The Rich Roll Podcast - Off-Season Fitness: Chris Hauth on Staying Engaged Through The Winter Months

Episode Date: November 24, 2017

Today, I am once again joined by Chris Hauth (@AIMPCoach) for another edition of Coach’s Corner focused on maintaining fitness with engaged enthusiasm as we navigate the winter months. For those new to the show, Chris is a sub-9 hour Ironman, former professional triathlete, two-time Olympian 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 runs AIMP Coaching, mentoring 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. Under Chris’ tutelage since 2008, he deftly guided me through three Ultraman World Championships,EPIC5. and now Ötillö. A friend and mentor as much as a coach, Chris has been my personal coach since 2008, expertly guiding me through three Ultraman World Championships (’08, ’09 & ’11), EPIC5 in 2010 and the 2017 Ötillö Swimrun World Championships in Sweden this past September – which we raced together as a team. Today we discuss: * The importance of rest & taking a break from training; * eating and training with the season; * how to set goals and formulate a plan for the new year; * work-life-training balance; * sustainability — learning how to enjoy your fitness; and * bucket list events and what each of us is looking forward to in 2018 Enjoy! Rich

The days are getting shorter, the weather's changing, it's hard. And so it's important to also give yourself a little bit of a break in those times, because it's about consistency. It's not about overdoing it. You don't want to stay super focused. It's about being 80% there. You know, take that 20% edge off that you're super focused on, whether it's nutrition or how you're sleeping and how you're training and all the attention to detail that you look for.

Instead, be consistent, stay connected and have a focused outcome for that month and that next month so that you're still progressing somewhat, but you're not literally on it every day. You're not looking for perfection through the holidays. You're looking to just remain somewhat connected, somewhat consistent. Stay healthy, stay motivated, take the edge off, and be positive. That's Chris Hout, and this is another edition of Coach's Corner

on the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How's it going? What's happening? Happy Thanksgiving. Are you guys ready? Are you visiting family?

Are you heading into the lion's den? Come on. It's going to be okay. Thanksgiving is about gratitude. It's about love. It's about giving thanks. You can do this. Just seal your field. It's fine. Remember, they love you and you love them, right? It's going to be awesome. My name is Rich Roll. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. Today, I return with an informative sit down with my friend, my Otolo teammate, my endurance mentor,

Chris Houth, for another amazing edition of Coach's Corner. And today we're focusing on how to remain fit, how to remain enthusiastic, fresh, and engaged as we head into the wintry off season. It's a great one. Looking forward to sharing it with you. But before we get into it, a couple of quick announcements. The first one is very cool. As you guys know, the theme music for this show was written and performed by Analema. What is Analema? Well, that is my boy's band, my sons, my step-sons, Tyler and Trapper, who are 22 and 21, as well as Harry, my nephew, who's 26. They all live with us. And the funny story behind that is that they recorded that. They came up with it in like an hour, and it was always meant to be a bit of a

placeholder until we took the time to record something a little bit more professionally, perhaps a little bit more well thought out, but it just stuck. It's been the theme ever since. At one point, we tried to switch it out with another version and people rebelled. So we went back to the original one and it's just remained. It will probably always remain the jingle for the show. But if you've been listening to the show for a while, then you may also know that Analema has been hard at work on an album, their first album. I'm not sure when that's going to be done, but they've been working very diligently on it. They have a producer now. One of the guys from a band called Girls is working with them.

And they're also being mentored by our friend Chris Taylor, who is a member of a band you might've heard of called Grizzly Bear. But the big announcement is that Annalema, Harry, Tyler, and Trapper contributed some music to Jaden Smith's new album, Sire. You know, Jaden, he's the son of Will Smith. Jaden had this album, Sire, just came out last week. Last I checked, it was number four on iTunes of all albums, which is unbelievable. And the story behind that is that Jaden comes over from time to time and he jams with my boys in the garage. He loves our boys. And they were jamming one night, working on a few things while Jaden was workshopping his album. And some of Trapper's drumming, some of Tyler's synth work and Harry's guitar licks ended up on two tracks on Jaden's record. So that's pretty amazing and very cool. So I wanted

to point that out, share that with you guys. Congratulations to Anna Lemma, to Tyler Trapper and Harry for that. Very, very cool. And I got to tell you, Jaden is a very cool kid. I mean, this is a guy who at just 19 years old is just unbelievably enterprising and also incredibly sweet. I mean, this guy does everything. He acts in movies and television. He created an animated character for a TV show. He obviously writes and performs music. He has a water company, Boxed Water. I mean, there is like nothing this young man can't do. He's rather amazing. And I'm also, I should say, working on him becoming vegan. He's super into it. He's seen all the documentaries and he's very interested in talking to me more about it. And I think he'd actually be a great podcast guest. So I'll see if I can make that happen in the future. The second thing I wanted to announce is that as many of you guys know, David Zamet came on board two months ago to be my collaborative partner on the video side of things. And over the last two months, we made the leap into filming the podcast. We created a few other cool pieces, and there's more on the way. We did a couple epic photo shoots. But ultimately, it turned out to not be the right fit for David, who decided to return

home to Malta. He just left on Sunday. So it's all good. I love David. We became very close. It's great. And likely he will return to LA at some point, perhaps even sooner rather than later. But obviously, this interrupts the momentum that we created and

leaves me sort of back at square one in terms of moving forward on the video front. And so, for that reason, I wanted to put the word out once again that I am in search of a filmmaking, editing, photographer comrade in arms to collaborate with. And when I first made this announcement, I don't know, several months ago, maybe six or eight months ago, we got a ton of submissions. I'm going to go through all of those submissions once again, but I thought it was worth repeating

that I am, once again, in search of someone to work with on this front. And I think it's going to take a very specific person to fill the slot. So please don't reach out unless you qualify in all the areas and can check all the boxes. Essentially, I'm looking for somebody who can work full-time or most of the time and in person

with me at my studio. This is not a virtual gig. I need somebody with extensive editing experience in either Final Cut Pro or Premiere. Somebody who is well-versed in graphics and graphic design, knows their way around After Effects or other effects programs, knows their way around camera equipment. Ideally, somebody who owns some great equipment, but that's not necessarily a prerequisite. And somebody who can work as both a photographer and a filmmaker slash editor. And perhaps the most important thing, somebody who is in alignment with my mission. Somebody who really wants the job, values the opportunity. And it's a job that really is going to be split between documentation, like doing the podcast, and also art, you know, more artistic pieces. Of course, we're going to

be filming and editing the podcast, doing occasional vlogs, but also cool think pieces, artistic pieces, instructional pieces, motivational pieces, and probably lots of other things I can't even think of right now. And also, this candidate needs to be somebody who isn't just going to do what I ask, but somebody who really understands aesthetics and can bring me ideas that can really elevate my messaging across all channels and do that in a collaborative way. So like I said, it's a big ask and it is going to take a very specific person to fill this role properly. But if you think that you're somebody who has the goods, I'd love to hear from you.

You can email me at info at richroll.com, info at richroll.com. Cool. info at richroll.com. Cool. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had

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starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to Ironmanrecovery.com. Okay, Chris. Coach's Corner has now become a bit of an institution on the show, but the show is growing. So if you're new and don't know who Chris is, Chris Houth is a sub-9-hour Ironman. He is age group Ironman world champion. He's a former Olympic swimmer and one of the world's most respected endurance coaches. In 2006, he won the Ironman Coeur d'Alene and went on to become the first American amateur and fourth

overall American at the Ironman World Championships in Kona. Today, Chris coaches a wide spectrum of athletes ranging from elite professionals, including Ironman and Western States top finishers, Ultraman winners, and Olympic trials qualifiers, all the way down to first-time half marathoners. Not only is he a great friend and my coach, he definitely guided me through three Ultraman World Championships, Epic Five, and most recently, our experience racing Ötelo in Sweden. I love this guy. And today's conversation, as mentioned earlier, is all about navigating the off-season. We talk about the importance of rest,

taking a break from training. We talk about eating and training with the seasons, setting goals and formulating a plan for the new year. And we talk sustainability, work-life training balance, and learning how to enjoy your fitness. Imagine that, enjoying your fitness. And we kind of round it out by talking about bucket list events and about what each of us is looking forward to in 2018 and a whole lot more. So with that being said, here is me and Chris Hout. All right. Ready to rock? Yep. So Chris Hout, back in the house. Last time I saw you, we were sitting in a hotel room, not dissimilar from the one. We always do this in hotel rooms. Now we're in Santa Monica.

Last time I saw you, we were in Stockholm, fresh off our Ötelö experience. And I wore this. You're still saying it like that. Ötelö. I think that's right. You've got it down. I know. And I wore this special t-shirt uh for you today look at that somebody

a fan sent this to me custom made on the front are the gps coordinates for the start of the race and on the back are the finish line coordinates yeah it's pretty cool right so and then you got that on there so anyway i'm gonna have to get you one of these yeah i'll uh i'll see if i can hit her up for a second one. Well, you sent me something really awesome. Oh, you got it. Frame picture. I got it over the weekend.

I was sick last week, so I was so out of it. So here I am saying thank you right here. You sent me an amazing sort of picture frame full of pictures from the race, the map of the race, and signed it and so on. It's awesome. Well, I appreciate that but i can't take uh full credit for that because that was made by a fan who made two of those right one for me and i sent that one to you well whoever that is thank you yes the name escapes me at the moment but i will find out i'll put i will properly thank yes and i need to send an email in to thank you.

In the show notes. But, yeah, it was pretty cool, right? Very cool. Really cool. So we're back here for another edition of Coach's Corner, and we have some cool stuff to talk about. We're going to talk about off-season training. We're heading into the winter months.

How do you stay enthusiastic about your fitness? How do you stay fresh and connected mentally, physically, and emotionally with your athletic journey? Athletic goals, yeah. I mean, they seem so far away right now. It's October, basically one of the last days of October. And in order to project out what April and May will feel like, it feels so far away right now and staying motivated. The days are getting shorter, the weather's changing. And so it's hard. And so however we can help communicate what we're doing as well, because we're sort of in between events and we don't really know what we're doing next. And that's part of it. It's as a community understanding, we need to stay motivated. Right. I think the first thing is we have to acknowledge

that we're in Southern California and, uh, and, and I'll be the first to admit how soft that has made me when the days get shorter and it's just a little bit colder in the morning and it gets darker a little bit earlier. My motivation wanes pretty quick. Like it, it's just, it's just a little bit colder in the morning and it gets darker a little bit earlier, my motivation wanes pretty quick. Like it's just hard to get up out of bed when it's dark out and it's 40 plus degrees. So I can't even imagine staring down the barrel of a snowy morning in sub-zero temperatures like a lot of people are going to be contending with in the not too distant future. So it's tough, it's really hard to maintain that level of motivation. When the sun's not shining, and the weather's not bright. Yeah. And it's important to also give

yourself a little bit of a break in those times. Because it's about consistency. It's not about overdoing it, you don't want to stay super focused as i was telling an athlete earlier today it's about being 80 there you know take that 20 edge off that you're super focused on whether it's nutrition or how you're sleeping and how you're training and all the attention to detail that you look for instead be consistent stay connected and have a focused outcome for that month and that next month so that you're still progressing somewhat, but you're not literally on it every day. Yeah, one of the things that happens to me after a big event typically is I want nothing to

do with working out for a little while. And I think part of that's healthy. Like you need a break, you know, mentally as much as physically. Um, so putting some time and distance between, you know, that intense period of time I think is appropriate. Um, but, but then it makes it that much harder to get back into it. I had a different experience after Sweden. Um, I remained enthusiastic about being fit because it had been five years since I had competed. And I, and it really did take me a long time to get back into form. And I was like, I'm not letting this go again. It took too long to climb back up that ladder. And yet nonetheless, and I, and I went right back, you know, I took maybe, I don't know, 10 days of doing close to nothing, but then got back into a consistent rhythm with the workouts that you were sending me.

But I've been far from perfect. Like I've, you know, I've been traveling and I miss here and there, but it's a different reaction to missing a workout. Like what I'm not, cause I'm not signed up for anything right now. And I'm not quite sure what I'm going to be doing next. Although that may change pretty soon, um, to be like, okay, so I missed it like no big deal, as opposed to, you know, eight weeks out from Otillo thinking, oh, man, you know, I can't I can't miss a day. So it's a different response to not being perfect. It is. And I mean, there's two reactions to after an immersive event like an Otillo, right?

Or you would want to stay away from it for a little bit and just want to give your body and your mind a break. But many people come back from whether it's an Ironman, an Ultra, something like Otillo, and they're so motivated and they're so excited because it was such an incredible, impactful experience that they want to train again right away. And that's when your mind and your body sort of separate, right? You're motivated, but your body's not yet and you have to give yourself some time to get those two in sync again and recovery and the proper fueling to get those two back on the same railroad tracks takes a few weeks and a lot of people try to start up again too quickly and they fizzle out and that's when the motivation really gets hurt because then your body's disconnected from your motivation.

And then in four or five weeks from now, you really go off the rails. So you have to manage yourself very carefully after the event knowing I gotta reward myself with some downtime and I've gotta reward my body with some downtime. Otherwise in three, four, five weeks from now, I'm gonna fizzle out even worse.

But it's tricky because you wanna harness that motivation when you have it because momentum is so important. And if you just let go of that and say, we'll revisit this in eight weeks, and then when eight weeks goes by, that motivation has been eclipsed with the sun setting too soon now and the cold mornings and cold nights.

It's the best time to formulate your plan though. In those weeks where the motivation is high, but you don't have to train it, you can start writing out your plan. You can start working into, well, I wanna do strength. I wanna stay connected like this. You even came back and said, I'm missing a bunch of type of strength work

that I felt was missing, or I really wanna start incorporating this. So together with your coach, or with me in this case, we start formulating a plan or you sort of give me homework to come back and say, all right, this is what we're going to do the next six weeks. And then as the big training comes back in, you'll have that platform to work off of. But it's a great time for that. Yeah. In the wake of Otillo, that was one thing that was very clear to me is that I was lacking a significant amount of functional strength. And that event required so much of it, the scrambling on all fours and the bending down and the sort of hauling yourself up these rocks and all of that took a huge toll on me. And I was

not prepared for that, nor did I train for it. And it made me realize how much I'd been overlooking that critical aspect of what it means to be truly fit, right? Because I just want to run and go out on trails and be on my bike. And as important as I know it is to be sound in a whole body context, um, I just was not attending to that. And so you've put me on over the last several weeks, um, a pretty challenging, it looks on paper, it looks easy. It looks so easy. Yes. Uh, challenging routine of functional body exercises that are as simple as like planks and air squats and some lunges and things like that without any

weights. You know, you've just started giving me a little, a and some lunges and things like that without any weights you know you've just started giving me a little a few kettleball exercises and things like that and i'm doing with very low weight and it's amazing how sore it makes me and how how like sort of crushing it is like just doing a series of air squats and i can't walk for like three days and that's part of the five-year rebuild we were on right we got you sort of fit again from an aerobic capacity and with the runs that you've been doing. And now we're adding in more cycling. But now we're going deeper. We're peeling that onion back a little bit more and working on the functional strength and so on.

The other thing is it's nice for you is that I'm doing that on purpose because you're traveling. You can technically do a lot of this in any hotel gym. Yeah. You don't even need the gym for 90% of what you're traveling you can technically do a lot of this on in any hotel gym yeah and you don't even need the gym for 90 of what you're giving me you could just do it in any you know four foot by four foot space yeah yeah we want to stay away from that though you don't want to start working out in your hotel rooms as you're on the road too much we want to get you outside a little bit more and it takes a lot to get me in the gym. I'm not a gym rat. But the winter months, that's the time, right? This is the time where you can create that strength base. Yeah. And it's a little bit of variety too, because you're doing something different. You're activating different muscles. You're seeing different people. You're in a different environment.

It does help a lot of people with their motivation, actually. It puts them where other people are, a lot of people with their motivation, actually, it puts them where other people are and still you feed off of that. And so getting to the gym two, three times a week on these darker months is a great time to sort of re-engage also with the social aspect of working out and then mix in some cycling, mix in some running, mix in some swimming

is great with regards to functional strength. As you've been doing that, I bet you if you go in the pool afterwards, the first 1,500 or 2,000 are just swimming with stubs. But it just connects you to everything that you just activated. And most of these, if not all of these exercises, really pivot around core strength fundamentally. And I can tell you from experience, I know what it feels like in the pool, running and on the bike when my core is strong versus when it's not. I don't think that it was very strong this past season, but when it is strong, like if you,

even if you're just doing 15 minutes, you know, four times a week or three times a week, and you're doing that consistently over five, six, seven, eight weeks, you could feel the difference. The strength in your stroke, like just your, you know, what you're able, just from your body position all the way down the line, it is incredibly noticeable. It's a huge difference. And a big part, whether it's swimming, biking, or running, what separates our work muscles, legs in the case of running and biking, with how our form is upper

body is all the core and if we can attach the two working parts of our bodies with better stability and better strength it's incredible how long that carries us and it avoids injury and then swimming of course we're working upper body but we want to keep things sort of smooth with the lower body with our hips falling or snaking through the water and if you have a strong core you can keep alignment as well and so it all starts from the middle before you do all the exercises of swim bike and run right but we often overlook that people without a lot of experience in in swimming believe or you know sort of mistakenly believe that you're

generating power from your arms and your shoulders and your lats. And to some extent you are, but it's really coming from the core, you know, and it's not just injury prevention and technique. It's that you're able to maintain your form when you start to fatigue. So you're, yeah, you're able to maintain your running form. You're able to generate power from your core when you start to fatigue. Longer, yeah, way longer. Yeah, you're able to maintain your running form. You're able to generate power from your core when you're climbing on a bike and certainly in the pool. Yeah. It's huge. And again, it's the anchor of everything we do.

It starts at the center. And if it's strong there, you can start working on actually improving your running form. A lot of people focus on their shoes or on their foot placement because their back hurts or so on. But then we take a closer look improving your running form a lot of people focus on their shoes or on their foot placement because their back hurts or so on but then we take a closer look and you notice they have no core and no stability coming from the core so the load of the impact of the ground let's say running 40 times your body weight is all being lost in the middle because nothing is stabilizing it

right i know but i hate doing it so much yeah it's the worst right and it's a lot of repeats where we are currently so it's a lot of repetition and you're like another set and another set and another set so so if somebody's listening to this and they're time crunched but they want maybe three or four or five core exercises that they can work into their routine what are at the top of your list well i really like those founders that we've been doing lately where if you look up a standing founder or kneeling founder on the on google or on the internet you'll find that pretty quickly but it aligns your entire body and it requires you to

maintain your core structure i like those rows that that we do from a sit-up perspective type where you're extending your legs and sort of rowing your arms at the same time while maintaining your core because, again, it keeps the whole chain activated. And movement while you're doing core is really important because you want to get all those support muscles and stabilizers going as well. So just sitting in one spot doing sit-ups, while that's good, you want to create more movement and rotation around that to, again, really create, whether it's from the four-pack to the six-pack to six-pack to the eight-pack. I mean, my daughter's a gymnast, and watching her do some of the core exercise, it's ridiculous. I couldn't imagine

right couldn't even come close to keeping up with her uh-huh yeah my experience is that you start really slow like i start with doing less than you advised because i want to nail the technique like my form has to be perfect that comes above everything else and if i'm doing it consistently i know that i'll build up quickly like, the strength comes quick when you're doing it consistently, but you got to make sure that your technique is dialed in and you're not just jerking yourself around just to say that you did that many reps. Uh, and if you're doing it properly, you don't need to do that much. If you haven't been doing it before and you're going to feel the hurt big time. I mean, some of those bridges that we do holding them for 30 seconds is the longest 30 seconds of the entire workout.

I know. I must be counting wrong. Something's wrong here. Yeah, it's crazy. And you sent me the workout, so I'm looking at it on my phone on Training Peaks and I'm at the gym. And I don't even know what these words mean, like Jane Fonda's and what are these crazy kettlebells.

There's weird terminology. So I see that and then I'm like, now i got to go to youtube and like watch a guy do this to figure out what i'm supposed to do so it's taking me like three times as long to do it because i'm trying to learn as i go that's how new to this i am like but it's so important i'm already seeing the results and it's an investment because we're going to do six to eight weeks of this phase and then we're going to have a platform we go off of from there where we'll use more kettlebells medicine balls we'll do our stretch cords and things like that to keep getting you stronger from the inside out and the important thing also and this is harder for the time crunched athlete but to then do the motions that you're focused on for your discipline,

for your sport afterwards on a tired body to focus on clean form, light running, for example, high cadence cycling with an easy gear, just to feel everything engaged and fatigued from the strength that you just did from the stability that you just did and notice, wow, there's my stomach muscles as part of my cycling form. Right. So these gym exercises, these core exercises, they never come after the swim, bike, run workout. They always go before. Always, always. And in an ideal world, you find another 15, 30 minutes after to swim, bike, or run, or row, or whatever your discipline is that you're getting ready for. I like this idea of kind of adhering to the circadian rhythms of your body and the seasons.

You know, there's a lot of wisdom in that, you know, nutritionally and just in terms of behavior habits. It's something that I think we've moved too far away from in our culture. Because you're right, you can't, there's no way you can maintain that level of focus and motivation year round. And the last thing you want is to come into July or August or whatever your big race is burned out. Well, it's also sustainability with regards to your life, family, your career, right? You can't continue to maintain this singular focus on one thing while the other stuff keeps sitting on the back burner. Or you keep pushing not negatively away, and I'm not saying that as if people are completely overlooking it, but you're trying to balance all three very carefully.

And sometimes things do take bigger priority. And this is the time of year to exhale and accept that and be have fun with it i tell a lot of athletes this is the time of year you cycle where you've passed roads before and you've been curious i wonder what's up that road or that you take your family to hike on some of the runs the far places that you've run to right in order to just sort of include and and exhale a little bit so that when the hard months come and the motivation is not there, but you really need to push through, you have a way to look back and go, you know what?

I gave back then. I backed off a bit. Now it's time to hunker down. I just had that experience the other day because when i go out for a trail run i have my four or five favorite ones that i like to go to because i know exactly what to expect i know where where they lead and how long it's going to take it's measurable therefore it's good training but there's so many other trails around me that i've never visited because i don't want to when i have a key workout i'm trying to nail i don't want to hit a trail I've never been on before and find out it ends like 200 meters into the run or something like that.

Like, I don't want to take that risk. So just the other day I went down pretty close to my house, this place called Paramount Ranch, all these trails down there. And it goes through this old Western town where they film TV shows. And I was like, I cannot believe I've never been here before. Like it's literally down the street, because I don't want to make that bargain. But this was like, this is a time to do it. It's an easy run. I'll just go and explore and have fun. It's a rewarding process at this time of year. Yeah. And in general, as the motivation gets lower, and things get harder, and the events are so far off, and we don't know what to focus on. Besides those short term goals that we said at the end of the month it's staying connected with

your body that you get to know yourself well enough that you can say you know what sure i fatigue quicker or i'm not as powerful but i'm not far off i'm healthy i'm connected to my body and once the warmer days come or once i have an event i I can start building a plan and focusing back on that. But for now, I'm staying connected. That's the important piece. One of the things that I butt up against or experience in the offseason is, and this is when I'm not working with you, is decision fatigue, right? Okay. There's no key race coming up. There's nothing specific that I'm training for. So for people who aren't working intimately with a coach, you know, what is your suggestion in

terms of how they approach these months, these weeks, when there isn't a lot of structure to avoid that pitfall of waking up, well, do I do this? Do I do that? Like that just doesn't work for me, you know? And then you're like, you're just walking around, like burning all this energy going, well, I could run, but if I do that, then I'm going to be late for this meeting. So maybe I'll do that tomorrow. And you spin this cycle that it's just so much easier when I open up training peaks and that workout is there. And it's like, okay, that's what I'm doing today. There's no debate about it.

The easy answer is always to say, well, work on your limiters at this time of year, right? But that requires even more motivation, right? Because you don't enjoy it as much. So if you don't feel like doing that or if you just don't want to motivate yourself currently to work on your limiters, at least stay with your strengths. Do the things you enjoy because that's important. You're doing this as a hobby. It's not a job.

So do it because you enjoy it. And then there's a lot of cross-training opportunities from skiing, so cross-country skiing, skate skiing, doing different events and trying that. You know, trail hiking even, right, with weight on and things like that, rucking. There's all kinds of different events and trying that, you know, trail hiking even, right, with weight on and things like that, rocking. There's all kinds of different events in the meantime that people can do that keeps them aerobically connected. What is your opinion on CrossFit? CrossFit, I love it, actually. A lot of people are always surprised when they hear me say that. And that is because a good six,

eight week cycle of CrossFit is incredibly impactful. I've never done it. Somebody's knocking at the door. Yeah. Should I go answer it? Hold on. See what's going on here. Hi. Do you want ice? I think we're good. Thank you. Do you want ice? I think we're good now. We're okay. Thank you. Never been asked for ice before.

No. Yeah. Well, it's because you weren't recording a podcast. Yeah, exactly. There was nothing to interrupt. Yeah, exactly. Right? That's interesting. So you're a fan and a supporter of CrossFit.

I've never done CrossFit before. Well, I think the format needs to be an eight-week cycle, six-week cycles as they build and progress you through a good, strong cycle. But then the challenge that I have with CrossFit, and a lot of them have gotten a lot better with this because they're aware of that, and that is then to phase off for three, four, five weeks so that your body can absorb the work and the stress it went through to get stronger. And then, you know, three, four weeks of maintenance, real lighter load, even going into some endurance stuff that we do, and then go back for another six, eight weeks.

Now there's memberships and the gyms aren't structured like that, that when you come in, we're going to start a six-week program for you. But there is plenty of knowledge and experience and great trainers out there who can set that up for you yeah i think it i think it um it's important that whoever's running the crossfit box that you go to knows what they're talking about and i think you also have to know yourself because it's it's easy to get caught up in the you know the enthusiasm of the crowd and the ever the support which is amazing and that's the biggest part there we were we are in a sport that is very alone right and so if you have an opportunity to motivate yourself with other athletes in a gym or in a box or with a

master swim program or anything where you can just be around other people and having fun and get to know people it's huge because we spend so many hours out there alone during the season this is the time of year to start building those friendships and those support groups to get you out there right or to the gym i think just start slow though oh yeah you don't want to get hurt yeah it's got to be pretty easy to get hurt in crossfit yeah there's usually a pt place very close to every crossfit gym and there's cards on the wall everywhere uh-huh yeah it's been a so what else about the off season do we need to keep in mind well you want to understand that also speaking of me here um when you get sick you have to listen to your body, right? You got to take your own medicine, your own advice. I just got done with being sick, and I'm surprised how shelled it left me.

I even jumped back into the pool, and I'm like, I was out of the pool for a week. How bad can it be? I would say about 1,500 yards in, I started losing my energy, and all of a sudden, I was swimming practically backwards. I had to get out of the swim practice the other day and go to the bathroom. When was the last time you did that? It's been years since I've actually done the excuse of,

I'm sure I need to go to the bathroom. I need to take a breather. So it really surprised me. It really knocked me down. But I also needed to recognize, you need to take a couple of days and really go easy and not expect to jump right back in because it could leave me either sick again or injured what is your uh sort of take on the experience that we had in sweden now that

some months have passed like looking back on that experience. Well, it was obviously amazing. I had a blast doing it with you. Now knowing it and understanding it better, and we said this from the very beginning, of course there's things that we would want to train differently and apply differently. So I think that's the main takeaway.

I would love to go back and really get our asses kicked. Right? Where we're really just snot flying out of our nose, going that hard the whole way. And I think we're totally capable of that and be fun. So from that perspective, but I'm not also that competitive about it anymore um a lot of people have asked me well do you want to go back do you want to is this the thing now and that's exactly the answer i don't want to give because sure you can go back every year and

try to improve and sort of do the iron man thing again but i've been saying i feel like i have a few more years left to really do some wacky adventures before i gotta start slowing down right or my body will start telling me to slow down and so attillo taught me there's so many adventures out there that we can still attack and have fun with and experience and become smarter, better, deeper athletes from that. I want to explore those now. You should. I mean, it would be fun to go back knowing what we learned and preparing a little bit

better than at least speaking for myself than I did last year. But it's not like, oh, I have to do that. I don't feel that. We're still not gonna win. Yeah, no, yeah, that's for sure, right? I mean, at the end of the day, so we're still participating. Of course, we wanna be respectable,

but again, there's so much adventure out there to be found and to experience and immerse ourselves into that it just opened a door of exciting new opportunities i think and this is just my personal opinion i think you need to do ultra mad yeah you got you got to do it and you only have i don't know i mean you could probably do it when you're 55 and win it but i think you've got a couple of years right now where you're in the position to walk into that race and do some damage. I mean, you, you, you could certainly win that race. I know it's a huge time commitment to prepare for something like that, but as somebody who's

done that race, and obviously you're the person who shepherded me through that, um, it's a really extraordinary, beautiful event. And I think you would love beautiful event and i think you would love it and i think you would crush it yeah well if you'll be my crew i'll crew for you yeah yeah there's no question about it i would crew for you it's one of those adventures that i have on the 2018 idea list i'm uh putting in for norseman which is next week the general entry um so that should be fun if i do get in go back to scandinavia and cold water cold weather but the interesting thing there it would fit on a progression even towards ultraman if the back end of next year becomes that yeah because i think you still the way it stands right now you still have to do another ultraman to go to the hawaii ultraman

yeah well they also have wild card entries. Oh, they do. They do. Okay. I wasn't sure if they still have that. Yeah. Yeah. What else is on that bucket list?

2018. There's a couple of super long ultra runs that I've been also introduced to from my athletes. So anything in the Alps, Italy, and things like that where three four day five day multi-stage ultra running events um that's starting to become interesting because again it just makes me rockies is that well that's a that's a team thing in the u.s but in europe you have a bunch of um there's an alps yeah Alps version. I've gotten into with a few athletes with Marathon de Saville now. And while the desert isn't sort of my thing, I like the heat.

I think there's other adventures that I would prefer multi-day. But it's also learning again the nutrition and the fueling for what you have to pack yourself and how you start working your body down to understanding exactly what it needs for so many hours a day and then the sleep and the recovery i mean diving into it with these athletes has been great it's such an adventure to be a part of have you trained athletes for mds before yeah you have once um about eight years ago and i was a rookie with it and he was too and he finished and he had a great experience but it's more now having some people who are competitive in it and it's going to be fun yeah that's a really cool event yeah someday maybe okay yeah i don't know we'll see here we go

now we're talking well i have a little adventure that's possibly on the horizon, but I'm not. The guy who I might be doing this with has sworn me to secrecy for the time being. But I'm inching closer towards a possible event in the new year that I'm pretty excited about. And since I sort of know what you're talking about, I think what's really interesting about it, again, it's a new learning experience. It puts you into that growth place where you will, again, have a huge leap forward into what your understanding of your body,

of your mind, and your environment is. And that'll be just, again, such a cool, cool adventure. Yeah. It's about as different from Otillo as it possibly could be. And I'm just going to leave it at that for right now. But I'll report back soon on whether it's going to happen or not. Yeah. That'll be a different coach's corner. Yes. Very, very different. Cool, man. Well, I think, you know, in thinking about how we enter into the winter months and stay fresh and stay engaged and excited um speaking from my own personal experience

as somebody who kind of got you know a little bit out of shape over the last couple years and then clawed my way back uh it's so much more important to be consistent than it is to put in the huge days. And as we go into these darker months to just remain, to remain engaged on some level so that you're doing something every day, or if not every day, most days so that you're connected to your fitness. And if that's just a half an hour or 15 minutes or 45 minutes, fitness. And if that's just a half an hour or 15 minutes or 45 minutes, that's fine because the consistent application of that will is much more important than, oh, I didn't do the super long run

or the this or the that, you know, the impressive workout that looks good on Strava. Yeah. And recognize 80% of you doing it as serious as the 100% of you is already really, really good at these times of the year. And don't be so hard on yourself, right? Sure, you don't want to slack off, but understand, well, there's an edge that I can take off. There's a place I can balance and feel really good, connected, not unfit, and still moving forward and set those short-term goals those are key sort of saying at the end of october i want to achieve this right at the end of november i would like to still achieve this and especially as we go into the holidays the hard thing there is there's so much distraction there's so many other things going on that make those goals a little bit

simpler but say by january 1 i want to ride 100 miles at this time of year. Something like that. Or do 100 push-ups in five minutes. Something. I think that's wise advice. What you don't want to do is be that guy or woman who wakes up on January 1st or January 2nd feeling like shit because you've just slacked off completely and let the whole thing go and then go, okay, what am I going to do now? Like you just woke up from some crazy, you know, food coma fever dream.

Start doing it. Start just laying those little bricks now. Yep. And even if you're not perfect, you're not looking for perfection through the holidays. You're looking to just remain somewhat connected, somewhat consistent. Because we can rebuild it. You don't want to be too hard on yourself. If you're in touch with it still.

Yeah, exactly. We can rebuild it. But if we're taking eight weeks off, it becomes challenging. What else do we need to know? Thanksgiving's creeping up. Yeah, no, I don't think, yeah, Ultraman's creeping up. That's right, yeah. I haven't even been paying attention. I don't think yeah ultraman's creeping up yeah that's right yeah i haven't even

been paying attention i don't even know he's racing i don't know i know that the field is up it's pretty impressive i saw it a couple weeks ago because i had an athlete pointed out to me but yeah this is again just stay healthy stay motivated take the edge off and be positive i think that's a good place to end it yeah for a brief this might be our shortest coach's corner yeah but it's good right to the point just a corner all right well will you come back soon yeah i'll do this again once we know i know what we're what we're preparing for we don't need to we probably will by then though yeah but continue with the strength continue working on little things that you know were niggles last year.

And again, we know you can run. We know you can cycle. We know you can swim. It's more about now working from the inside out. It's been really good to be back on the bike. I rode the other day, and I was like, oh, I can actually ride up this hill. You felt the strength right away, too. Yeah, I felt it right away, and it felt really good to be back on the bike and engaged with it because it had been so long i remember you forget how much fun it is

yeah so that's good i'm glad you enjoy it yeah right now i am cool awesome man uh if you're if you're digging on chris as always at aimp coach on uh on twitter and then AIMP coaching.com and the weekly word podcast on iTunes and all good stuff, man. How many athletes are you coaching right now? This is the time of year where you re-up with people. Yeah, but it's been pretty steady that I keep my stable of 50 athletes. That's what it's been for years now. Just right around there. Good deal, man. Awesome. All right. Until next time. Thank you. Peace, plants, training. All right. I hope you guys dug that. If you would like to enjoy a full video version, if you would like to actually experience visually this podcast, thanks to David Zammett, you can enjoy that on YouTube at youtube.com forward slash patrol. What are you guys doing for Thanksgiving? Do you know what

you're going to eat? Are you prepared? Can you get through it without gorging on the wrong foods? Come on. No excuses, people. I got you covered. This is the whole reason that we created the Plant Power Meal Planner. It's for this very purpose.

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I think it really over delivers, especially based on the price point. It's life-changing stuff. We got tons of great stuff for Thanksgiving in there. You can get everything you need to satisfy even the most finicky meat eater in your family. To find out more, go to meals.richroll.com or click on meal planner on the top menu at richroll.com. And when you're on my site, make sure you visit the episode page for this episode. Always visit the episode pages. We got tons of show notes with all sorts of links and resources to take your experience of the conversation beyond the earbuds. And we're really proud of the work that we put into those. So please check those out. If you would like to support this show and my work, share it with your friends and on social media, leave a review on iTunes, Apple Podcasts,

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two people on there. I think that's my fault for not sort of promoting it actively and making sure that everybody was aware of it. And so I'm learning. I'm going to be doing it again in probably about two weeks or so, and I'll let you guys know. If you would like to receive a free short weekly email from me, semi-weekly most weeks, I sent one out called Roll Call. It's just basically five or six cool things I came across over the course of the week. A couple of cool articles, a documentary, a product I'm enjoying. No spam, no affiliate links, totally free, just good stuff. It's a way for me to communicate with you guys more directly rather than just posting on social media and hoping that you guys see it. So really for

people that are interested in making sure that they're on top of the things that I'm interested in. And I'm really enjoying doing it, although I don't always get to it every week, but I'm trying to get better. In any event, thank you to everybody who helped put on the show today, Jason Camiello for audio engineering, production, interstitial music, and help with the show notes. Sean Patterson for all his graphic wizardry. David Zamet for his photo portraits and video work and theme music, as always, by the great Anna Lemma, who you can now hear in Jaden Smith's new album, Sire, which is really a great album if you're into hip hop.

It's really cool. I love that guy. All right. Thanks for the love, you guys. See you back here soon in a couple days. Until then, have a great Thanksgiving. Be grateful. Give love. Approach it from a perspective of service. What can you contribute? What can you give rather than what are you going to get out of it? And I think the more you can adopt that mindset, the more gratifying and the more fulfilling that experience will be.

And I'm saying this to remind myself, you guys. All right, be well. Talk to you soon. Peace, plants. Namaste. Thank you.