The Rich Roll Podcast - How To Train Smart: Coach’s Corner With Chris Hauth

Episode Date: June 22, 2017

Today I am joined by Chris Hauth for round two of my new and novel Coach's Corner edition of the podcast. A sub-9 hour Ironman, Chris (@AIMPCoach) is the current Age Group Ironman World Champion, a former Olympic Swimmer and one of the world's most respected endurance coaches. In 2006, Chris won the Ironman Coeur D’Alene and went on to be the first American amateur & 4th overall American at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. When he's not training and racing, Chris coaches a wide spectrum of athletes ranging from elite professionals — including Ironman and Western States top finishers, Ultraman winners and Olympic Trials qualifiers — to first time half-marathoners. A friend and mentor as much as a coach, Chris has deftly guided me through three Ultraman World Championships ('08, '09 & '11), EPIC5 in 2010 and is currently preparing me for the impending Ötillö Swimrun World Championships in Sweden this September, an event we will race together — literally tethered to each other — as a team. Today we sit down for a brief (by the standards of this podcast) state-of-the-union on our training at 11 weeks out from Ötillö, then shift focus to a number of fitness, training and overall wellness subjects germane to the listener — whether you are an elite athlete, a weekend warrior or just looking for that nudge to get off the couch. Specific subjects discussed include: * Chris & Rich's preparation for Ötillö * Getting Rich ‘race fit' at 50 after a 5-year break * Training into your 50's & 60's * Chris’ training & racing philosophy * Pros & cons of external monitors/trackers * Fitness versus racing * Chris' three pillars for peak performance * Training smart vs. training hard * The primacy of process over results & enjoyment over obsession * Strategies for optimizing recovery  I could have never achieved the level of athletic success I have enjoyed without Chris' deft counsel, so it is with pleasure that I share his wisdom with you today. I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange. Peace + Plants, Rich

Fitness isn't about what you can do one day, especially in the endurance world. It's how you feel the next day and a couple days later so that you can continue to repeat the process and continue to get fitter. So many people can blow out a great one day, but then they're shelled for a couple days. And then the workout quality of what they did gets lost. Right. But if you can come back from, let's say, our 8,000-yard swim yesterday and swim a good swim practice today and not feel too tired from it, or like you were saying earlier, I feel pretty good. That didn't take that much out of me. That's a sign of fitness. That's what I define as fitness. Because now you're able to withstand what I, what the training plan throws at you

and you're absorbing it, right? You're taking the load and can absorb it and therefore get stronger. That's Chris Houth. And this is another edition of Coach's Corner on the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, how you guys doing? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll. Welcome to my podcast. We did it. That's the business end of the podcast. Let's get to the show part.

Today, I am reprising our popular Coach's Corner segment of the show. If you listened to my episode with Louis Cole a while back, I think that was number 285. I checked in with Chris Houth, my coach, for about, I don't know, 10 or 15 minutes on the progress of my training. We talked about endurance sports. We talked about balance, all kinds of cool stuff. And the feedback was really good. People really enjoyed it. They wanted more of that.

So we're doing it again today. For those of you that are new to the program, Chris Houth is a former Olympic swimmer and world-class triathlete. He won Ironman Coeur d'Alene in 2006. He's also the Ironman Age Group World Champion. He was the first American amateur and fourth overall American at the Ironman World Championships in Kona. And now he's a full-time coach. He coaches everybody from Western States top finishers to Ultraman winners, tons of

swimmers, people training for Olympic trials, and even just people starting out. So all the way from elite to the person who's trying to lose weight and tackle their first half marathon or what have you. And he's a great guy. I started working with Chris in 2008. He's coached me through three Ultraman World Championships, also Epic Five. And now together, we're training as a team for the upcoming Odelo. I think that's how you say it. Odelo World Championships, the World Championships of Swim Run in Sweden in September. It is a basically it's an like an eight hour, eight, nine hour ultra swim running adventure race where you kind of Island hop in this, uh,

in, in this archipelago of islands, just South of Stockholm. It's really beautiful and cool. And I'm very excited about my preparation for this race, which is going to be happening in about 11 weeks. And I was just up in San Francisco this past weekend. I was able to, uh, go up to Marin and put in a good day of training with Chris. And I thought it was an opportune time to reprise our coach's corner segment on the show and check in on how I'm doing, how he's doing and discuss a myriad of subjects that are also germane to all of you guys, whether you're an elite athlete, an amateur athlete, a weekend warrior, or just somebody trying to work your way back into fitness. Chris, I should mention, has also previously been featured on this show way back, episode

21, and also a second interview with him, episode 256, and of course, The Coach's Corner, which was 285 with Louis Cole. So in any event, this conversation is going to cover our preparation for Otolo, details about the race and the gear and all that kind of stuff, what it's been like to get me back into competition shape after a five-year break, the approach to training when you're in your 50s and 60s and above. And it's about defining peak performance for you, which I think has to encapsulate and incorporate the enjoyment factor, how to train enough to complete your goal without over obsessing and ruining other aspects of your personal life, which I think is super duper

important. In fact, just about an hour ago, I read an incredible blog post by Amelia Boone. And for those that don't know who she is, she is the queen of obstacle course racing. It's a sport that she just downright dominates. And this post that she wrote was really powerful and vulnerable. It was all about how her upward success trajectory really sacrificed the joy and the gratitude that attracted her to endurance sports in the first place. And it's about her journey back to finding a way to race that is fun, that's joyous, that allows her to feel gratitude.

And I thought it was really beautifully written. So I'm gonna link it up in the show notes. Today is Wednesday. So I'm probably gonna put that in roll call as well. In any event, I love my man, Chris. I think you guys enjoy him too, all of our conversations. So without further ado, I give you my conversation with Chris Howe. my man chris i think you guys enjoy him too all of our conversations so without further ado i give

you my conversation with chris health all right we're sitting here in what is this a sports medicine clinic presidio sports medicine it's a old historic spot in the presidio uh-huh it's cool it's a it's a hop skip and a jump away from where i did the podcast with biz stone his office was is like right down the street here right on so it's cool to be back here presidio i know it's amazing i mean when i lived in san francisco the presidio was just military base essentially right and now it's totally privatized with all these super cool bungalows big old playgrounds and it's pretty cool man so all right man so we're back for another coach's corner with the great chris health we're going to check in on training

we're going to talk endurance sports and life yeah where you just mentioned to me before we started we're 11 weeks out of our race yeah yeah i keep calling it otillo but i think the pronunciation is otillo is it how do you know how they say it i think i'm with the umlaut on top it's otillo otillo yeah otillo or something like that yeah i think that's probably we need to hear what i've been saying uh i'm excited i'm a little bit nervous and uh i thought it would be inappropriate time since i'm here in san francisco. And we put in a good training day yesterday together to kind of check in and do a little status report on the State of the Union. Yeah, I think it was really fun yesterday because we can see that we swim the same speed now. That was a relief to me.

Yeah, and it makes it very manageable now to do the workouts going forward too. Because I'll do a swim set or I'll do a workout and I'll just give you the exact same one and the same paces and so on so that'll make it easy to to manage through that and then from the running standpoint even if we're not exactly the same the fact that we can manage each other through our day will be helpful too i mean we're not that far apart. And so as one person is working through that section of the run, maybe the other person is holding some nutrition or helping motivate or getting through it or navigating, letting you know, 5k to go now on this stretch and sort of all the other ones suffering through that stretch. Well, that's a very kind and generous

way of putting it because the truth of the matter is, is you're a much better runner than I am. I think my zone two right now in running is probably in the 730, 740 range and yours is down at like seven minutes. So the job for me is to improve on that running as best I can in these 11 weeks so that I can bridge that gap a little bit. But the truth is you're a stronger runner. So for me, that means, well, I guess for you, that means for both of us, I suppose, it's going to be about staying in touch and how we're going to be able to do this together and not you know drift apart and then the good thing in the training too is i was just getting ready for a half ironman so i brought up my speed a little bit especially from a z2 standpoint it brings it down a few

seconds per mile and so we'll do something similar for you so that we keep the endurance going but bring up the speed a little bit more and you've seen that the last few weeks in your training that we started to do some more explosive work some threshold work some higher speed work so that your body can get efficient there that economy that we talk about and then so that your zone two speed will be a little bit faster because you're more efficient at it yeah i mean i'm looking forward to that and that's been the biggest change in the approach to this race versus ultraman and we talked about this yesterday but with ultraman it's just about like getting that locomotive slowly up to up to speed and just holding it as long as you can and being as steady and as efficient and consistent as possible where with this race it's constantly stopping and starting and

accelerating and surging and pulling back and you know going back and forth between swimming and running so many times that your heart is going to be up and down up and down so the training approach has been a lot of you know surges and strides mid-run, some interval work, and getting me acclimated to the idea of the heart rate spiking and getting it to settle back down as quickly and as efficiently as possible. And that's brand new for me, but I feel like I'm finally starting to acclimate to that a little bit. Yeah, and the heart rate probably won't come down that often in some of these shorter sections that we just looked at. It's also just being familiar and confident of knowing to see a certain heart rate or feel a certain way, knowing that you can continue on. You don't have to worry about it. I see so many

athletes, whether it's on the track or in cycling classes, they'll look at their heart rate monitor during the class and get freaked out by the numbers that they're seeing. And it already starts taking away from the value of that interval of that workout, right? Sometimes just put it away, trust that you're building the fitness. If you blow up and fail, that's why it's training. It's a perfect time to understand how long you can hold that lump in your throat, barely can breathe going that hard effort. Yeah, right. I think you tweeted the other day something about, you know, this, it had to do with our relationship with our wearables and our tracking devices and how we can become too wedded to them and become too predictive about what we think we can or can't do. Yeah. And you said, you know, look, sometimes you got to just, you got to race. Otherwise you

could just mail in your, your train, you know, send, sometimes you got to just, you got to race. Otherwise, you could just mail in your training, you know, send, email your training data in and they would make a decision on who wins based on that. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a difference between, you know, an appropriate, responsible use of these tools to, you know, kind of predict where you're at. Exactly. And tweak your training appropriately and and just knowing

your body and letting go of all that and getting into feel and racing yeah and the confidence of having seen numbers and feel having felt like that is so huge in in a race of a longer day like ours eight to nine hours where you just know i can recover from this i'll be fine you go through so many emotional swings in these endurance days and even in shorter races where you think three minutes is endlessly far away but if you just let it happen and trust that it will eventually come down let's say your heart rate or that you'll eventually feel better in a few minutes but no quick irrational decisions just be patient and you've seen this before you're familiar with the process and your brain can just

sort of accept it versus being freaked out by it and using energy that you don't want to waste anyway yeah i noticed that when i'm in a in a in a phase of training where i'm fatigued and i go out for a run and the first 15 minutes are just horrific and you just feel like there's just i'm not gonna be able to finish this like i gotta pull the plug but then you know something will click and then you feel fine you know so it's not about saying like oh you know i'm gonna get i'm gonna give up you gotta trust that you're gonna it's gonna change how you feel at least when you have that base of fitness. Yeah. And oftentimes it clicks when you stop thinking about it and just allow your body to take over the natural motions of the activity you're doing. Oftentimes when you're out for a

run and if you're looking at the pace and the heart rate and doing that check on how you're feeling too much, you never back out of just relaxing and enjoying the process. And then next thing you know, a few minutes later, you're like, ah, there it is. I just let it happen. And that's the nice part. So I feel like you've had me on a bit of a maintenance program lately, because I've had a bunch of travel and my schedule has been a little bit off, you know, what I would like it to be when I'm at home and life is busy, like is for most people and i keep waiting for you to hit me with the huge week you know we're 11 weeks out and it's still like an hour run here an hour swim and i'm like we're looking at an eight nine hour race man where

are those huge days that you threw at me when i was getting ready for ultraman are they coming or they are different approach they are coming it's just that you know you've been out of it for a couple of years and we've been on a healthy build you've stayed healthy you've stayed motivated you've been able to handle everything we've done so far and so peaking too early trying to do this volume too early and have you either get injured get sick or get unmotivated would not be ideal because you're my partner i need you to be part of this. Yeah, I know. I think you said to me, you might have said it the last time we talked,

like this is the first time where your success is wedded to another individual. Exactly. And don't, you know, don't think that I don't feel that pressure. You know what I mean? Like I want to do well, but like I don't want to let you down either. You know, I don't want to disappoint you. Well, that's half the fun we're going to have out there right and so part of your training process is that i want you peaking and feeling your best and really excited to race in mid-august when we're two three

weeks out and you're like wow now all i need to do is hold this together get some good sleep get some good recovery and then let it all hang out in a few weeks. If that were happening in June, that's a long time still to go and train. And then you think my body needs another build and another build. And can I maintain this edge, this really good connection to my body

where I feel healthy, I feel fit, and I feel motivated. You put those three together, you might not have to hit the ideal fitness for something, for any event. But if you You put those three together, you might not have to hit the ideal fitness for something, for any event. But if you can put those three together, you're pretty much ready to outperform what you do in training any day. Yeah. I mean, that's the role of the coach, right? It's not just about throwing as much as you can at somebody. It's about knowing when to do that and picking that appropriate moment for that. You know, and I can't remember whether we addressed

this last time we spoke, but we began this structured training regimen back, I think it was November. It was about November. And at that time, leading up to that in the four and a half or five years prior to that, you know, I was getting up and getting out there pretty much every day, if not every day, you know, four or five days a week and feeling like I'm still pretty fit. But from where I'm sitting right now, looking back on that, I was like, I wasn't fit at all. Like the difference in how I feel now versus then is unbelievable, but it took a consistent approach to, you know, intentional training for a six month period. We're coming up on seven months just to get back to baseline,

you know? And I'm like, oh, this is how it feels to be really fit again. And just being patient and realizing it'll take that long to do it in a way that is not going to get me injured or burned out or exhausted. And that's what I say to so many people is fitness isn't about what you can do one day, especially in the endurance world. It's how you feel the next day and a couple of days later so that you can continue to repeat the process and continue to get fitter. So many people can blow out a great one day, but then they're shelled for a couple of days

and then the workout quality of what they did gets lost. But if you can come back from, let's say, our 8,000 yard swim yesterday and swim a good swim practice today and not feel too tired from it, or like you were saying earlier I feel pretty good that didn't take that much out of me that's a sign of fitness that's what I define as fitness because now you're able to withstand what I what the training plan throws at you and you're absorbing it right you're you're taking the load and can absorb it and therefore get stronger. Yeah. I felt great today. And, you know, I flew in from Miami. I didn't get very much sleep.

I was like, Oh, Chris wants me to get out of the pool. You know, I was like, I don't know if I, you know, how this is going to go jet lag and all of that. We put in 8,000 in the pool and then we did a pretty mellow hour trail run right after that and i felt awesome and i woke up today i'm not sore at all from the swim and i put in another you know run this morning and i felt great so i know that you know that fitness is starting to kick in and i can trust on that yeah yeah and and you'll need some sleep and some recovery in a couple days because things like jet lag or where your body's a little bit more fatigued from just travel the stress of that takes usually two three days for it to show itself yeah and you'll you'll probably have one of those days excuse me where you're going to say wow i was pretty flat today and that's probably midweek but that doesn't mean

you can't absorb what you're doing right now we'll just go easier for a couple days before we really build back up again yeah i think that you know as humans we don't appreciate the natural circadian rhythms that our bodies require and you know when you travel you just think i'll shake off jet lag in a day and it you know you just i don't care who you are like that it doesn't work that way yeah they say um a time zone is an hour it takes a day so if you move it three time zones to miami in order to really be back at your peak performance and your abilities to train and absorb takes three days three hour time change that's why europe nine hours you know sure can we get there nine days prior no but we can start thinking about the process in the two weeks prior to get us closer to that time zone

one of the things that i haven't spent enough time really looking into and getting comfortable with is all the crazy gear that goes into this race. And it's intimidating me. Like, people have these crazy contraptions where they have their pull buoys strapped to their leg, and they have all these pockets in their wetsuit. And there's, you know, a tether, like a rope, you know, an elastic rope that will attach between teammates. I guess that's optional. I don't know how it works. I need to get clear on the rules and all of that stuff. And we were talking about it yesterday.

Do we need all of this stuff? People are bivouacking with all this gear. And to me, it seems like the less gear we bring, the, the, we reduce the chance for failure because with every piece of gear that you add on, you are, uh, you know, you're, you're complicating the equation and you're creating opportunities for things to go wrong or things to get lost or not function properly. Or to get frustrated. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So we're hoping, you and I, to keep it as simple as possible. That knowing that we're swimmers and we can keep that, those paces and those times that we want to swim these sections in, that we can simulate that and be ready for that.

And that we test it with pull buoy, without pull buoy, with our shoes and how it all ties in. with our shoes and how it all ties in. So it's going to be a lot of simulation over the next eight weeks so that we know three weeks out exactly what we're doing. So maybe we should recap exactly what this Odelo race is. If somebody's listening to this for the first time and they have no idea what we're talking about. It's a 75 K distance event takes about for us we're looking at around eight to nine hours and it's the swim run world championships and so we swim across

i think it's 26 islands we have 52 transitions and the runs are anywhere from 11 to 12K all the way down to 100 meters. Right. And then the swims are anywhere from 2K to 100 meters. So you're running across little tiny islands and jumping back in on the other side. In very cold water. Exactly. And climbing up slippery rocks and bouldering a little bit. Working your way to the next island across the sea

and then getting out and doing it again. And we do the whole thing in a wetsuit with our running shoes on the entire time. Swim cap on until late, but we'll probably take them off for heat purposes. And, yeah, we carry all our gear with with us so we'll be using paddles the entire time yeah the rule is they allow you to basically bring whatever you want to traverse the the waterways exactly but the rule is you got to carry it with you so some people actually put fins on right yep and then they run with their fins and they got to carry their fins in the running yeah we're not going to do that no No, we're not doing that.

So the big issue with us is, we were talking about the other day, like, are we going to do this pole buoy thing? Or are we going to bag the pole buoy? Yeah. Well, we'll see how we design the wetsuit too. So we're lucky that we're getting wetsuits designed for us. So we're working with Roka. And they're designing a special wetsuit for us, which I'm very excited about. So, and they're the input with regards to how the pull buoy will work and where we want our buoyancy and so on will be very valuable. There was an article in Triathlete magazine, or maybe it was just online, triathlete.com.

I don't know when it went up. I think it went up in the last couple of days and it was all about swim run is finally uh getting a foothold here in the u.s uh and how all the triathletes are now obsessed with this crazy race that was uh devised by these crazy swedes who i think they came up with it over beers and a bet yeah kind of like how iron man started i suppose very similar over a cocktail napkin that had a navigational map on the back of it of all these islands. And I think they literally said, wouldn't it be cool if we started way out here and worked our way back? And can we do it in a day? I think the question was.

And of course they did. Yeah. And so in Europe, swim run has become a thing, especially in northern Europe. And this event that we're doing in become a thing, especially in Northern Europe. And this event that we're doing in Sweden is the world championship version of that, but it's a whole series. I think they did Sicily was this past weekend. And now you're seeing these races crop up in the United States and people are digging it. It's a fun, new type of adventure race that I think breaks the doldrums of just doing triathlon after triathlon after triathlon. Yeah. Yeah. And some really cool locations, especially the ones in Europe,

look gorgeous in some of these countries down there. And then the one this year in the United States is in Maine. So similar concept where you can imagine a rocky, craggy coast and cold water and swimming from little island to island. So it's the ideal spot. I'm excited. I first heard about it when Gordo Byrne and Jonas Kolting won it. It must have been five years ago or something, six years.

No, maybe longer than that. Maybe even longer than that. I can't remember what year it was. So that was my introduction to it, and I thought it was super cool. Both these guys, Gordo, you know both these guys. They both are Ultraman World Champions, incredible athletes. Gordo is a coach or was a coach. I don't know if he's coaching athletes now,

but is an amazing resource and knowledge base on endurance training. Yes, great guy. Yeah, great. Very helpful always. And then there's been a lot of Ironman champions who've done swim run. You know, Ferris El Soltan did it. And they're pulling swimmers, Olympic swimmers in from all over. So it's going to be quite the event.

From all over. So it's going to be quite the event. And this year, Hilary Biscay, also Ultraman World Champion, is doing it with Caroline Burkle, who is an Olympic gold medalist swimmer. And Rebecca Soni, who is also an Olympian, former podcast guest, is doing it with the spartan race king hunter uh hunter the sheriff so that's gonna be and he did it last year and they filmed it for outside television which is a pretty fun watch uh these guys so that you can get a good visual on what that's all about me i'll put a link in the show notes up to that so you guys can check that out so so what what's my what's my blind spot right now i think the long runs is where we're going to start working into we talked a little bit about

it yesterday but i want us to get to a point that you're comfortably running three four hours so that your engine is able to maintain a good four hours of activity doesn't have to be high intensity but we're getting ready for an eight to nine hour event. So as we build over the next few weeks, that you're comfortable with going out and putting forth energy, your heart moving for six, seven, eight hours. So there will be some big days, but six hours is plenty. We don't need to all put it on that day. We want it on the labor day that is the race, September 4th, I think it is. So that's the day we want to go eight hours. But in training, your energy systems and your body is ready to just continuously go for six-ish hours.

And so we'll get the run going and the volume properly. And like we did similarly for ultraman where you're able to get in the pool do a two three hour swim eat a little bit drink a little bit and off you go do a three four hour run there's our six hours right there done why no cycling i mean you've given me a couple you you know, bikes along the way, but only a few here and there. And, you know, given the fact that like cycling is a way to build that eight hour endurance because you can keep your heart rate elevated over an extended period of time without the risk of injury that that, you know, you're looking at if you're putting in too much running. That's the perfect example to give you because I'm worried about your availability of time.

So in order for us to maximize your time towards our event in 11 weeks, I think the cycling right now to build up that time and volume so that you can properly handle a six hour bike ride is not the best use of our time because we still need that longer run every other week. We still want to do some swim run simulation. We still want to keep the threshold

work in there. Once you start piling all the things that we don't want to overlook, the time runs out to have a five, six hour bike ride. Yeah. And this is the biggest difference for me versus my approach to Ultraman, because my life is just busier, more complicated in a great way than it was, but that's required me to adopt a different mindset in my approach to this race. Whereas when I was getting ready for Ultraman in 2009 to 2011, I was just all about it. I was like know give it all to me i am going in 110 on this and this year with this race i'm super focused and i'm going to do all the workouts but i have to balance that against these other obligations and opportunities that i have like everybody has

that i don't want to forsake for the purpose of just being all in on training. And that's uncomfortable for me because I don't like to toe the line at a race unless I know I've given everything to it. And so I've had to kind of step back from that and say, it's okay. You know, I want to have fun. You know, it's about the lifestyle. 100% about the lifestyle. And we've talked about this briefly whether it was this time

or last time but we're not going to win this thing right and guess what even if we did our lives and responsibilities back home and it's not going to change anything great we'll have a title to put next to our sports whatever right but it's like okay well let's look the best use of our time could we train more could we really geek out on this and get every detail figured out or are we going to go there do really well be competitive race right not just pace and then just have the a good solid day where we represent ourselves and represent our training and our sacrifice and the time we put into it really well and we finish and we feel really good about you know what that was awesome and we did

everything realistically that we could given where we are in our current lives to put forth on that day and anything more where you start going back into where you're sacrificing so much time, family, professional life in order to just get third versus sixth. Yeah, and I think that's a really healthy message for the age group athlete out there. You know, like how important is this to you and what is the impact that it's going to have on your life and i understand like the sort of feeling that you get of of knowing you did everything like there's there's a purity to that and a beauty to that but at the same time you're exactly right like third fifth sixth does it does it matter is it going to change your life and and

in order to you know bridge that final 5% or 10%, the hours of investment that that requires are disproportionately large. Yeah, exactly. And we've both been in those lives and we can also give the perspective on we know what it's like on the other side. And the difference isn't that dramatic

or it doesn't buy you anything that much more in your lifestyle that you're a champion of something. And the sacrifice is to live this monastic lifestyle that neither you or I are going to do, right? Nope. And I think that's an appropriate place to kind of discuss the idea of peak performance in general. Like we talked about this when we were running yesterday. I had Brad Stolberg and Steve Magnus on the podcast and you talked about their book, Peak Performance. And you had a couple thoughts on that

that I thought would be interesting to share. Yeah, well, thanks for bringing that up because I am a big believer in that three stool, three-legged stool concept, right? Your athletics, your professional life, and your personal life and your personal life are each a leg of that stool. And if one of them is not grounded and solid, the stool falls over. And so we can be oh so passionate, oh so focused, have the right mindset

in our athletics. But if our professional life or our family life is a weak leg, we're not sitting on that stool stool we're falling and crashing and so it becomes extremely important in all of this message of peak performance for masters athletes we're not talking you know people going to the olympics or you know high school or college athletes still looking to achieve what they possibly could achieve is that you need balance and i remember in many days and many times where I was swimming, getting ready for Olympic trials, or many of the athletes that I work with. And I always make sure that you need to realize that you still have family out there, and you still have life out

there. And if one creates too much stress your workouts are compromised too right you're you're leaving to go on that three-hour run or that four-hour bike ride with some work and you're going two hours and you're saying i really should be back right now answering some of those emails or my wife is going to be really upset with me when i walk in that door because i've been gone again for four and a half hours or there's a zillion stories, and it's balancing that so that you actually have peak performance in all three of those. Yeah, because you may complete your workout, but then if you're arguing with your partner for the next three hours

or you're in the shitter with your boss or something, that's going to create all kinds of emotional turmoil that's going to to impact, you know, it's going to have this ripple effect on, on your entire life. Yeah. And it's not sustainable over the longterm. Like we keep saying your ability to do it back to back to back week after week that creates more fitness. Even if instead of what you see, let's say triathletes, 20 hour training week threshold, right? Oh my gosh, that's a lot of training. You could be quite close to that on 10 to 11 hours a week. But if your life is in balance, and by balance, meaning good sleep, good relationships, good harmony that you feel really effective in those 10 and 11 hours of training versus,

okay, I'm just going to add another 45 minute run real quickly here this afternoon, sneak out, tell the family, I'm just getting the paper and I'll come back an hour later. I mean, of course, there's a little bit of exaggeration in that, but we all have felt that where you leave or you're halfway through a longer workout going, gosh, I should have answered a couple more emails or I really should have finished that project or I have that looming over my head. And then the quality of you doing that bike ride, doing those hill repeats, doing that good swim practice is out the window because your mind's elsewhere. You're not in the moment anymore. Yeah, it requires you to let go of some level of perfectionism right i have to execute every workout perfectly ultimately you're going to burn out on that or

something else is going to bend in your life yeah and you know i always feel like oh if i don't do like exactly you know what you've sort of mapped out for me that i'm going to be way behind and it's going to be a disaster but you're always super mellow you're like okay it's not cool or i call you and i'm like i gotta travel i gotta go you're like okay it's cool yeah work it out don't worry about it we can always catch up on the fitness i need you to be healthy and motivated and then i can work on your fitness if you're not healthy or if you're burnt out, therefore not motivated, I can give you all the training in the world, but you're not going to have fun or enjoy doing it or do it right.

And by you being healthy in order to absorb the training and motivated as in have fun doing it and a smile on your face and really understanding why you're doing it and feel good about why you're doing it. That's the key. And I think from the athlete's perspective, you know, what comes with experience is knowing when you're starting to edge up against that burnout phase and having, you know, the discipline to say, you know, I'm backing off. You know, when you're less experienced, you're less willing to do that. And, you know, as, you know, turning 50 this year, I feel like in some, in some respects, this is like uncharted waters. It's like, I'm 50. Like, what can I do?

What's possible. And it's exciting to feel fit and to be performing at the level that I'm at. I wasn't sure that I was going to get to this place. I mean, during that six month period of trying to get back, it was like, I was doing all this training just so I could get fit enough to train. And I wasn't seeing it and I wasn't seeing it, but I just kept showing up consistently. But I had moments of doubt where I was like, I don't, you know, I don't know if it's going to come back. Maybe it won't. Maybe that five years was too long to take a break, but now it's like, it's clicked in and I feel good. And I'm excited about that. So what do you like, you know, what is the difference as we age up and with the athletes that you work with that are in their

fifties that are in their sixties and are trying to be competitive? Like what becomes other than the balance things that we've talked about? Like what are the things that, you know, a lot of, a lot of people in those categories overlook or could work on or require a little bit more focus well something we talked about yesterday is that you can't hang on to your old performances and your own train old training habits and your old training self right yeah we're in our 20s and 30s you have on you feel like you have unlimited time and life isn't as busy so that you can train more recover differently have those extra hours but as we get older and more responsibilities come into life you don't have these magic 20 30 hours a week

to train and so as we get older it's of course that being careful not to try to do the hours or the intensities or the paces or the wattages that you used to do. Let go of those. You're a new person now. Yeah. It's train where you're at, not where you think you should be or where you used to be. Or where you think you could be. Right.

A lot of people see numbers these days out there and paces and try to force themselves into that too quickly. And then the injury bug comes and we're back to unmotivated, not healthy. Right. That's been most palpable with me in the pool with the pace clock. It's like for a long time, it's like, I can't even look at the pace. I'm not even going to look at it. Like I'll just count to five or 10 in between these, these repeats and just do get the workout in.

Now I'm fit enough where I feel okay looking at it, but it's like back in the day, it's like I'll do 10 100s on 105 and hold 55s and it ain't nothing but a thing. Now it's like if I can do a 105, it's like I'm pretty happy. Yeah, so you have to reframe your expectations. Just consider that's more than

half your life ago i know i know yeah because i still feel like i feel like i feel good i feel like 20 so i why can't i keep why why shouldn't i be able to you know still be able to do that doesn't work like that and you probably could for a little bit but again it's not sustainable right well yeah and then i was swimming doubles every single day. And, you know, you're putting in 12 to 20,000 yards a day over years and years and years and years. That efficiency and that economy of doing that is amazing. Yeah. We're going to wrap it up here in a minute but let's let's leave people like we've been very

specific to like what we're doing and the race that we're we're preparing for but what do you you know what do you see in the athletes that you work with um that are sort of common mistakes or things that um trip trip up a lot of the athletes that you work with that are easily fixable or just, you know, some digestible wisdom for people who are maybe preparing for their first marathon or half marathon or half Ironman. Yep. The key there is listening to your body, right? We have so many tools and so many distractions these days on what our body should be doing heart rate monitors pace and all that but just listening to your body knowing that it needs sleep knowing that it needs good nutrition knowing that it needs to recover and your ability to come back the next day and do something again

is the key right i know but come on like i what watch are you wearing like i i need to know like what you know like which heart rate monitor should you get. I get that question. I get those questions all the time. I posted on Instagram the other day. I get so many DMs and comments. What watch are you wearing? What's the heart rate monitor?

I read this post and I'm like, it's not about the gear. The gear's cool. It's awesome. I like my Garmin. It's fun. like it's not about the gear the gear is cool it's awesome I like my Garmin it's fun and it's helpful but that's not the focus of my approach to my training you know like and it can become a distraction and I wrote this whole long thing about like just don't worry about it like just go out and move your body yeah listen to your body get intuitive about how you feel so much it tells you so much and i've said to so many athletes if we get to them to the point where your morning resting heart rate is truly the indicator

of our training and how you're doing this run versus the last run differences in heart rate and then that we're in a pretty good spot because then you're pretty fit that we're looking at those details let's first get that fitness that you feel really good about yourself, really connected to yourself. Because after a while, you'll know when you're not sleeping well. You know when you're not rested in the morning. You can feel it in your heart rate on your own or when you wake up super tired. You'll know when you're super hungry. You'll know when you crave certain types of food.

Oh, that's electrolytes or that's mineral deficits or you know there's so many things that your body gives you clear signals for you just need to understand that language it's speaking to you yeah and the difference between that and the garmin when you when you have a garmin you're you're outsourcing all of that you're almost cut you're turning that switch off and you're training yourself to not pay attention to how you feel because you just want the data on the, you know. And like we said yesterday with the activity trackers, right? Sure. You can have gone a certain amount of steps today, but what was the quality of those steps? I mean, you know, you can walk downhill on those steps too. But it's, think about the quality of what you're doing.

those steps too um but it's think about the quality of what you're doing it doesn't have to be a certain amount it has to be what is it i'm doing that's truly of quality and value to me how am i progressing forward yeah when we went on that run i mean we ran like 9 30 pace you know it's like and i told you as we're finishing i was like you know this perfect the guy sitting across from me two-time oian, age group world champion in Ironman, and he's going out for a casual run. And you're not worried about like, oh, these have to be under seven. No, not at all. It was more about conversational pace, which we did.

It was more about clean, technically sound motions, which we did. We ran light. We ran good strides, good form. And it's not about the pace. When we need the pace, it's there because we create economy of motion in the clean stuff when we're going easy. Mm-hmm. What is your take on all the kind of recovery tools that are out there from compression gear to compression boots to foam rollers and all the kind of stuff that's available, to foam rollers and all the kind of stuff that's available,

like all the devices and the things that we can buy and invest in. What is your approach to your own recovery, and how do you talk about that with your athletes? My recovery is, my personal recovery is totally different. Like I said, listen to my body. I don't use anything. I don't foam roll. I don't stretch.

I sleep. I go to bed when my kids go to bed. And I get my eight to nine hours a night of sleep. And I know that's a luxury. And not a lot of people have the schedule or the time to do that. But sleeping well, eating right, and listening to your body. So sure, those are great aids to help you get more in tune with your body. Because a lot of people have commented to me, well, Chris, you've been listening to your body since you're six years old,

and you've been a swimmer all your life and an athlete and so on. So of course, I'm in more tune with my body. But use those recovery tools and equipment and clothing to help you get more in tune. If you're recognizing that the compression of Norma Tech boots is working for you, notice where else it might work for you or what other products. Just stay in sync. Notice what it's doing. Don't just blindly put it on and say, now I'm magically good. Right. Or use it as an excuse to not do, which is something I talk about all the time. Well, I can't train for an Ironman because i can't afford normatec boots yeah you know or you know i i can't get that you know that garmin

watch is too expensive so i'm just not going to go running at all and they have cheap options on all that and cheap not in bad quality it's just pretty affordable and it just starts you down the road of understanding what your body is telling you. Because as you've said before, you used to have to look at a heart rate monitor for what you're running and what your zone two is about. But after a couple months of doing it, you don't need a watch because you know exactly what you're doing. You can feel it. You know the sensations that each zone brings with it.

And that's the point you want to get to. Yeah, I think we talked about this last time time but i can vividly recall back in the swimming days i didn't need to look at a pace clock i'm sure you didn't either it's like i knew when i touched the wall on on repeats exactly what my time would be because you're so connected you're so in tune like oh that was a 101 that was a 58 and that's the keyword connected and if everybody if everybody if more people could just be a bit more connected with their body then they'll listen to it better and therefore nourish it better therefore sleep better and get more out of it and that's huge just those three things nourish it better recover better and listen to it better connectivity yeah but that's not sexy no no and

it takes a while and you actually have to quiet out everything else in order to listen to yourself a little bit yeah i think the other key component to this whole thing is patience you know i know that you have many experiences with athletes that come to you and they're super excited they got a big goal and they just want to go out and and get it done as quickly as possible and ramp up too soon. And, you know, it took years for my body to change and acclimate to this kind of lifestyle. And I think you have to be okay with the long-term plan and not try to get it all done in a season. Yeah. I mean, we've all seen a house being built. By the time they clear the lot and put the foundation down and those first few bricks, you think it takes forever. And then all of a sudden, once they've done that,

it starts going up pretty quickly. Right. But that foundation, that brick upon brick upon brick takes a while, but each brick is solid and it's going to stay there for a long time if you're patient with it and you lay that brick properly chris house good to talk to you man good to catch up was great training yesterday that was a lot of fun your first master's workout i know well it's funny i said to you like i think it's the first time like i do all my training alone and like i don't i don't have a solid master's program that's near my I mean there are plenty of them around but they're not close to where I live so I just go and I do the workout by myself and that's fine old ladies that do their exercise no matter what

time I go to the pool no matter how I time it I always get there right when that class starts and they take up like half the pool like they take up an inordinate amount of real estate in the pool. I'm just like, ah. We should talk to them about best pool buoy use. They know how to use those things. I know, I know. And the other thing is like the pool that I've been swimming at, they keep it way too warm

because it's kind of like for an older set of people that come in to luxuriate. So yesterday was great because the the water temperature was appropriate and it was a structured workout with a coach on deck and a master's team i was like i haven't done this in like eight years and it made that 8 000 go so much more quickly than if i was doing that by myself yeah like this is going on forever yeah you know so i don't know maybe i'm gonna have to drop in uh on some structured workouts yeah it's fun every now and then to jump in and just speed train with a couple of fast swimmers and there were plenty of fast swimmers yeah it was cool and so you got a half

iron man coming up this weekend yeah quarter lane nice that's your favorite place it is my favorite place you won your iron man did you win that race twice or once uh once uh-huh what year was that 2006 uh-huh so going up just to do the half yeah and it's going to be interesting because you haven't been riding your bike very much have you so it's just gonna be it's gonna be a great day to just bust out the best possible effort and just see where i'm at and if i blow up i blow up i i'm not going anywhere with this and it'll be fun i'm going up with my kids and they're going to get to see me race they haven't seen me race in many years cool so yeah awesome man well thanks a million we'll do another check in i'm sure before uh before the race but i appreciate appreciate all the sage wisdom and guidance that you've given me.

In the wake of that workout yesterday, I was going back into the city and I was just reflecting on this journey that I've been on and how integral you've been in every phase of it. When we first started working together, like 2008, getting ready for that ultraman i had no idea like where this was going to take me and my life has changed so profoundly and you're a very key component in that and so i'm super grateful to thank you to have your support and to have you uh by my sides i'm really excited to to race with you it's gonna be super that's gonna be a new adventure racing together will be fun i'm super excited for that myself awesome so you can find chris on twitter at a aimp coach also on

instagram right you don't do that much i don't do much i i'm private on instagram it's mainly pictures of my kids and my dogs and stuff like that and you've got your uh you've got your own podcast yeah endurance the weekly word the weekly word so you can find that on itunes right you didn't you were you were just sending that out to your athletes for a while but then you finally pulled the trigger and put it up on itunes well a lot of my athletes just kept asking like come on man i don't want to go to you go to your website and have to download it and listen to it there and so cool you've been enjoying that i actually have have been. It's a lot of fun. And it's a great opportunity to just put my thoughts out there that I've observed all week during reading coaching logs and training logs and also training with my athletes where I get a lot of questions.

And it's great to share that. Yeah. Awesome. So check that out. And we'll catch you back here soon. Yeah. All right, man. 11 weeks. Good talking to you. Oh you back here soon. Yeah. All right, man. 11 weeks.

Good talking to you. Oh no. Oh crap. All right. Peace. All right. We did it. I hope you guys enjoyed that. If you did, let me know. Should I do more coaches corners? I think I'll probably end up checking in with Chris at least one or two more times before our event, but hit me up on social media and let me know how that one landed for you guys. If you're interested in the details of my daily training progression towards this event, follow me on Instagram. I'm posting daily stories kind of behind the scenes on my training.

And also I'm posting every day on Strava with the specific workouts that I'm doing. And if you enjoyed Chris on the program, definitely check out episode 21, episode 256, and our first Coach's Corner Skype interview, which was a prefatory kind of 10 to 15 minute interlude before my conversation with Louis Cole in episode 285. If you want to connect with Chris, you can find him at AIMPcoaching.com and also on Twitter at AIMPcoach. And that's it. Have you guys checked out our meal planner yet? I talked about this last week at the end of the podcast. I'm so proud of this program that we created. Not only is it unbelievably affordable, just $1.90 a week, it's so helpful to people. It basically gives you

access to literally thousands of plant-based recipes, thousands of them. And everything is super customized. When you sign up, you have to answer all these questions so that the program knows exactly what your needs are, what your preferences are, the foods that you like, the foods that you don't like, the foods that you have access to, your time constraints, any number of variables that allow it to basically serve your best interests. It also creates unlimited meal plans, grocery lists. It has grocery delivery in 22 metropolitan areas. We're getting amazing feedback on it. Everybody who's signed up is absolutely loving it. And it just makes me so happy to be able to put out a really

robust, helpful product that everybody can enjoy that is really affordable for most people. So check that out. If you haven't already, you can find it at meals.richroll.com or just click on meal planner at the top of the page on any page at richroll.com. Also, we have Plant Power Ireland coming up July 24th through 31. It's in County Cork, Valley of the Lawn, this amazing 90 acre manor. We're going to take a group of about 30, 35 people through seven days of transformation. It's going to be super fun, but it's also going to be really intense. Julie's designed an extraordinary menu. We're going to do workshops on cooking, nutrition. We're going to do trail running. We're going to have intensives on relationships and creativity.

It's going to be amazing. I don't know what else to tell you. Our trips to Italy have been absolutely life transformative, not only for the people that attended, but also for Julie and I. And we're really cultivating and crafting this community. All the alumni of the trips that we've done are really bonded to each other. They have face groups and everybody's really connected. They travel to see each other. It's just been really, really cool. So excited about this upcoming trip. We do have spots that are still open. So if that sounds cool to you, go to ourplantpowerworld.com and learn more and reserve your spot.

If you'd like to support this show and my work, share the show with your friends and on social media, subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, leave a review. And we have a Patreon account for those of you who would like to support the work that we're doing here financially. And to everybody that has done that, mad love. Thank you so much. And as I said last week, I am really trying to find a way to honor that commitment with some content that goes beyond what I'm offering on the podcast, perhaps monthly, uh, ask me anything episodes that only Patreon members get access to, or certain, you know, video Facebook lives, or I don't know, I'm thinking about it. I'm interested in it. A couple of people reached out to me over the course of the week,

as I mentioned it last week at the end of the podcast and people said, yes, they would be into that. So, uh, I am, the wheels are turning on that. I do want to be able to like honor you guys in a, in a, in a real and fundamental way. If you'd like to receive a free short weekly email from me, I send one out every Thursday. It's called roll call basically five or six things that I came across over the course of the week. Like this article that Amelia Boone wrote about her journey through endurance sports. So that's going to be in roll call and, you know, documentaries I've seen some videos I've watched podcast. I listened

to a product that I'm enjoying things like that. I'm not going to spam you. When you enter your email address on my website, you'll get roll call every Thursday. You also get announcements about podcasts when they go live. And then the occasional, very, very occasional product announcement. And that's it. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today, Jason Camiello for audio engineering and production, and now also help with the show notes and creating a website page for the episode. Sean Patterson for help on graphics and theme music as always by Annalima. Thanks for the love love you guys it feels so good to be coming at you twice a week every other week and i'm excited to continue this trend so be well i hope that you take chris's message to heart today and that you incorporate that into your daily life and i will see you back here in a couple days peace plants I'm going to go ahead and do that. Thank you.