The Nick Bare Podcast - 092: 6 Things I've Learned From Training HYROX

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

This week I'm sharing my journey and insights from preparing for HYROX Dallas, set for November 23rd in Dallas, Texas. This episode covers what HYROX is, my training regimen, and dietary changes since I started training in June. I discuss the structure of a HYROX race, the importance of purposeful training, and how to balance different workout modalities. We will walk through what I've learned about fueling effectively, tracking progress, auto-regulation, and more. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and HYROX Overview 00:55 What is HYROX? 03:08 Upcoming Competitions and Goals 07:35 Current Training Split 10:29 Lessons Learned from HYROX Training 13:51 Purpose-Driven Training Sessions 25:54 Stimulate, Don't Obliterate 30:31 Fuel Your Training or Fall Behind 39:08 The Importance of Auto Regulation 43:24 Tracking Progress for Success 49:27 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Strength, endurance, and wellness supplements to fuel your performance. SAVE 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio Follow: IG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

What's going on, guys, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. At the time of this recording, I am roughly six weeks out from my first Hirox competition. And it is the middle of October right now. I have been training for Hirox Dallas, which is on November 23rd, obviously in Dallas, since the end of June. I started training at the end of June for this competition. I've learned a lot along the way. And I want to share what I've learned.

So the title of this podcast is what I've learned from training for Hirox, from the end of June until right now. But before I dive into that, I feel like we should briefly talk about what Hirox is. So it is a competition. It is fairly new. It started in Germany a few years. ago and then recently made its way over to the U.S.

It's been on my radar since it got started, but I never really felt the need or want or desire to dive in and explore. But in the last couple months, I did. Things changed. So Hirox combines both running and functional workout stations where participants run one kilometer, followed by one functional workout station repeated eight times. So high rocks is very predictable.

You know exactly what the workout is going into it. It's low skill required. So unlike CrossFit, you don't need to have this high skill capability, like Olympic weightlifting, for example. So the way that the competition looks, It's 1K run, 1K ski, 1K run, 50 meter sled push, 1K run, 50 meter sled pull, 1K run, 80 meter burpee broad jump, 1K run, 1K run, 100 meter farmer's carry, 1K run, 100 meter sandbag lunge, 1K run, 100 wall balls.

You're finished with 100 wall balls all out. or about six weeks out. And I'm really excited. I'm excited to compete in something different. The last couple months of training have been different and new and exciting. And I've learned so much about a new style of training. And I'm excited to be in the arena, literally in the arena, because unlike some of these other competitions and races that I've signed up for in the past,

Hirox is done in an actual arena. It's pretty epic. And the people who have put high rocks together, the organization, the business as a whole, has done a really good job. It's impressive. Now, after high rocks, what's next? I don't want to get ahead of myself too much,

but I want to kind of set the stage for making sense of why some of my training looks the way it does right now. Because after high rocks, which, like I said, is November 23rd, I'll be going into a half marathon prep. That is the Austin International Half Marathon on January 19th here in Austin, Texas. And I'm going for a fast half. I've never run a half to PR before.

I mean, I've run a half marathon within training blocks, within workouts. I've run a half marathon for fun, but I've never run a half marathon all out, PR, what can I do? my goal at the Austin international half in January is one hour 15 minutes it's a 545 minute per mile pace that's what I'm going to train for as soon as high rocks is over and I'm actually kind of training for that simultaneously right now BPN will also be the primary gel and hydration sponsor for the Austin international half in January and then the Austin full infection So our gels and electrolytes will be on course. And if you haven't signed up for either of those races yet, I highly encourage you to.

I'm going to be there running and racing. The BPN team will be there. The BPN community. We're going to have a huge presence at the Austin International Half and the Austin full January and February. So sign up, come out to Austin, Texas, hang out with us, race hard. Be there. Be there.

We're going to be there. It's going to be fun. and BPN GoGELs and Electrolites are on course. And then after that, what's next? What's the big goal of 2025? Here it is. Grandmall's Marathon, June 21st in Duluth, Minnesota. Now, Granwall's Marathon is a fast course.

It's a certified course. I'm not going to say the time I'm going for yet. at this race. But I will tell you this, it will be my biggest marathon prep and my hardest, most challenging endurance goal, in my opinion,

to date. I'll be working with my coach Jeff Cunningham again. And I'm going to start a prep after the Austin International half until June. Now, obviously, we will approach this one a little bit differently

because you can't be in this massive, big block prep for extended periods of time because you risk over training, burnout, and injury. But we will strategically get fitter, get faster from January to June 21st. And when I tow the line in Duluth, Minnesota at Grandma's Marathon, June 21st, I'm going for a fast marathon. I'm going for my fastest marathon ever. And I'm pretty excited for that prep.

I'm actually really excited for that prep, especially because this past weekend was the Chicago Marathon. I had a lot of friends and BPN athletes that were running that marathon. And I'm itching for 26.2. I get FOMO watching other people run marathons and putting these big training blocks. If I'm not in a big training block for a marathon, I see other people in a big training block and go tow the line and put down a massive effort and crush it. their goal. I have a lot of FOMO from watching that. So those are the next three goals. High Rocks, Austin International Half, Grandma's Marathon. And apparently at Grandma's Marathon,

I got to look into some of the details. There's like this famous spaghetti dinner the night before or the day before Grandma's Marathon in Duluth that we should probably check out a last minute a carboload with some nice heavy pasta. Grandma's pasta is always the best. Grandma's cooking is always the best. I grew up on some grandma's cooking. Okay, before we dive into the things that I've learned from training for high rocks, let me set the stage. My current training split. I get this question all the time. What does my current training split look like? So I'm going to break it down for you. It's about 65 miles of running per week. right now. And over the last couple of weeks and months, I've increased that mileage.

When I first started training for high rocks Dallas in June, I want to say my weekly mileage might have been around 40 miles. And slowly I've increased that over time. So Monday, and this changes from week to week, but this is broad strokes over a year. you what is pretty consistent week from week right now. Monday, 10 mile run in the morning. It's 10 easy miles. And then a high rocks circuit in the afternoon. Tuesday, no running, upper body strength and core. Wednesday, we have a tempo or a track workout in the morning, which is typically around 12 miles of volume. That's what I hit this morning. I had a 12.5 mile of tempo workout and then lower body strength in the afternoon. I like pairing my my quality

running session of the week with my lower body strength day of the week as well on the same day. So that's Wednesday. Thursday, 10 easy miles in the morning, high rocks circuit in the afternoon. Friday, eight easy miles in the morning, upper body strength and core in the afternoon. Saturday is a long run plus some sort of accessory work. So that might be just going to the gym and working on core, shoulders. I might get a little pump, do some arms. I'm not training arms very frequently right now, but I find it's a good just accessory movement to do

while the kids are napping on a Saturday afternoon post long run. And my long run, the way I'm approaching the long run is like my base, Saturday long run is 14 miles. Not really doing anything less than that right now. And I'll kind of go 14, 15, 16, 18, back to 14, 14, 15, 16, 18. And I'll kind of just move in that pattern right there. And then Sunday is an easy run 8 to 10 miles. So I'm doing some sort of training every day because I like to move.

every day. It might be an easy run. It might be a strength training circuit. A lot of days, I have two workouts throughout the week, but that is like an overview of my current training split. Now, the first thing that I have learned from training for high rocks is that high rocks is a running race with obstacles. That's the way that I just see it. That's the way that I have been approaching it. And early on when I first started training for this event, I believe it was Ryan Kent, who Ryan Kent and Rich Ryan are actually coming into Austin in two weeks. We're going to do a podcast. We're going to do some training sessions, probably get a really good steak dinner somewhere.

I got to show them some good Texas barbecue all there in town. But Ryan Kent told me that the running program for a high rocks should look like a structured half marathon prep. And I really leaned into that. So if we kind of break down the competition itself, it's eight kilometers of running, which is almost five miles. It's 4.971.

That is a conversion from Ks to miles. 4.971 miles during the competition itself. So in terms of time, depending on how fast you go, it is half of the race. Running is half of the high rocks race. So I'm looking at this competition as it is a running race. But it's a running race that is broken up with obstacles along the way. Those obstacles are obviously the ski, the row, the sleds, purports. be broad jumps, lunges, all of those things.

But another term that I heard early on when I first started training in terms of this competition is compromised running. And I'll talk about this and the next thing that I learned, but you're not running each one of these kilometers fresh. Your legs are compromised. As soon as you move into the first functional movement, your body is being taxed, your heart rate is changing in variation.

You know, if you go out and run, say, eight kilometers straight, you can fall into a groove, a rhythm. Your heart rate kind of settles in, and you can increase or decrease speed based off your heart rate and your effort, and you can move pretty consistently throughout. But these obstacles being these functional movements really breaks up that running pace.

And say, for example, you go into a sled, your heart rate is going to jack up. And then you go back into the run after the sled. You're trying to get that heart rate to settle in. So it's controlling your effort and your pace during the run coming off of these obstacles. High Rocks is a running race with obstacles. That's what I've come to the conclusion of. So learning how to run and train and move on compromised legs is something we have to

incorporate into our training. It's something I've been incorporating into my training frequently. Now, the second thing I have learned is that training sessions must be purpose-driven. When I first started training for this competition, it was new to me. My background comes from, obviously, a foundation of strength training in bodybuilding. and then I started running. So when I started running, I already built this physique, this strength

prior to doing any type of endurance training. So for me, it was balancing, being in the gym, lifting heavy, lifting a lot, high volume, hypertrophy, and then also running. And I never really combined the two. So when I started training

for its high rocks. Some of these circuits, I didn't really understand or know how to program. And I was doing the research. I was trying new things. And essentially what I would do is just I had this list of all the movements from the competition. You know, there's the run. There's the ski.

There's the row, so on and so forth. And I'd say, okay, today I'm doing four rounds. And then it was almost like close your eyes, throw a dark. the dartboard, which four movements, five movements, six movements, are we going to do, and what distances do I want to do based off of how long I think that workout is going to take? I mean, that's one approach, but I would argue that it wasn't really a purpose-driven structure and a way to put workouts together. And I quickly learned and realized that. So as I kind of progressed this prep and I talk to people who have done these competitions

for these races who have more experience, I learned and realized that each workout should be purpose-driven. There should be an intent. And I almost think of high rocks as a triathlon type sport. You know, in tries you have the swim, the bike, the run. You have these three modalities of training that you're trying to balance and train simultaneously to improve all three. There's some crossover,

but it's a dedicated modality per sport. I kind of look at high rocks is the same way. There's lifting, there's running, and there's the circuits, and the circuits kind of tie all three together. So what do I mean when training sessions must be purpose-driven? Clear example right here.

There's days where I go to the gym, say on my Tuesday upper body strength and core day. When I go in that gym, when I go into that training session, I know very clearly what my intent and purpose is. It might be the main compound multi-joint movement is barbell bench press. And I'm going to do some warm-up sets prior to, but a big effort, a big part of that workout is focused on that. bench press for the reps and the sets that I prescribe for that workout. And then I have accessory movements that support that exercise throughout the rest of my training. But like the clear intent and purpose of that workout is, okay, upper body strength with a focus on barbell bench press today

for this structure of like I said, reps and sets. If I go into an easy run, say on a Thursday morning, which for me is tomorrow morning, I'll do an easy 10 miles. The very clear intent and purpose is maintaining my heart rate below my max aerobic heart rate, so in an aerobic zone. So I'm going to monitor my effort subjectively. I'm going to measure and monitor my effort

objectively through my heart rate data on my watch. And then I'm also looking at my pace to just judge all things, heart rate, effort, pace, but the goal for that run tomorrow morning is going to be aerobic. It is what I like to consider a recovery run, and it's one that I could have a full conversation with someone else during the entire run. That is the intent. That is the purpose, and that whole session will be driven through that purpose.

This morning, for example, I had 12.5 miles of tempo work. It was a one mile warmup And then it was three miles at marathon pace 800 meter jog Three miles marathon pace 800 meter jog One mile marathon pace 400 meter jog

One mile marathon pace 400 meter jog One mile marathon pace And one mile cool down And that's the workout that Jeff Cunningham, my running coach gave me. He's been provided me some of my run workouts, track workouts and tempo workouts leading up to this high rocks, then half marathon, and then preparing to go into marathon prep. Last week, I actually trained with him in his team, Bat City,

in Austin, Texas at Yellow Jacket Stadium in Austin, which is pretty notoriously, just famous. It has a really gritty look and feel. And that workout started at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning. That team works out every week on Wednesdays and they rotate between tempo and track. And last week's track workout was 12 times 1K repeats with 60 seconds rest in between. And we started at like a 331, 1K average. Worked down, I think it's like 317 1K average. and then towards the end,

met somewhere in the middle. But that was an epic workout. 12-1Ks with 60 seconds rest in between. It's a lot of volume. There's like eight miles of work at fast paces. But there was a very clear intent and purpose behind that training session. That's what I'm trying to drive home there.

Each one of these training sessions has a very clear purpose. The same thing goes with these high rocks circuits. There has to be a very clear intent in purpose. It's not just throwing a bunch of exercises into an AMRAP and then moving through and doing the work. That will build fitness. Yes, that is one way to do it. And I'm not saying if you're doing that, it's wrong. but I truly believe there's a more effective and productive way.

So when I go into these circuits now, the way that I program and structure them is I first ask myself the question, what do I want to get out of this? And then it's what movements do I incorporate that support that goal? How long do I want this work on to be? At what effort, what intensity? The intensity will tell me how long I'm going to work on each movement. and then what are rest periods look like and all the ins and downs between

and that's how I start building these workouts. I can give a few examples. Last week, following the 12 by 1K workout, I did a high rocks circuit that afternoon with Dan Churchill and Luke Hopkins. And that is the lower body strength day as well. We wanted to switch things up a little bit. So that goal for the day was pretty much

put a lot of volume and intensity into the lower body. And I was 100% feeling it towards the end of that day and the next day. So we did the 12 by 1Ks in the morning. And then in the afternoon, we started with some lower body strength. So we did leg extensions, leg curls, just getting some blood moving into the muscles. And then we went into a 5x5 on barbell squat. So I worked at 315, 315, 3.15. 315 pounds, 5 by 5 on barbell squad.

There's probably two minutes of rest in between each one of those sets. We wanted to put down a big effort and make sure I could get all five reps for all five sets. And after that, we went into a circuit. So that circuit consisted of ski. It was, I want to say, 500 meter ski. It was a 2K bike erg with a damper set at 10. It was a 40 meter sled push, 25 wall balls, and 40 meter barbell lunge with 135 pounds in the bar. And for the sled push, we had 470 pounds on the sled.

And we moved that through that four times, I believe. And towards the end of that workout, our legs were trashed. but it was just a slow grinder of a session of just putting a lot of stimulus on the lower body in that day. And that was the goal. With some of these other workouts, if I don't want to overtax my legs in some of these circuits, I won't add in running. So it might just be a move through of 1K row, 1K ski, and then maybe maybe. 35 calories on the echo bike. And just moving through those movements for 45 to 60 minutes.

And I'm just trying to get more aerobic conditioning building. I want to build that engine. Some of these workouts, I want to tax my legs in my lower body. Some I just want to get some aerobic conditioning. Some I want to work on strength and skill. And that might be where I'm stacking barbell lunges with sled push and wall balls, for example. But each training session,

each circuit that I build out, has an intent in purpose. Another great way to kind of practice compromised running is an AMRAP where you have 1K on the assault runner or a treadmill or you're just running outside. And then from there you go into some burpee broad jumps and from there you go into some wall balls. and then maybe you go into a ski and you go back into a 1K run.

So with each additional round, when you get back on the assault runner, you go for your run or you're on the treadmill, your legs are more and more and more compromised. But that is a training session where the intent and purpose is to get better at compromised running. So that's the key takeaway is each training session needs to have an intent and purpose. It's not just throwing a dart at a dartboard, selecting some exercises, throwing a time on there and some distance or duration. Know what you're trying to improve at

in that workout. Know what you're trying to get out of each session, and that will help you structure and formulate the workouts themselves. The third thing that I've learned from training for high rocks, I heard someone say this on a podcast a couple weeks ago, and I thought it was brilliant. They said, stimulate, don't obliterate. And I think in this style of training, it's really easy to think that obliterating yourself is productive and effective. And that's not necessarily the case. So we want to stimulate growth.

We want to stimulate muscle growth and aerobic conditioning. And we want to stimulate these adaptations. We want to create these small stress. in our training, in our body that break us down a little bit, but then allow us to grow back stronger. That's what an adaptation is. That's growth. But if you keep obliterating yourself, if you keep breaking down, breaking down, breaking down, and you never allow yourself to recover, grow, get stronger, you're not stimulating. You are obliterating. A great workout does not need to bury you. It does not need to destroy you. Anyone can destroy themselves. That's actually

not hard. What's hard is stimulating without obliterating. And what makes this challenging is that there's no perfect blueprint because what stimulates one person might obliterate the other and vice versa. what is challenging, what is hard is relative to the individual there or your process, where you're at in your training journey, your fitness, your conditioning, all of those things. It is relative to you. So you can't look at a workout and someone else did and necessarily do just what they are doing because it might be stimulating growth for them, but it might be obliterating you. and if you keep burying yourself and destroying yourself in these training sessions, you won't be able to recover, you won't be able to grow, and you won't be building fitness at all.

This happens with a lot of people, especially with these high rock circuits. You know, I share these workouts online mainly on like my social Instagram stories or posts and in these YouTube videos because we're documenting the entire series. and a lot of people will redo and recreate these workouts, which is great. I love seeing that. But you also have to take it with a grain of salt where you just can't keep doing the

workouts that I'm doing and expecting the same results because your conditioning might be different. You might be in better shape than me. You might be in worse shape than me. You might be at the same level of conditioning for me. It's all relative. We're all on our own journey, on our own path. But you have to modify these workouts based off of where you're around.

because if you keep obliterating yourself, you're not going to make progress. And the reason it's so easy in terms of these circuits to obliterate yourself is that even sometimes I will program a workout. And I'll program it. I'm like, you know, this doesn't look that bad. I got some burpee brawl jumps in here, some 1K running. There's some rowing. There's some wall balls.

Hoping on the bike erg for a little bit, like a few rounds of this or an amrap. I'll program something thinking it's not going to be super challenging, and I'm halfway through and I'm thinking, holy crap. I'm in the pain cave right now. This is a much bigger workout than I thought it was going to be. I've gotten better at predicting and programming these workouts as I've gone along, and right now I'm pretty dialed in. But in the beginning, I was extremely underestimating or overestimating some of the efforts I was going to have to apply to some of these workouts. And that's why it becomes very easy to just bury and destroy yourself because sometimes you don't know the effort you're going to have to apply to get across that finish line or complete everything that's part of that work on itself.

But we don't want to keep obliterating. We want to stimulate, yes, but don't go out just to bury oneself. The next thing that I've learned from training for high rocks, I don't necessarily want to say I've learned because I've known this for quite some time, just based off my experience with training and nutrition and just the lifestyle that I live, but it's been reinforced throughout this prep. Fuel your training or fall behind. Fuel your training or fall behind.

Fuel your training in terms of nutrition. Calories. Carbohydrates. electrolytes, protein. Now, of all the preps I've done in the past, I've

really used nutrition and diet as a competitive advantage. It's one variable that we are in control of and that if we control that variable, we can use it as a strength to improve our fitness,

to recover more efficiently, to fuel our performance. And I've used that with marathon preps and neural trues in the past. But I will tell you, I'm eating more food. I'm consuming more calories now in this prep out of any other prep I've ever done. Because some of these days, when I'm going for, you know, a 10, 12-mile run in the morning, I'll be burning 1,000 calories during that run.

and then in the afternoon, I'm doing a big circuit that requires a big effort. And I'm going to be burning another thousand calories during that training session. I got to eat a lot of food to fuel that training and then promote effective recovery. Now, the issue with a lot of people running races, and like I said in the beginning, high rocks is a running race with obstacles, in my opinion. And it's really easy to get into the mindset, the headspace, that lighter is faster. And that is true. When you go to run a race, if you are lighter, you will be able to run faster.

It requires your body less energy to move that body from point A to point B because it weighs less. That is true. But underfueled is ineffective. lighter is faster, but underfueled is ineffective. And if you're underfueled, you cannot perform. And especially in an event like Hierox where it requires strength. You're not just running, like a marathon, for example. You need strength in your upper body and in your lower body to push through these functional

movements, these obstacles, if you will, to be able to move through them as fast as possible to get to the next 1K. And if you're underfueled and you're not strong enough to move through the obstacles, the functional movements, and the run, you're going to be ineffective.

So it would have been more beneficial to come into a heavier weight and fueled as opposed to a lighter weight and underfueled. So a few different ways to look at fueling your training. Because if you don't fuel your training, the reality is you will fall behind. At a minimum right now,

consuming about 4,500 calories. And it's about 225 to 250 grams of protein, about 125 grams of fat, I would say, and 450 to sometimes 600 grams of carbs a day based off my training. I'm consuming a lot of carbs right now. The first thing I do when I wake up at 4.30 a.m. is I go into the kitchen. I eat a go bar and I have two scoops at G. I have 76 grams of carbs

shuttled into my body at 4.30 a.m. as soon as I wake up in preparation for my run that starts at 5 a.m. Now we have to look at daily caloric intake. Are you eating, are you consuming enough calories throughout the day to ensure you're fueling your training and promoting a recovery? So it's looking at total daily caloric intake as well as calorie timing, like how you're placing these calories, these nutrients around your training to facilitate the best performance possible. And I've been using all of our fueling sources through

BPN. G1M sport has been my best friend in this prep. I do two scoops at GOM Sport, like I said, before every run. And two scoops is 40 grams of carbohydrates, 700 milligrams of sodium. I also have a go bar with that G&M sport before every run. I'm using GUNM sport in the afternoons before my high rocks circuits. I'm using go gels during my longer runs on the weekends, as well as my tempo workouts and track workouts. And then I'm consuming electrolytes throughout the day every day, especially when I started. training for this event, end of June and Texas. June, July, August, even September, when we're hovering around 100 degrees, inside that garage

gym here at BPNHQ, when the AC is shut off, both garage doors are opened up. There is literally, it looks like someone's holding a faucet over my head. Down the bill of my hat is a steady stream. Like, no lie. A steady stream of water. coming down off my hat hitting the floor. I lost so much water and so much weight and so many electrolytes during some of those training sessions in the summer. And I'm still sweating a lot during these workouts, not like I was when it was hot out, but in some of those workouts, we recorded my

weight before the training session started and after, and I would lose eight to 10 pounds in an hour during some of those workouts. The amount of sweat that I was losing was incredible. So it's utilizing carbohydrates and electrolytes primarily around your training sessions to facilitate the most optimal training environment and ecosystem possible. You have to set the conditions and set yourself up for success with carbohydrates and electrolytes around your workouts to maximize performance. And then ensuring you're hitting your protein goals every single day. so a good baseline for that.

On average or a good rule of thumb is one gram per pound of body weight, I like to increase that a little bit more. So I weigh about 200 pounds right now, but I'm shooting for 225 to 250 grams of protein a day. Part of that is I just want some overage based off the amount that I'm training to help prevent muscle breakdown and promote better recovery. And also I just like,

protein-sourced food options. I like chicken, like salmon. I love steak. We're doing steak like three times a week right now. I'm making some steaks tonight that I'm super excited about. I can eat steak for every single meal every day of my life if it was an option. And that makes it really easy for me to hit my protein goals. A lot of people struggle with their protein goals.

It's never been an issue for me because I look forward to protein-based food sources. And another big part of fueling your training or you will fall behind, you will bong, you will fall out, you will fail is your pre-training meal, your pre-training nutrition, which I've kind of talked about so far, but that's where the importance of, you know, if you're waking up early to go train, do not train fasted. Once you train fueled, you will never train fasted again. You will feel the positive impact of performance and recovery when you incorporate carbohydrates and electrolytes before your training sessions, as opposed to training fasted.

So get those carbs in, get those calories in, get those electrolytes in before, during, or after your training sessions, making sure you're hitting your protein goals throughout the day, and then calories are king. So getting your calories in, because if you don't fuel your training,

you will fall off. You will bonk. You will fail. I promise you that. Now, the next thing that I've learned, from training for high rocks is learn and implement auto regulation. I love the term auto regulation. I've been using it for years and years and years.

And I just think it's brilliant. It's genius. And it's not this groundbreaking innovative concept, but it gives you control and freedom. auto regulation essentially just means that you can change up your training based off of how you're feeling. So if you wake up in the morning and you had a 10-mile tempo workout scheduled, but you can tell your central nervous system is trashed, your legs are trashed, you haven't recovered

from the last two workouts, it might be smart not to go do that 10-mile tempo workout. and it's much easier said than done. I struggle with it too. I wake up. I'm like, oh, I shouldn't train today in the way that I was going to train. I should modify the workout based on how I'm feeling.

It's easy to say that. It's hard to actually follow through with it. Trust me, I've been there. I get it. It's hard to implement auto regulation, but it's really powerful when it works. Now,

having a plan is important. And like they say if you plan or if you fail to plan, you should plan to fail. And I believe that. You should have a plan. You should have a structure. You should have an outline. But just because that plan is there doesn't mean you can't deviate or modify the plan. And auto regulation is having the awareness.

It's having the skill. It's have the ability. It's the control. You're taking control. And it's waking up each morning, truly assessing how you're feeling, objectively with data and subjectively with data. And then looking at your training, you have scheduled for the day thinking, should I, can I do this workout? Or should I modify based off the way that I'm feeling and recovering? Now, one, that gives you a lot of control, but it also provides you a lot of responsibility, where it's also

really easy to wake up being like, I don't want to do this 10 mile run. So I'll convince myself my body hurt so I don't have to do the 10 mile run. That's not auto regulation. That's just being lazy. That's just being irresponsible. That's just having a low grade quality work ethic. Auto regulation requires accountability, responsibility, a lot of awareness where you have to look at how you're feeling, how you're performing, and truly set yourself up for success and make changes to your plan based off of everything that you're experiencing in that moment. We are not robots. We have brains.

So a robot, if you give them a plan, they will stick to that plan fully. And they will do that to the 10th degree. T's crossed, eyes dotted, they will not miss a step. step. But we are not robots. And we can control, based off of our assessment, what should and can be done or where we should modify. Learning how to implement auto-regulation can mitigate risk of injury, over-training. it can maintain just a positive motivational approach to a prep going into a competition or a race or just training as a whole. You know, you need to have that responsibility and that commitment to the plan, but also the ability to auto-regulate your training based off of how you're feeling and progressing. And the last thing that I want to share that I've learned from training for high rocks is that it's important to track your progress.

And here's why. Of all the things we've talked about so far, when I first started this prep, the end of June, like I said, I order this journal. And it's his leather-bound journal, and everyone asks where I got this leather-bound journal from. And you'd probably think it's from like this boutique, online store of this person who's like making this leather by hand

in this little country home on the coast. somewhere, but no, I instacarded it from Target. I instacarded this beautiful leatherbound notebook from Target, and that's in my training journal. So for everyone who's been asking, already get this journal at? It's Target, man. It's just Target.

I instacarded it. Because one day I was sitting there before we're going to this prep thinking, there's going to be a lot of moving pieces to this whole structure, this whole training program. and I need something that tracks all of this for me. So I can go back and one reflect on older workouts, but also measure progress through objective and subjective data, which I'm about to share right now.

So in this training journal, I write down, and I highly recommend you do this, for any type of prep you do, I think it's really important. Get a journal, and at the top of the page for that day, you write the date, you write the workout or workouts,

you write what you did. Like these lifts I did at these reps and this weight, this run at this pace and this overall time, and you share it in this heart rate, you share all the objective numbers, data on this page, but also subject. notes. So, you know, I woke up and I wasn't feeling that great. You know, this hurt or that hurt. This is what I consumed before this workout. And you track all this. And over time, we track this

so that we can one measure volume. I can see that, okay, you know, two months ago, my running mileage was at 50 miles. So each week we want to maybe increase it by 10% until we get to our goal weekly mileage. Well, I can now monitor this in this journal to make sure I'm sticking to the plan. You can probably find apps to do this as well, but I like actually having the physical thing where I write in it. I've always enjoyed that.

Even like in my office, yeah, I can have an app where I put like my notes and my to-does, but I like actually having a handwritten journal there where I can write down my to-does and my notes and all these things. I've just always enjoyed that. I have whiteboards all over BPNHQ in the office. And for me,

I've just always been drawn towards that as opposed to digital apps and software. But we track these things so that we can monitor our progress over time. I can look back and say, okay, my volume has increased and improved this much but that's how it should work in a fitness build.

We should be increasing and improving volume over time. I can look back at these baseline workouts that I've done where I can say, oh, man, 12 weeks ago, I had this time. And then eight weeks ago, I had this time. I actually shaved three minutes off that workout. And last week I did that same workout. And overall, I've shaved off eight minutes overall. I've made some great progress.

So we're tracking all these things. I'm tracking recovery and sleep and effort. What I love about, you know, the Garmin, for example, I wear a Garmin watch. And when I go and do some of these tempo or track workouts, I will program the workout in my app the night before. And I'll sink it to my watch. So this morning is a good example. I just went and started to run. I went to workout, saved, opened up the workout.

I created it in my app and then it just walks me through. So it walks me through the tempo segments. It tells me if I'm moving too fast, if I'm running too slow based off of the range of paces I put in. And then it tells me when that working set is done and how long the rest period or the recovery period is walks me through the entire workout. It's great. I highly recommend that feature in Garmin.

But when I'm done with the workout, this screen pops up. It'll show me some data. And then it said, how does it feel or how did it feel? And there's these different faces. One is extremely happy. One's a little happy. One's neutral. One's a little sad.

One's very sad. And I can subjectively track how that felt. And then when I go through all my data and my watch weeks from now, it'll track all this objective data, the results, but also subjective, you know, how that smiley look based off that effort. That's what we want to track. We want to track objective and subjective data so we can ensure we're making progress and we're not just moving to move. We're not just putting in work to put in work, but it's productive work. It's meaningful work. It's progressive work. That's important in all things life, but especially,

fitness, and especially in a prep where you're trying to achieve a certain goal. So those are some of the things that I've learned from training for high rocks. That's coming up in, like I said, six weeks, November 23rd, Dallas, Texas. We'll see you there. And as always, go on more.