has nothing to do with age.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: This has nothing to do with, oh, you're just getting older.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I find that athletes who are coming back to the sport either from time off or from an injury is particularly more challenging than doing it for the first time because of that past experience.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're drawing on all of those previous things that you used to be able to do, and you're fighting like heck to try and get back to that point to where you feel like you're not behind the eight-ball, but I challenge that thought process rather than think about it as man, I've really lost a lot, think about it in terms I have a lot of potential right now.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I have, yes, I have a lot of work to do, but the trend that I can see could be significant.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's easier to wrap your head around.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think that if you start to see significant improvements in performance as you make that recovery process, I feel that gives you confidence and motivation to continue at it.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's just you have to learn how to taper that.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: You have to learn how to control it.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So this begs the question when does experience become an advantage or baggage?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the fitness that we lose does not mean that we've lost everything that we've learned throughout the process.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: This experience can help you rebuild intelligently, but it can also create unrealistic expectations in terms of the speed in which you can come back in and the level at which you can come back.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the temptation to train according to old paces, old power numbers, old training volume, old race results, and who you saw yourself as an athlete, so your identity prior to injury or prior to time away, whatever the reason was.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the temptation is to train in such a way that holds you to the standards of that previous athlete.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's this inability for an experienced athlete to go back in their thinking in terms of I have to let go of my performance expectations and simply go back to a point where I just want to complete an event.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that many people see that as regression, and I don't see it that way at all now.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: I will say, and I if I'm gonna be completely transparent with you, I did see it that way before, where it's just like, man, I've done this before.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I should not have this mindset of can I complete this?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: I know that I can complete this, I should be able to complete this because I've done it before, but I am a different athlete now than I was before.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so now I have to look through the eyes of the athlete who I am right now and try my best to not look through the eyes of the athlete that I was.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: So as I was making my comeback in into the sport, I really had to think about it in terms of the three disciplines individually and not as the sport as a whole.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that can be a trap sometimes because I think many new athletes come into the sport with just a perspective of one of the sports.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: However, there can be a benefit to that, and especially for a returning athlete that's coming back from an injury, is that I want my abilities in each of those disciplines to be in the expectations formed based on where I am right now in that discipline.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: So for instance, when I'm cut when I was coming back from my my four-year break, my swim was just not there at all.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really frustrating because that was the one sport that I could rely on during my training process when I would get injured or I'd have a bit of a setback in one of the other two disciplines.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I do have lower back issues, or at least I used to on a significant basis.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so when my back would flare up, I could always rely on the pool.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: I could always say, I'm just gonna go and get in the water, and that I can do.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Running, on the other hand, was always kind of hit and miss, and that's that continues to be a struggle to this day.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: But swimming, I could always rely on.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I got back into the pool for the first time, and I could no longer rely on it, and I could no longer trust my swim, that was a really hard pill to swallow.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when I wrote my first swim workout coming back, I was like, I'm just gonna go ahead and I'm gonna go and swim a total volume of 1500, and that should be an easy swim.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Man, when I finished that workout, I was cooked, and that was something that was hard to take because I'd gone into it under the assumptions and what my memory was telling me as a previous version of myself is like, oh, 1500.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's a recovery swim.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's nothing, and it's humbling when you go from swimming 3000s, 3500s up to 4Ks on a regular and consistent basis to then struggling to get from one end of the pool to the other without feeling like you're gonna drown.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: That is a humbling experience.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had to tell myself that the performance is not going to be there anytime soon.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm definitely not gonna be able to compete against others.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: I just need to complete this task, and so I went into it with that mindset for the swim portion of my training.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the run was a little bit better because I felt like I could perform in that instance because I was I I had still done significant training while I was still rehabbing from injury from the shoulder surgery.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was still to a certain extent doing a lot of hiking and endurance walks.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I felt fairly confident in my engine.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I felt like I could hold myself to a performance expectation.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: The bike, on the other hand, was I did feel like I could perform there, but it took me a while because with the shoulder surgery and the elbow surgery, I couldn't ride.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I effectively did not get on a bike for at least two years.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was hard to saddle up and get on that bike and say, oh, after 30 minutes, my butt hurt, my my shoulders hurt, my arms hurt, and so it was a bit of a humbling experience.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said, let's just go back to I just want to complete this for now, but I know that this fitness comes back pretty fairly quickly.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said, I'm not gonna, I don't want to be here long, and I don't think that I need to be here long, but this is where I need to be right now.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if you notice that there were all three of these components and these three different mindsets that were present within the overall scheme of triathlon.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: My swim was at a different place than what my bike was at, my bike was at a different place than what my run was at.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: I had different expectations, I'd had different mindsets for each one, and I think that this shows the beauty of this thought process that it's not hierarchical, it's not stage related.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is the mindset that you go into the discipline with, and experience does not uh negate the need or the necessity to start or to be in a particular mindset where an experienced athlete should go back to complete sometimes.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's hard to do, and I think it's uh harder to do mentally than it is physically.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can I'll tell you a little bit of a story when I first got into that pool and that first workout, no, like the first series of workouts, let's just say the first month or so of getting back into the pool.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: I used to be able to bilaterally breathe, which means that I could breathe on either side of my swim stroke.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't, I will, I won't say that I was a fast and strong swimmer, but I was competent and I could handle my own in the water.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I had the endurance at that point to manage higher volume on a consistent basis.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: I got into the water and pushed off the wall that first time.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: I went to breathe to my strong side, which was fine, no problem at all.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Then I went to breathe to my weaker side because of the the shoulder and the arm, and I don't even know if my face got out of the water.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's how bad my body position was, and my arm position and my strength just wasn't there.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: That was a huge awakening that something that I used to be able to do effortlessly without even thought.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now I find myself unable to do it at all.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of scared me a little bit because I was like, oh man, this is not good.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is really an awakening and telling me where I am right now.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I got super frustrated and was overwhelmed on how much I felt like I had to do in order to get back to where I used to be.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I found myself back into the PT office and was telling my therapists what was going on.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I can't even breathe now to my weaker side because I can't get my arm in the position that it needs to be in.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've got almost no strength in that pull.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sinking.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just sinking to the bottom of the pool, and I don't want to force myself to breathe to one side all the time.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so we continue to work at it and free up the mobility in the shoulder.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think it helped a little bit, and but I still have a hard time breathing to that side, and I cannot do it consistently, even to this day.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean I'm giving up on it, it just means that I'm just not there yet.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm competent in my position now, and so I'm making it work for where I am right now.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: But what it shows me is this principle.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if I had to come up with a little coaching message for this little segment, I would say that the past can show you what is.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Possible again, but it does not tell you what you're ready for today, and I think that's a strong statement because I've lived this.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know that I can breathe to both sides.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: I used to be able to do it, like I said, no problem.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't tell me that I'm ready for it today.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Am I getting closer than I was a year ago?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I will say that I've seen progress.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Am I seeing the progress as fast as I would like?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: That just means that I have to keep the patience, keep the diligence, doing the work, putting in the effort, improving things that I can improve on.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then maybe that skill will be able to come back once I develop the skills that surround that and support it and make it possible.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it just means that I'm just not there yet.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I know that the potential is there because it used to be there.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm confident and hopeful.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we just have to, as athletes, train as the athlete that we are today, not the athlete that we used to be, nor can we train in a way that makes us the athlete who we want to become.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because that athlete develops over time.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: We don't get there quickly.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can't train at that volume today, thinking that training method will get you there faster or you'll somehow be validated.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: You have to train at the volume that you're at today.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Develop the skills that you need today, capitalize on what you can do, and then over time you get to where you're going.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: So as this journey continues, the concept of or the idea of confidence, and I've said that confidence just doesn't come.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't show up.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: You don't do something because you are confident.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: You are confident because you have done this.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is the way that I view confidence.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you're sitting there waiting to sign up for a race and you're waiting to be confident in your ability to do it, you will never do it.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Confidence comes from the process of preparation.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: As you go down that path, you become more confident as you accumulate the experience.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: So confidence comes through the evidence of the work that you've put in, not from work that you intend to do to complete something.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: When did my confidence in my swimming come back?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: I would say it was during the process of training for Iron Man Florida 70.3.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: So back in 2025, when I made my comeback into the sport, I had just decided to just do sprints.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm just, I want to just complete these events.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to push the envelope because that, oh, sprints were easy then, but now I don't know how easy they're going to be.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Olympics were easy then.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm not confident at the sprint, I should not be confident at the Olympic.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, I told myself, I'm just going to commit to some sprints.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: I happened to have a conversation with my bike fitter at the time because as I was getting back into the sport, I wanted to make sure that I could that my bike still fit and that I could get in the position that I needed to be in and no adjustments needed to be made.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he planted a seed in my head.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Oh, I'd like to see you do an Olympic.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, apparently that's all it takes for me is just for somebody to mention something, and then all of a sudden I grab it and just run wild with it and plant it and water it and fertilize it, and it just sprouts quickly.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I signed up.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'd already dedicated myself to two sprints at the minimum.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, let me just see how these two go.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And once this guy said, I want to see you, you should do an Olympic, I said, sure, why not?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And went ahead and signed up for an Olympic.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did the first sprint, and I was like, okay, that went better than I thought it was going to.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was a pool swim, only 300 meters, and I finished it.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't really get the performance that I would have held myself to a particular standard before, but based on where I was then, the performance was not bad.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I grabbed it.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, but that was good.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I trained for it in a very methodical way.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Slowly built the volume.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: I did not care about getting faster.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: I did not care about speed.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: I just said, I want to be able to get from one end of the pool to the other multiple times and get through this event.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Then the next one was like a couple months, a month and a half later, and it was a lake swim wetsuit legal, which was unnerving because all I had at that time was a full-sleeved wetsuit.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I was all I already had shoulder issues.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I wasn't too confident in my ability to swim well in that wetsuit with the restriction of the upper body from the wetsuit.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, I don't know what kind of standard I'm gonna have.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: So all we're looking for is just to complete again.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Got out of the water and actually felt pretty good about the accomplishment.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, that was fine.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I ticked off these events and ticked off the training, the confidence came.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not that I signed up for these races because I was confident.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't confident at all.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: The confidence came from each individual workout that I did.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, I've gone from 25s and now I'm up to 50s.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I've gone from 50s to 75s, I've gone from 75s to 100s, and now I'm slowly stacking it on 100s, 150s, 200s, 250s, 300s, slowly building that volume and not rushing it, where it's just, oh, one workout, I swam 25.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the very next workout, I should be able to swim 50s.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't approach it that way.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: I basically did that same workout for the entire week and did not progress until I felt confident in my ability to swim the 25s.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's when I said, okay, I'm not going to throw out the 25s, I'm just going to add some 50s to it and see how my body responds.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the way that I did it.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so the confidence came back from that process.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then when it came to the race day, that solidified the confidence.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the confidence is laid in training.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's then made firmer or the foundation becomes more solid as the performance in the race materializes.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think about it in terms of building a house, the training is like pouring the concrete.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not solid yet, and it's still a little soft in a couple places, but some places are dried faster than others.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's starting to solidify.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: But that race is what I would characterize as okay, now the foundation is firm.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: I can walk on this foundation because I've seen the evidence of it and I can rely on it and trust it now.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Then I got into the Olympic, and the unfortunate thing was a storm that blew in that morning, and so they ended up shortening the race to a sprint distance swim.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I really didn't feel that confident in my ability to swim the 1500 in a race.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the race just did not give me the opportunity to observe that and make that confidence a little bit firmer.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: And a friend of mine had reached out to me during this process and said, Hey, we need a swimmer for our relay for Iron Man Chattanooga 70.3 in May.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, A, I'm not confident in my swimming right now.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it's like.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I have the ability to swim a half Iron Man distance race and feel confident in it and the performance.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Could I complete it?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really know.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: And didn't really feel confident.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: But as I started to train for it and just do my normal training, it kind of materialized.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said to him, Yeah, I and I came back and I was like, let me just see how my training goes and I'll get back to you.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I got back to him and said, Hey, my training is going a lot better than I thought it might.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like I'm fairly confident in my ability to do this.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: So sign me up.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: The day that I'm walking into the venue, they cancel the swim because of high, high river levels, fast currents, lots of debris.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: I received an email from Iron Man saying, Hey, we know that the swim didn't go very well.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: So here's a free registration.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, I was just a swimmer.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was a relay.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Can I do this whole race by myself?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, absolutely, go for it.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: That is what brought me to Iron Man Florida 70.3.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: I had no intention of doing it, but I said, this is my shot to see what I'm capable of.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: So what this process taught me is that I swam three days a week for this, and I wasn't confident that I could swim three days a week because all my other training was just twice a week.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's all I felt like my body could handle.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because in conjunction with the swim training, I was also doing some significant work in the weight room.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: So my shoulders stayed fatigued and they were super tight and they were really uncomfortable.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I didn't think that I could do the weight work, which I knew was important, and support a higher volume of swim training.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, let me just limit the swim training a little bit, just enough to where I know that I can that I'm putting in the volume that I need to be able to complete a short distance race, and the other stuff comes.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said, I'm gonna try and swim the three days a week and see how the body responds.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And my intention was I threw in some some volume work, some endurance work, and some speed work in there.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I programmed a couple faster swims and harder swims, and then I quickly realized I was like, my body is not handling the speed work well at all.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really fatiguing and it's stressing out my upper body to a point where even my weight work is being compromised.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said, I had to make a decision.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, how much do I really want to see myself get faster versus how much do I really want to see myself build the endurance that I would need?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I made that decision to remove all the speed work and just build volume, just build the endurance that I would need.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: So my body actually handled it pretty well.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: The training volume was hard.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to be able to get out of the water during the race and feel as fresh as possible.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that injecting speed work into my training wasn't going to get me that.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was going to get me a faster swim time, but it would not ultimately get me to a point where I felt fresh coming out of the water.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I did was just focused, like I said, on just the endurance part.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was able to swim the three days a week.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: I accumulated about 76 miles of training during the six-week plan.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: My average weekly volume was around 8,400 yards spread across three swims.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: But 44% of that volume was 9,000 yards and higher.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: So out of those three swims, each one of those swims was 3K or more.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that's significant volume from where I was then.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is it significant volume from where I used to be?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, it maybe on the lower side, but it was in the neighborhood.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so that gave me confidence that A, I'm not as fast as I used to be, but my ability to handle the volume is coming back.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was a big confidence boost.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: So each successful week of training just added a little bit more confidence.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many times I sat in the water, up against the wall, about to start my long swim for the week, and I had to talk myself into my ability to do this.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Man, these intervals now are 1500s.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to tell myself, hey, you've swam 1500 before.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know you can do it.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing full well that being able to have done it before doesn't mean that I could do it today.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I used that as fuel for the confidence that I would need to just get started, just to kick off the wall and start the swim.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: I also had to tell myself, hey, this is not 1500s.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: These are three by 500 or 6x250s, and really broke it up to where I didn't feel overwhelmed at the overall distance that I needed to cover.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was confident in my ability to execute 250s.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like that gave me the confidence in my ability to at least go for the volume.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then once I finished, I was like, okay, that was pretty solid.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt confident going into the second round of 1500s.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so each week there was this process of me talking myself into it, convincing myself that I could do it.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't until I observed my ability to do it that the confidence came and started to solidify itself.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: So when I got out of the water at Florida, I felt like I could have kept on swimming with no problem.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: And taking that experience and going into the next year of this year of 2026, that was the big boost of confidence that I needed.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: That I've got the endurance now.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I've got a solid foundation.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: So once the foundation is solid, now I can start building on it.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why this year I focused more on adding some speed work into the water to try and get a little faster, improve my body position.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I had to do the groundwork.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: I had to lay that foundation of building the endurance before I can overlay the hard stuff on top of it.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it was this realization that I wasn't just surviving the swim.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Where before I had struggled to even trust my swim.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now I was starting to see myself not just completing this, I'm starting to perform pretty well.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: And there's different aspects and different ways that you can measure performance, yes, but the way that I was characterizing my performance was a qualitative measurement of how I felt coming out of the water, and I felt fresh, so I knew that I was performing.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so confidence in a comeback is earned through the evidence that you accumulate during the comeback.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if that's the one thing that I could that I leave this section with is you have to work at the confidence part.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: The confidence doesn't come, it materializes over time.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the next extension to this is that okay, when did I start to change my perspective of what kind of athlete I am?
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because up until this point in 2025, I considered myself a comeback athlete.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was just trying to come back into the sport.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: So when or if has that changed yet?
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say that once I finished Florida, I didn't get the race that I really wanted or that I thought that I was capable of.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: And there was some issues that materialized at the basically three weeks prior to the race that were outside of my control.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to learn more about what happened, I did a whole documentary series on the road to Iron Man, Florida.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you can check that out in the library.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I came out of that race with some confidence that I could complete the event.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: I did not come out of it with the confidence that I could perform like I wanted to.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that fueled my approach for the coming year.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, now I need to change my mindset because I'm no longer completing this stuff.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've shown myself that I can complete this.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now I need to show myself that I can perform like I want.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: Did the same races that I had done before.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: But my mindset coming into it was, now let's see how well I can do this.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not can I do this because I knew that I could now.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now I started to ask myself, how well can I do?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Found myself on the podium for the first sprint, and I found myself on the podium again in the Olympic.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started to realize, okay, now my performance is coming in.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like I'm starting to compete yet, but I do feel like my performance is showing up.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Regardless of whether I made the podium or not, I don't view that as, oh, that's a sign of competing.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: So when I realized that my performance was starting to materialize and the training plan was working.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I was starting to see the fruits of the labor.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: I said, let me just try something else to where I can capitalize on some of my strengths.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can't swim like I used to, but I know that I can perform well enough.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: My bike is there.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so and I knew that my bike was there because I had a massive PR at Florida.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I basically had a 20-minute PR off of that training plan.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was really confident in my bike.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said, let me just try aqua bike and let's see how well I can perform.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know how strong I am on the bike when I don't have to run afterwards.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: So let's kind of test the waters here.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I registered for a couple aqua bikes and took my first overall win in the first one and then grabbed second place in the second one.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so now this confidence is getting stronger and stronger.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it all stems from Florida.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: That it helped me answer the question can my body do this again?
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: Can it do endurance sports again?
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: That gave me the answer to my question.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I can.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: Am I where I want to be?
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, no, but I know that I can do it.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: My experiences in Florida told me that I could complete the effort.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: My experiences in early 2026 and how I performed at those races told me that I have the potential now to perform again.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: The question became do I have the ability to compete?
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that wasn't answered until recently during the giant acorn race that I did this year, to where I performed well and I made calculated risk decisions during that event that showed me that I could rely on my fitness, I could rely on the work that I had put in and make calculated decisions in the moment, not just beforehand, where it's like, oh, if this happens, then this is what I'm gonna do.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is like in the moment, I'm making these decisions on what to do.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't until I started to see my performance at the Aqua Bike and then these sprints that I was doing.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't until I started to see that evidence that I started to conclude hey, I think I can compete now.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it has taken me a really long time to get here.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of purposeful structured training, a lot of hardware.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hard decisions to make, hard pills to swallow, and an extraordinary amount of patience and faith.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: That God's not going to give me more than I can handle, and He's going to put me in situations where I have to walk out my faith and show that I trust Him.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when I do that is when I start to see the evidence.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's promising.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so what this has done now is even though Florida did not give me the experience that would give me a lot of confidence in my ability at that distance, it did give me the ability to see that the training is working, I'm taking the right approach, I'm just not where I want to be or where I would like to be.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: So 2027 is going to be an interesting year as I get back into the 70.3 distance again.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: I took this whole year off of 70.3, which was a calculated decision, on not continuing that I had some more foundational work that I needed to do in order to be prepared for it.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a little challenging to do because I had proven to myself that I could complete a 70.3 distance race.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: Was it pretty?
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it was effective and I crossed the finish line within the cutoffs.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I completed.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: So naturally, my kind of personality would be like, okay, I completed that, so let's do another one and see if I can do better.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: I came to the realization that I could complete it, but I didn't have the experience that I really wanted, and I realized I'm not ready yet, and so I have some more stuff to do, and took a step back, knowing that step will eventually come.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's just I wasn't ready for it then.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm glad I made that decision because I don't think I would have seen the performance that I saw this year if I had continued to push the envelope and trying to rush back to the athlete that I used to be, or even better than I used to be, without taking the time that I needed to address the athlete who I am right now.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the athlete that I am right now is not the athlete that I see potentially, but I do have hope that I can see that that potential, and I just have to be patient with it.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that this episode has given you some insight and allowed you to see that it's okay to be patient, it's okay to take things slow.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel that this FOMO mentality, this fear of missing out mentality tends to put athletes in situations where they don't need to be in.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was actually having a conversation just about a month ago with one of my friends, and we were watching the Kona race together, and so it was just a couple weeks actually, and he was telling me he's I think you should do Iron Man Florida next year.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I honestly came home and started toying around with it because I've got two races that I've already signed up for in 2027, and another one that is on my wish list, but registration hasn't opened.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I was seriously sitting down with the calendar thinking, how could I make all this work?
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing full well that I'm not ready for a full Iron Man.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still questioning on my abilities at the 70.3, but it doesn't take much to plant seeds in my head and to get me working because I've been there before.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're there before, it's easy to get wrapped up in somebody's suggestion, somebody's idea, or even your own thoughts and ideas.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, maybe yeah, when they see a new race come out, you're like, Yeah, that'd be awesome.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go ahead and sign up, knowing full well you're not ready for it yet.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that this episode has shown you that it's okay to be patient and focus on the athlete who you are and the journey that you want to pursue and the time in which you want to pursue it.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: Don't rush the process to become the athlete you used to be.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the athlete you are and enjoy the journey and the process that you now get to observe because you may not have the same experience if you rush things, and you may actually get more confidence in yourself by not rushing it than rushing it and completing it.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if I were to go ahead and do a full Iron Man, I may complete it, but who's to say that my abilities would not be better if I opt to delay that more and focus on what I think that I can do now and do well, not just complete, but do well at, I feel that is more beneficial.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, races come and go.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: What are the chances of the race not being there next year?
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's a possibility, I don't really know, but there's going to be a race somewhere, and so I'm willing to be patient and use the experience of the athlete that I remember to build the athlete that I am now capable of becoming.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I'm gonna leave you with in this episode.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that you found this informative.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that you found it reassuring.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: If it resonated with you, I hope that you will consider leaving a review or a comment or sharing it with somebody else.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: Those are that's greatly appreciated.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: So this has been episode 130 of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've been your host, Coach Justin, I'm head coach and owner of Tabula Rasa Racing.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to reach out to me, you can go to taboolarassa racing.com.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can reach out to me there.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: Check out the website.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's other resources that are there for you to help you along in your journey.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, thank you guys for supporting and continuing to listen.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, I'll talk to you later.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye, everyone.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: Endurance sports have a way of teaching us patience, humility, and resilience, lessons that carry far beyond the workout.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: Progress in endurance sports doesn't come from shortcuts, it comes from consistency, discipline, and doing the work when it's not glamorous.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: Wherever you are on your endurance journey, keep trusting the process and honoring the work you put in each day.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: If today's episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone to help on their endurance journey.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: Don't forget to join the conversation on our social sites to help build and foster a community where we all learn and support one another.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back with more stories and insights from Coach Justin and Katie.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, visit the podcast website at the endurance athlete journey.buzzsprout.com for more episodes from the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: Have questions or comments about the podcast?
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: Feel free to send us an email at the endurance athlete journey at gmail.com.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: For all things coaching, visit Coach Katie at fuel the number two run.com and Coach Justin at taboo lorasta racing.com.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: Again, thank you for listening to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast and remember to find joy in the journey.