The Rich Roll Podcast - Optimizing Spring Training: Chris Hauth Returns

Episode Date: April 26, 2019

Making his latest appearance in our ongoing Coach’s Corner series is none other than Chris Hauth, one of the world’s most respected endurance and ultra-endurance coaches. A sub-9 hour Ironman, Chris (@AIMPCoach) is a former professional triathlete, Age Group Ironman World Champion, and 2-time Olympic Swimmer. 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 hosts the Weekly Word Podcast and 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. Whether you are an elite athlete or just starting out, Chris knows how to get the best out of athletes the right way. A long-time friend and mentor as much as a coach, I have been under Chris’ tutelage since 2008, during which time he deftly guided me through three Ultraman World Championships (’08, ’09 & ’11), EPIC5 in 2010 and the Ötillö Swimrun World Championships in 2017, an event we raced together as a team. 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 more of his wisdom with you today. As we put the cold winter months behind us, today's conversation focuses on balancing your fitness goals against life's demands as we welcome warmer days. As always, Chris drops knowledge applicable whether you are a professional athlete or a cubicle warrior just looking to improve the quality of your day to day.  Specific topics discussed include: * optimizing fitness as we transition from winter to spring; * scheduling training in balance with real-life pressures and expectations; * when to hold back & how to avoid doing too much; * experimenting with race nutrition during training; * tips to develop the nuances of swimming technique; and * finding joy in the training process For those in the northern hemisphere, Spring is officially here. Whether you've fallen off track or been on top of your game, it’s the perfect time to once again check-in with the coach. I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange. If you're new to the show, please check out Chris' previous RRP appearances in episodes 21, 256, 297, 30... Enjoy! Rich

You're going to have bad workouts, you're going to have bad weeks, you might even have a bad month or two. So accept that. Training should not be an additional stressor in your life, right? You do this to get away from stresses, to exhale, to de-stress and connect with yourself and self-care and go inside. So if training creates the stress, over time, you're going to avoid that stress, and then you're not working out. 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's it going? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. This is my podcast. Welcome or welcome back to the show where I dive deep. I go long and intimate with the best and the brightest across a wide spectrum of all manner of wellness related topics and themes, everything from mindfulness to nutrition, entrepreneurship, spirituality, and pretty much everything in between, including in the case of today's episode, tools and insights from the world of endurance and ultra endurance for high performance in both sport and life.

Are you ready, DK? I'm a little scared. This is a good episode for us to revisit DK goals because it's all about setting intention and working towards achieving something to improve our lives. So where are we at right now with you? Well, I'm going to see the knee doctor on Monday, but I was trying to get out of making a goal today, and Rich was like, that doesn't preclude you from changing your diet.

So, I mean, I'm ready to make a goal. Can we settle on 190 as a weight goal right here and now, given that we're nearing the end of April at this point. Yeah, let's do it. Let's put it on the board. All right. We're locking that one in. You're going to see the knee doctor. You got a wonky knee. So we don't want to get overly ambitious with some kind of running goal or fitness goal. But the one thing you can control is what ends up on your plate. This has been the battlefield for you for some time. And I think it's time to kind of put your money where your mouth is and see if we can't make some

changes that are going to set you on a better path. I'm ready to do it. All right, 190. Let me just ask you a question. Let's create a new hashtag, hashtag DK190. Let me just ask you a hypothetical question. Like, how many times do you think I should be able to eat at the 101 for breakfast a week? It depends on what you're eating there. Are you going to eat fried eggs and bacon?

I mean, I could eat like a poached egg. I realize this is your social outlet and that it's important to you. So there can be a way to work with that, but do it in a healthier way. Can't you eat like fruit and berries or something else like that? They have an oatmeal, poached eggs, oatmeal. Forget about the poached egg.

Just focus on the oatmeal and the berries and drinking lots of water. Can you do that? You can still hang there, see your friends. Yeah, I'll go to oatmeal and fruit and berries and water. All right, well, we can take that aspect of it offline and set you up with something that I think you can adhere to. But let's establish a time frame here. How long till 190?

Where are you at right now? 213. So 23 pounds. So how long do you think? Let's say we did four pounds a month. Then we should be done in six months. Let's say we give us an extra month. I think we can do it.

I think we can do it in four. Four months? Why not? Six pounds a month? Yeah. I guess we have the summer coming up. It depends on your level of commitment. I'm committed.

I mean, this is my, the part of the problem with the knee is it's atrophied, and I have extra weight I'm carrying that I don't need to carry. So losing the weight would obviously help me. All right. I'm going to set the trajectory at four months. Okay. It's totally doable.

We'll put a pin in the calendar to revisit this like once a month, see how you're doing, and keep you on track. So mid-August. Yeah. Wow. All right. We got a target. All right. You don't sound so excited. No, I am excited. I mean, I like goals. So I think this will help me look at it and break down each month and I'll be able to see how I'm doing. I got to lose

six pounds a month. Right. Totally doable. And we'll share all of this online. Hit up DK at hashtag DKGoals and hashtag DK190. Send him some encouragement, some tips, what's worked for you, what hasn't. And we're going to sort this out, man. It's about time. I'm ready to do it. I can't wait to be 190.

All right. To be continued. My guest today, making his latest in an ongoing series. First of all, I'm proud of to be 190. All right. To be continued. My guest today, making his latest in an ongoing series. First of all, I'm proud of you, man. Thank you for saying that. My guest is making his latest in an ongoing series of appearances on the show. I think it's his eighth time on the podcast. None other than two-time Olympian, former professional triathlete, Ironman champion, age group Ironman world champion, and one of the world's most respected endurance and ultra endurance coaches, my good friend, my coach, Chris Houth. He says Chris Houth, so I think I need to start saying – I've been calling him Chris Houth forever.

Chris Houth is his name. And if you're new to me or Chris, you can catch him in episode 21, episode 256, 297, 309, 313, 329, 377, and 415. Those are all of his appearances on the show. And we've got yet another great training endurance multi-sport deep dive for all you fitness freaks coming up in a couple of few, but first. or deep dive for all you fitness freaks coming up in a couple of few, but first. 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 that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment.

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recovery.com. Okay, Chris Hout. I'm saying it right this time, Chris. Chris Hout. I'm going to try to say it that way from now on out, but no promises. Chris, as always, drops a number of gems, and I think you'll find his wisdom applicable whether you're a professional athlete or a cubicle warrior, just looking to improve the quality of your day. So today we talk about how to best emerge from the winter months and embrace fitness as the climate warms. We talk about how to effectively schedule your training around real life

expectations because training shouldn't be an additional stressor in your life. It should enhance your life. And this is something I personally, DK, am contending with right now, juggling a super complicated and demanding professional and personal life while also trying to effectively train for this ultra-distance triathlon that Chris and I are going to do in Qatar in November. As a quick aside, we recorded this conversation before I had made that decision or that announcement to do this race, but that's neither here nor there. But today, for example, I was supposed to do a certain training session, but I wanted to get these scripts ready to record these intros, and I didn't get to it. So I'm hoping to get to it this afternoon. And sometimes that's just the way life goes and I have a choice. I can either get all anxious about it and beat myself up or I can just understand that this is part of the process and sort of acclimate to the reality of my busy life and try to find gratitude in the training sessions that I do get to do. So that's sort of the subject matter of today. We talk about when to hold back, avoiding that type A desire to do too much, which I certainly fall prey to.

We talk about nutrition, knowing what your stomach can handle way before an event and how to experiment during training. We talk about swimming, tips on drills, and the nuances of developing technique. So this is it, people. It's spring 2019. It's here. Whether you've already fallen off the track, DK, or been on top of your game, it is time once again to check in with the coach.

So please enjoy my conversation with the one and only Chris Houth on this year's spring edition of Coach's Corner. Good to see you. Yeah. You're wearing the same shirt you were wearing last time. I have a very limited wardrobe. Yes. We are now in mid...

I want you to imagine. Close your eyes and imagine. We are in mid-March now. We had a very successful live event. Although, because of some warp in the space-time continuum, we can't seem to summon the memory of that experience. But it did indeed happen. And we are convening to talk to you guys today about how to enter the spring season

fit, healthy, engaged, excited about your fitness athletic journey. Well, you made it through the winter, right? And you're starting to come out of the cave yeah and it's spring and you're excited that the work you put in is now starting to be able to be used outside right this thing called fresh air and your skin is actually touching sun versus being layered up and well careful though because March is a very tricky time of year for people that live particularly in the Northeast because you think because it's March that winter is over. But there's still a couple last gasps of that

to get thrown in your direction before those flowers bloom. So we don't want to get too much false hope here. That's true. But that's the classic scene that you see in late March in the Northeast. One day it's 65, 70, and everybody's out running without their shirts on through Central Park. And then two days later, there's a snowstorm. Oh, God bless them. Yeah.

Good for them. Yeah. So, yeah. Oh, God bless them. Yeah. Good for them, yeah. So, yeah, so we took your advice, Chris, and we got through those winter months staying engaged as consistent as we could

with releasing that pressure that we put on ourselves to be perfect. It's time to go outside. It's time to start thinking a little bit more precisely about that race that we've got our eye on or perhaps the one that we're just now summoning the courage to sign up for yeah and spring is on the horizon yeah here we are and now it's more about what did i do over the winter that now will translate to the outside right

and how do i reward myself with the hard work and the consistency that I put in and put forth an event that I'm excited about, that I'm a little bit fearful of, that will really challenge me. But then also it's gonna be fun. And I'm really happy on this end of the winter, in this case, of having done the work. And now I'm really excited to go do it. Like it's now on the horizon.

It's six, eight, 12 weeks away. And so that's powerful. Now we can feel it. Now we can sense where we have the ability to train for it. We don't know we can do it yet, right? But we know we've put in good time and that we're sort of gonna have that slingshot effect out of the winter and push us forward to do something that we haven't done before, right? Something scary, something exciting out there.

What are the mistakes that we want to avoid this time of year? Well, one is to bite off more than we can chew, right? We've made it through the hours of the winter, which are always limited. right we've made it through the hours of the winter which are always limited and now because it's the spring and the days are getting longer we think we'll have more hours magically available right the schedule will free up it doesn't work like that unfortunately as masters athletes so we want to be careful not to add too many more hours to our training that we think we'll be able to do and then that create a false reality. And then in a couple weeks, we're disappointed about what we just signed up for. So maybe it's a 50K instead of a 50 miler, right?

Maybe it's the next progression from a 50K to a 50 miler but not doing a 100 miler or a 100K. Maybe it's a 70.3 instead of an Ironman, right? Again, test the waters to see what you're capable of doing and gradually grow the schedule versus trying to all of a sudden jump into a 20 hour week where all winter you've gotten really good. Your family's gotten good. Your work's gotten good around this routine and schedule that you've created very diligently around 10 hours. We don't want to create any type of animosity in any respect, in any part of the three-legged stool, as I say,

where they suddenly say, well, oh, now the training's really beginning. We knew it. Here it comes, right? You don't want that. No. You want that gentle sort of, all right, you know what? I'm going to go out it's earlier yeah the gradual aspect of it is super important and i know that i've confronted this

in my own experience of of coming into the spring months um excited about the season ahead and feeling engaged with my fitness and having to resist the urge of going harder and going longer because it's a beautiful day out. And you've always been reeling me back and reeling me back against my impulse, which is like, I want to go. I want to go. And I think in retrospect, looking back on that, that has been crucial in ensuring that I don't get injured or I don't get burned out or overtrained. We together were so careful in my Ultraman training years of erring on the side of less to avoid injury, particularly with run volume. Like so careful in like being very incremental and diligent about not doing too much

running too soon. Yeah, it's important. Again, we want longevity, right? And we want you to be in this for a while. And in order to build that volume, that foundation ever so gradually, the only way that works is if you're actually able to do it healthy, right? And that keeps you motivated. That keeps you excited. It keeps the confidence growing for your event. And again, you're out there doing it. So the more you're out there doing it, you can have your own sensations. Avoiding injury is key.

But also, as I was saying, avoiding creating tension around your training. Many of us have been in situations, I definitely have been in situations where I'm out there wondering what I should be doing at work right now or wondering, actually, I should have been home right now for my family like this. And then we're compromised.

We're not gonna have as good of a training session because we're not as focused and diligent about it. We might even cut it short. And we're still not there at work and family. So now everything is done only 50% as well as we could have. So a gradual build creates those boundaries and it creates that patience and that tolerance by everything in your world around you in order to well in a healthy sustainable way maybe grow the volume or just do it better stronger faster smarter in the limited hours that you do have yeah it requires we've talked about this before but it requires a different

kind of discipline the discipline of restraint right which sometimes at least i know for myself can be harder than the discipline of going hard. You know, like I don't have a problem getting up early and getting after it. Like I'm not challenged in my motivation with respect to that. But I am challenged in holding back when I feel good or when I have the free time on this particular day, but it's not in my best interest, physical preparation wise to, you know, let that horse out of the barn. Yeah, you I mean, you touched on two things that one is. Absolutely, there are days in the schedule where I tell all my athletes, if you have more time today, today's a good day for that, right?

You have the week leading up, this is an endurance week, we're over, we're adding extra volume, low intensity all this week to get extra hours in. So there's times for that there's other times we absolutely we need to show restraint. But the first part that you said is, I feel good today, I want to go harder. That's very, most often actually a bad idea because there's an intent and a purpose to that workout and blowing it out just because you feel good now compromises many workouts down the road. I know, but it feels so good. It feels so good. It's a temporary hit. Yeah. And then you pay the price down the road. Whereas we have maybe a workout in three, four days where it's way more important to do that intensity,

to do that harder effort, to do that higher speed. And by blowing it out today because it felt so good is never the ideal answer. You wanna see how that fits into the bigger picture. Well, I'm lucky enough to have somebody like you to hold me back or to hold me to a certain kind of plan. Most people don't have the luxury of working with a coach. So for the people that are listening who have a goal, a fitness goal, a race they're preparing for, some kind of challenge, who are out there trying to figure it out on their own, how can you counsel

them to best navigate these treacherous waters of trying to figure out what's best on a particular day to do for much of that i have them i always suggest write down your intentions for the week ahead one long bike one short bike one high intensity bike let's say one long run one short run one intensity run, so that you have a skeleton for the week of what you want to accomplish. And then a lot of times, how you schedule that depends on a your own life schedule, let's say maybe the weather, but also how you lead into the week of well, I need that everybody knows for intensity, I can't be completely shelled and exhausted. So once you put that intention into it, and you've done that a few weeks in a row, or a few times where you've seen it done successfully,

then you get better at sort of putting that skeleton together for yourself. And as we've talked about before, with regards to a journal, you know, then, okay okay last time after an intense workout i needed two days so that i actually enjoyed the workout again that long run or that long ride i mean there's so many athletes that i come across in training logs where they wonder why they were cranky and didn't enjoy their long ride because they shuffled the week around and put the high intensity the day before a long ride. And then they're just miserable, right? And now you're out there for four or five hours on a bike and you're already tired the first few pedal strokes.

It just sets you up for not enjoying the training as much as you can, as well as it should be. Because some of the best athletes in the world, they love their training the way it's structured because they know their body's responding to each one of them and they feel good doing it. What are the, are there like resources that you can point people towards who are attempting to get ready for a certain kind of race? Like, I'm just thinking, I'm trying to live in the mind of somebody who's kind of new to all of this, like doesn't even really necessarily know what periodization is or even how to,

like why one long ride a week and not two, you know, like just the very basics of how to approach, whether it's an obstacle course race or a 5K or, you know, the 29- 29 029 or something brand new where do people where can people just learn the fundamentals about how to approach these sorts of challenges a lot of it can be found online right and a lot of it in publications magazines even books are out there you know my first 5kk, my first Olympic distance triathlon, my first trail run, things like that. And then it becomes important to truly listen to your body to

see how your body responded to that super simple plan. And the other thing there is, even with the most simple plan, you want to see how your body responds to it, how it feels to it, and not hold yourself to the exact well, on Thursday, it says to do this, right? It's okay, like, see how your body and your schedule and your life responds to it, and just continue to grow from there. So let's say it has four hours in the first week of training, right? 430 minute workouts with a couple of stretching exercises and so forth well you don't have to do that exactly the way they say it just take the basic ideas and grow with it and eventually you might get to a point where you're actually adhering 100 to it to a to a shorter week or something like that but again keep yourself from judging yourself too harshly on how you're progressing in your own exercise,

in your own training. It's yours and it's your own special time. So use that to say, this is my intention for today. This is what I'm looking to get done and I will do my best to get it done. Yeah, I think that's sound advice. I mean, one of the things that I had to learn in my swimming career,

when you're young, you progress very rapidly, right? And like every week you can go faster in the pool than you could the week before. And you have a similar experience when as a master athlete, you get involved in a new sport like triathlon or long distance running, something you've never done before. You can see pretty quick results, but at a certain point, that curve is going to taper a little bit. And you have to get used to the fact that you're not going to be you can't like go hard every day, you're not going to get a PR every workout. And mentally, I think that can be a challenge for somebody who's new to this thinking like, well,

I'm not getting better or trying to understand that every workout has a purpose. And those purposes are not always going to be, um, they're not, it's not about like going as fast as you can or breaking the ceiling on your last performance. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a puzzle, right? I mean, some puzzle pieces are nice. The outside pieces, they really fit nicely and you can see what the puzzle is right? I mean, some puzzle pieces are nice. They're the outside pieces. They really fit nicely and you can see what the puzzle is going to look like, right? Based off the outside edges. But then these individual puzzle pieces that you put into this thousand piece puzzle, they might not mean anything, but they're a critical component to what the puzzle will look

like. The image will be when it's done. and that's a lot how workouts work right those puzzle pieces they have to fit right there otherwise it's not going to fit into the picture that you're going to end up with in the end in our first races in our first few months in doing any type of athletic endeavor are those edge pieces they fit nice and you can see the outline of what it's going to look like and you feel really good having completed that outside edge of a puzzle but then the hard work begins all the individual pieces that sort of you start the grind of those little pieces that have to fit together that make no sense and i think also uh when you're new and you don't know anything you're going to be more likely to want to adhere to whatever program you got off the internet or in some book because you don't know anything different. really gauge how you feel and how this is working for yourself, you can slowly begin to take more and more ownership of that trajectory

so you can kind of go off script from time to time and experience what it's like to push the edge here, hold back here, and gauge how your body responds to that. And you'll know your body well enough that you know I'm overdoing it today, but I know the next two, three days I'm going to pay for it and I'll go easier. And I know enough about my body. I've learned from it. I know how to listen to it.

And it works out well like this, right? I mean, a lot of athletes train by the weather, right? Because let's say they're outside athletes. They don't have treadmills or a gym membership. So today it's going to rain. Well, I'm going to run today. I'm going to swim because i don't want to be out on the bike in the rain or it's sunny tomorrow so i'm going to do my long ride tomorrow it actually doesn't fit that well but they'll modify well enough through the week in order to get it done right and i tell a lot of

my athletes the first step is to get the week done how it's written, right? That's ideal in a perfect world. But then beyond that, get the totals of the week done, right? Shuffle around, make sure the order is not too much quality in a row. But if you can get the 16 hours done like that versus how I wrote it, that's fine as long as we keep the principles of not too much quality in a row and then we start pulling out pieces if they can't even make that right where it's like all right let's take that easy run out of there and just make it a complete rest day let's take that easy swim out of there make it a complete rest day or sleep in that morning so that you're just getting

the four or five critical workouts in for that week because again again, at the end of the day, it's about, all right, we're successfully still moving forward, getting the key concepts in. And then next week, when life frees up a little bit, and there's less stress on us, then we'll get in it all. We'll get it all in again, right? I say so often training should not be an additional stressor in your life, right? You do this to get away from stresses, to exhale, to de-stress and connect with yourself and self-care and go inside. So if training creates the stress, you're not gonna have that outcome.

And over time, you're gonna avoid that stress and then you're not working out. Oh, that explains how I've navigated this past fall and winter. I mean, we were joking at the outset about, you know, nice to see you again, because we're taping back-to-back episodes. It's actually November 27th, the same day we taped the last Coach's Corner. And yeah, no, I wanted to take this opportunity to kind of talk about what this experience has been like for me and to talk about kind of what you're getting ready for this year.

Because I made a conscious decision to not race this past year, to focus on other areas of my life that I felt needed my full attention or more of my attention, I should say, because to train intensely towards a specific fitness or race goal would, I knew well enough, would create more stress than I could manage at the time, given my other goals in my life. And so I just said, I'm not going to put that pressure on myself. I've stayed engaged with my fitness, but it certainly hasn't been structured or formalized in any way. And I'm happy with that decision because I've made a lot of progress in other areas of my life that I wanted to be focused on. But I'm also not, you know, I like it when I feel super fit. I like it when I'm ready to go.

And I miss that and I'm anxious to get back to that. I'm putting a book in front of him right now. That is sort of where your expectations need to maybe be adjusted you're rich right like you can you don't have to win these events or be at the top or represent as your old self to still take part in organized events did i give you the impression that i was delusional i just i just know you're an athlete through and through. And for you to put challenges out there, you have been successful in the past with getting it done. And I know you you add extra pressure of with your life schedule and so forth. But it doesn't have to be

quite on switch off switch. And you're off switch doesn't mean you're not doing anything. It means you're still running and cycling occasionally, and course swimming but where you work progressively towards something there's a healthy medium yeah between right this is what this is what has eluded me my entire life and spills over into every facet of of how i live which is trying to find a way to approach these things in a more balanced way where I can, where I let go of that. Cause I have this thing where it's like, I don't want to show up at a race unless I'm at 110%. And that's just, yeah, it's ego. It's, it's a whole number of things. And that's my, that's the bigger mountain to climb than to train super hard for a race. That's the one you want to lean into that's going

to make you uncomfortable it will it's super uncomfortable to show up like oh i only trained i'm at 60 percent and that's fine you know how many masters athletes do that i would most of them the vast majority exactly and so i think there's an opportunity there for something where you might want to explore that a little bit i know this is what this is what yeah this is this is what i wanted to talk to you about yeah and that's where it becomes interesting too where it's like you know what as i've said in the past helping you navigate through that schedule we've tested it a little bit a few times and also for otillo we definitely did test it but again we had a vision of how well we wanted to do we wanted to represent well and so forth we had talked about that but i think there's a space there where we

can have you fit enough that you feel really good about who you are competing at that given event and i said to you earlier i would never put you into an environment where it's the super measured, like everybody like robots competing the event. That's not who you are. But something that you feel challenged by, that you respect, but also that you feel really fit and good about going into,

not your best, right? And you know you in the past would have done more but you go you know what this is who i am now this is the fittest i can be given my life my age my circumstances my schedule in the now yeah right and that is the one i want to explore i know it's like i just get uncomfortable even talking about it because it's like i am the on off switch guy whether it's doing the podcast or writing a book or being a parent like i like i go all in on one thing everything gets blocked out and it's not a good no they say recipe there's a lot on the periphery that can be really really exciting and fun and beneficial because that's what they say about in that book drive,

Daniel Pink, I think it is. He talks about when we reward and focus motivationally on one thing, we miss a lot of the opportunities that come along with it on the periphery. And this is the same thing for you where you might be surprised how good you are when you're asked to apply all your fitness knowledge, strategy, intelligence to do the event

versus just knowing you've trained, out-trained the others, right? And I think your knowledge and your experience and doing this for many many years i think you'd be surprised how much better you'd be than what you think you you would not be right at the event as well as how much you would enjoy it because without any pressure without any type of like i can only be who i am here at this starting line right and that'd be fun that is yeah it's weird how i interpret that as a greater challenge than to go all in on preparing for a race because

that i know how to do that's our younger version of ourselves yeah right we but that's what we it's a younger version but it's, it's a mentality thing. Right. And you as an Olympian, like if I say to you, Chris, you're going to go to this race, but you're only allowed to train, you know, eight, eight hours a week. Yeah. You know, I've done a few trail runs like that. Right. Falling into the anonymity of the field is there's something very liberating about that. Right right and completely let go

you can completely let go and you feel your body just sort of exhaling and absorbing the day and it was it was the same thing with atillo for us right i had an amazing experience at atillo when we had to walk a lot well i forced you forced you to let go of expectations. But we still, I experienced that day totally different than if we had been with blinders on the whole time, right? And I've had quite a few adventures like that where it's like, had I just tried to grind it out from the very beginning, I would have met the people I've met, right?

29-0-29, I did that right in utah one of the best experiences about that i should describe what it is yeah it's basically they rent out a resort for a weekend and the challenge by um the 29029 group it's you should say it's jesse itzler who's been on the podcast a couple times this is his company and he's got a team and they rent out these mountains and exactly curate these amazing snow basin in this and so you hike up the mountain from the base to the top and they take the gondola down and you save your legs like that it's brilliant and you get to ascend to whatever mountain top you designate all the way up to Everest. Which is 29029.

Exactly. And so I did that event in August of this past year. And sure, could I have done all 13 ascents? I think it was 13 or 16 ascents. Yes. But I chose not to because I wanted to get to meet the people going up the mountain every single time. They weren't famous athletes.

They weren't, you know, they hadn't trained for it. They put themselves completely into a vulnerable place and tried one and then two and then four or seven or ten ascents. or seven or 10 a sense. And getting to meet those people out there and taking my time and having nice conversations with them was incredibly meaningful to me. And I still get emails from people thanking me and that it was a great time because we got to connect as humans

as we were doing this endurance event. That's cool. I'm so bummed I wasn't able to go. Yeah. I really would have liked to havemed i wasn't able to go yeah i really would have liked to have gone i definitely want to go to i think that he's got two of them coming up in 2019 vermont and utah and what's really cool about it is because you take that gondola down you save your legs you save your joints you know quads don't hurt the next day nothing the part that well for you because i know a lot of people who went and thought, well, you get to take the gondola down.

It's like, how hard can it be? It's hard on the calves and on your glutes because it's so steep at times that you're hunched over, sort of hiking up, pushing on your knees and legs to get up. But it's different than the pounding of downhill versus the stress of uphill. But it's a very well- run event um completely supported a lot of motivation really cool unique things that they do about it and they create like a village at the base right you stay in tents or something like that in these great yurts that are super comfortable sort of pretty plush it's glamping at its best and um yeah and then meals and all that and every time you come down the gondola you stamp your name on a brand with a branding iron your name or the um the logo of the event

next to your name of each time a scent you've made and so when you get to the top you get a special jersey um for the final ascent and everybody cheers you on it's really well run it's it's a fun event, yeah. And did he do panels and things like that? Were you part of that? Yeah, yeah. Well, we were part of a nutrition panel, mindset panel, training panel and all that, yeah.

That's cool. So that was a lot of fun. But again, it was one of those events where you can come in, not have a lot of training and really exceed your expectations on what you're capable of because you're with people who want to just see what they're capable of. You're not alone. You're not vulnerable. You're not embarrassed. You can just go do. There's people who did one. There's people who ran 16 of them or 13 of them. And so there's the whole spectrum of athletes,

but everybody gets cheered and definitely unique. Was Colin O'Brady at that one? No. Oh, he wasn't. I know he did one of them. Probably the Vermont one, the first one. Snowmass. Snowmass.

So he is, as we speak, traipsing across Antarctica unassisted. Talk about a curated adventure. Yeah. I mean, he doesn't stop. I mean, the guy broke the Explorer's Grand Slam world record and then went into some other crazy speed record thing and then went straight to Antarctica. It's unbelievable. Of course, that's an extreme example, but this is what I like to get across to everybody.

Perhaps the most extreme, but yeah. But how everybody has a new normal waiting for them, right? You might be off the couch doing your first 5K. You've done the 5K, and now you say, okay, I can do that. The new normal becomes, let me go for a 10K. Let me go for a half marathon. You look back and go, 5K, right? So your new normal just continues to shift.

Now, of course, like you were talking about earlier, we all reach plateaus where the improvements aren't that dramatic. But our new normal is constantly moving. Our new normal with regards to nutrition with regards to the mindset with regards to distances with regards to training hours, there's new normals happening all the time. Meditation, we go about it the time we spend meditating three minutes used to be impossible now you can do 20 minutes right or an hour or just wander off so that's part of what i really like to tell athletes and people that i talk to on a daily basis is create your own new normal, right? And that's the beauty of training, that you're creating a new normal. And that new normal then becomes applicable in

all these other areas of your life, because it expands your concept, your perception of what you're capable of. And once you crack that door open, in a physical sense um in an athletic sense you become more amenable to the idea that you can break barriers in your professional life that you can have better relationships it's it's just it it's incredible the applicability of what you learn not just skill wise but just mindset wise and how that can improve your life bleeds into all areas of our life and that confidence and the ability to motivate yourself to go do something that you had an intention to do is phenomenal right it's truly what makes us human beings right There's not a lot of other beings

on this planet that set forth to do something and then methodically go about doing it, right? It's like they're either instinctually doing it or they learn it in a different way, but not like we do as humans. And so again, it's a unique trait that I would want everybody to learn about and take advantage of what is the challenge what is something that scares me and how can I go about learning internally and externally physically and mentally as I'm on that journey towards that adventure what are you excited about personally this year in terms of your own what have you signed up to do what are you getting ready for well i have it's november 27th on december 1st i find out if i got into western states oh wow a ticket out there i have a very very low you've never done that before right

i've always wanted to do it but i have not stuck with my entries every year and so i reset the clock so i only have a two percent chance to get in whereas if you continue to put in every year then you're it's a monocle style lottery it goes up right so very low chance but as a backup on the same exact weekend i set up that i'll do alaska man which is an iron distance race but more more extreme location, 48 degree water. You start at three 30 in the morning, longest day of the year, January, you know, longest weekend day of the year. Um, and you swim 2.4 miles in that water and then you bike. It's a little bit over 112.

It's 113 miles uphill to a mountain on the other side of the sewer bay. And then, yeah, then you climb, then you run up a mountain for 27 miles yes similar to norseman yeah exactly it's part of the series and just this year they introduced that norseman is now the world champion qualifier these are all qualifiers for norseman being the world championships because world championships of what extreme crazy triathlons? Yeah, so they now have 10 or 11 of them. There's a lot of them. They have Canada man, they have Alaska man,

they have Hawaii man. Kelp man, I think. Yeah, there's Celtic man, all kinds of Swiss man, Hungaro man. I mean, I have athletes sending me examples of X-Tri's from all around the world. I'm like, I'm good. I'm staying in the same time zone in Alaska. i just remember watching a video of norseman was it tim to boom yeah one that year and i just it was the most epic thing yeah super hard yeah tim tim is um he made that

race quite famous yeah because of because that was when he was winning hawaii ironmans and so we went off and did that or just right after it and uh and he won that and it created this huge curiosity around again adventurous ironman so you know i've done 38 40 i don't know how many more ironmans in my life um and so i'm ready to try a different type of iron man so and you you this past weekend was ultra man did you follow that at all you were you tried to get in periphery yeah would you be i'll put in again you'll put in again yeah hopefully if she sees my name on there enough this guy would you do one of the qualifier ultraramans though like i can't ultraman canada i i would say no and this is why because um again like we talk about life's busy schedule i'm not

going to set myself up for success with work and family by training for two of these in a row right i just know myself and i know the tax it'll put on my direct community, work, life, family, so forth, that for me to do that would be asking too much. And I also know my body. Quite honestly, I've been doing this for a long time. And to go through two of those training cycles in a matter of a year would be a lot. I mean, I could defer to the following year. Let's say you do an Ultraman in 2019 and it automatically year would be a lot. I mean, I could defer to the following year. Let's say you do an Ultraman in 2019 and it automatically qualifies you for 2020.

But that means I'm doing two years of this type of training. And there's other adventures I want to do. You're so well-suited to that race though. Yeah. You know, I would really love to see you uncork it on that course. I know, but I'm going to be 50 next year that's all right man i'm not getting any younger none of us are and those guys are getting faster yeah the guy won this year is 33 i think but i think like miro krieger was up there again he still ran under seven

hours i think like 55 or something like that by now crazy um crazy those guys are good though at that distance with because they've done it a few times like miro especially goes every year yeah so that's he knows the course he knows how he needs to train for it it's sort of like me for iron man right last year i was able to just go do whistler out of my training and i didn't i wasn't in the fittest place of my life but again i've done enough of them where i can navigate my what my energy for 10 hours well enough that i'll know where i am at the finish yeah all right should we talk about nutrition a little bit sure what is your general guidance on on in life or for the training

well for the training training specific people are like what do i eat what do i eat when i ride my i mean i get this question all the time what do i eat when i ride my bike what do i what do you bring with you when you go running yeah that kind of stuff well biking and running are going to be two different things right because of the stress on the stomach biking you're in a sort of smoother situation um without the rattling and the bouncing and the jumping around um so i often say cliff bars or something like that, something solid. I'm a big believer in solids as much as I can. On training rides, I'll actually make little sandwiches even and things like that fruit and little sandwiches because my body will be able to

process that and the intensity isn't that high that I need to have anything sugary or too glucose based, right? That's just going to go glycogen based right into my blood. For shorter intervals and cycling classes and 90 minutes or less, I rarely take any food. So what do I recommend? I recommend that athletes create a stomach and a habit that they know that they're suited to take on all kinds of different foods because something will always go wrong right so if you think you're great every weekend after an ironman i get a race report from somebody that says i thought i was fine on cliff bars or power bars but after seven seven of them, I couldn't get another one down or after four of them or whatever. And so I want my athletes to have as much range as possible from

it. I've had the shot, the gels, I've had the chews, I've had the bars, I've had the potato chips, I've had the Oreo cookies. I've tried it all and I've narrowed it down to a plate of food that I know I can bring to any race. That's what weekends are for, to test and train all the possible foods so that you have a good list of items that you know you're safe with, that you can find anywhere in the world

or bring anywhere in the world and have a successful nutrition plan. I have this thing where i've eaten so many bars over the years that just thinking about eating a bar right now like makes me like i i've gone more and more to just real food yeah because it's it's like i can't handle the sugar or i don't know what it is but like i have this pavlovian kind of reaction when you start talking about like that performance nutrition stuff but that's a great example of what happens because you push you went over the edge thinking i must eat more cliff bars for your events whether it was for epic five or

for ultraman that's why i want athletes to when they're done with it, to stop it. Because you're going to be more successful with fueling over a long period of time if you eat up until when you can of that type of food and then move on to another option. Because we want calories in you. You need to fuel, right? On average, I tell people 200-ish calories, 150 to 200 calories an hour for women and 200 to 250 calories an hour for men during cycling and running events right so that adds up over many hours right that's a cliff bar an hour right there um but again you want to have a good knowledge of a variety of foods that work for you and that way you can sort of open that special needs bag that has options in it. You can get to a race at an ultra run where they have anything from potato

chips to Smarties to M&Ms to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all around there, right? So that you can take in food that you need. And I agree with you, all the sugars, no matter how much somebody has a sweet tooth or they say they'll be fine, at some point your body just stops. Your taste buds say no more. I was great on the Ironman and then I got to mile 18 and I couldn't stop barfing.

I had 50 gels over the last 12 hours. It's like... Yeah, but then there's winners and there's athletes out there and they're not just saying that for their sponsors. They truly do 25 gels, 30 gels. They're able to. And so nutrition is the ultimate N plus one, right? That where you are the only sample.

If you know what works for you and you've tested in a variety of temperatures and conditions and intensities that you know your palate and how it's going to work for many hours, 10 to 30 hours, then stick with that. You can't test enough. I mean, you can't overstate how important it is to constantly be experimenting in your training with this. Even the very, very best, the most elite of athletes, endurance athletes out there run into problems when they, you know, miscalculate it because of whatever external reason and have issues. So the more, the better in terms of that experimentation. But I think also it's worth noting, I'm interested in what you think about this. You know, I know that when I go out on the trails around here, I see so many people who I

know they're not, they're out who I know they're going out for 45 minutes or something like that. And they've got their vest and they're just loaded to the gills with all kinds of bottles. And it's like, you don't need all that stuff. Somebody's marketed to you to convince you that you can't leave your house without literally enough nutrition to survive for a weekend. Well, in some cases, I'm not saying this is all the cases. In some cases, they might be testing weight and running with the gear that they want to do.

Because I'll have my athletes do that too, but not with the food. I'll have them put water bottles in there for weight, right? Because for long endurance events, you got to get used to that self-supported weight. But yeah, there is also this industry brain feeding, right? Where they've told us you need to eat, eat, eat, eat, and drink, drink, drink, drink, and electrolytes, electrolytes, electrolytes, and salt, salt, salt. And people overdo that dramatically. You're right. Killian told me he goes out for seven or eight hours without anything. That makes my head explode as a coach. It just makes me, because others will hear this.

Yeah, I know. And then think that that's okay. And you can, he has trained his body to go without food. I had a coach way back in the day. trained his body to go without food. I had a coach way back in the day. He asked me to go out for two, three hour bike rides, not eating at all.

He wanted to build up the tolerance that you can go on less. Luckily, I got away from that theory because that is completely not true. Our body needs fuel to operate. And even at the lower intensities where you're burning primarily fats you technically have enough storage on your body for about a thousand days of exercise without food but you can't utilize that and your intensity is way slower than that um so no it don't go out for

seven hour runs without food right and the other interesting thing that you said is that the palate also changes over the years. So what you might have liked five years ago and needed changes as you become fitter and stronger and do different distances or even the same distance. What worked for me five years ago in an Ironman, I no longer eat that. I have to completely turn mine upside down because it was too much. Then I went to too little. Then I had to up it again. You're constantly testing, like you said. Let's talk about swimming.

Yeah. So this might get granular for people that aren't interested in this but if you're listening and you're a triathlete or you're interested in a swim run or becoming a master swimmer i think it is worth spending a few minutes talking about this because the the most common thing that that you hear i know I hear, I'm sure you do, is people who are interested in exploring this world of multi-sport, but they didn't grow up swimming. They don't really know how to swim. They may know how to swim in general, but have never put themselves in any kind of competitive swim environment. And it's very intimidating.

environment and it's very intimidating and i think it scares a lot of people away from a sport that they might enjoy if they could wrap their head around a way of you know learning how to get comfortable in the water i love master swimming programs from that aspect because you get some coaching and there's a social aspect of it and there's a structure to it. There's many choices usually during the week to get in the pool. And it's not like these are all former NCAA swimmers at every master's workout. It's intimidating though. It's scary for somebody who's never done anything like that before. But so is doing anything else, right? And having an embracing, warm community

that all started as beginners at some point, maybe not the NCAA guys at the far end of the pool who don't even remember when they learned how to swim, but in every master's program I've ever come across, there's always a few swimmers who you can see, they just started a couple of months ago. And you'll swim with them and they'll be open to having you in their lane and growing from there as a swimmer and you get instruction with it too yeah it takes a little bit

of of courage though to kind of walk through that door i mean i remember when i first was thinking like maybe i want to do a triathlon and i was terrified to just walk in the door of Helen's Bikes, which is like kind of a Tony High End bike shop here in Los Angeles. And I'm like, I swam at Stanford. Like, I'm an athlete, and I was like, I didn't know the questions to ask. And, like, you know, those guys in there, they're pro cyclists or whatever. It's very intimidating. All the sports like that are intimidating when you walk into most of those shops.

Probably trail running the least because they're sort of pretty chill anyway. Wish not a lot of pot. Yeah. But triathlon and cycling and swimming for sure. And the aspect with swimming is that, I mean, you have a evolutionary response to drowning right and a fear of that so it makes sense and that's why i would i always recommend um a master's program where you can stand and take your time and not be intimidated because of what they're doing but more because you're comfortable just being there and that's's the social aspect, right? Where people just are having fun.

Yeah, I think beyond that though, it's important to make sure that you're getting instruction. Like a lot of master's coaches, they're creating a workout, but sometimes there isn't a lot of individual attention. So I think if this does intimidate you or you feel like you really wanna progress

to find somebody who can give you some one-on-one. Because there's nothing like having somebody just look at your stroke and give you a couple things to work on. And then a couple weeks later give you a couple more things to work on. Because you really can only master one or two tweaks at a time. And generally somebody who doesn't have a background in this will have 20 things wrong with what they're doing. And you've got to really take it step by step and be patient with it. I think the biggest mistake that most inexperienced swimmers and triathletes make is they're so worried about their conditioning and their fitness that they just want to get in the water and swim back and forth for a certain amount of time to feel like

they got a workout in they look at their watch to make sure that they get in yeah exactly there's no structure to the workout there's no real intentionality behind it and at the same time they're not working on their fundamentals or their stroke technique in such a way that that they would be better off just scrapping that whole program and starting from zero and spending you know three months on nothing but drills to perfect their stroke because they're fighting the water they're inefficient they're creating all stroke because they're fighting the water. They're inefficient. They're creating all this resistance. They're expending all this energy they don't need to because they don't understand how to make the water work for them.

Yeah, there's levers in that water for us, yeah, to make us work less and swim faster. There's also a few programs out there. I really like the Swim Smooth program. I never heard of that. With regards to learning how to swim, they have animation. And so a lot of it that you can swim on your own. And then you have certified Swim Smooth coaches around the country,

the world in this case, who you then can schedule video sessions with and one-on-one time with. And what's really cool about those Swim Smooth certified coaches, that's a lot to say is that they're often they run a master's program on the side anyway that you could join or they'll know where you can find a program to work with but again like you were saying seeing yourself swim and then working with animation and then getting one-on-one instruction combine all three of those you're going to learn a lot quicker than just on your own.

Yeah, and it's different from running or riding a bike. It really is technique-driven. It's much more like learning how to swing a golf club than it is how to ride a bike. I compare swimming the way we swim in the pool a lot to track running. The times are shorter shorter just like that 40 60 seconds and most of the time for a track athlete at the track is drills warming up stretching doing a few short bursts and then being done and focused 100 on technique and swimming is

similar warm-up a variety of drills, a main set with some bursts and efforts, and then warm down, focused on technique all the time. And so you wouldn't go to a track if you want to be a 400 meter runner and just run 400 meters over and over and over again at a slow speed. You want to have variability and drills

and bounding and strength and explosiveness and drills all built into that workout and similar in swimming. And if you're not coming from a swimming background and you're interested in triathlon, you have to understand that you don't need to go fast and you're not going to be competitive anyway because you didn't grow up with the sport so you need to forget about all of that and understand that the goal or the priority should be getting out of the water feeling good learning how to swim efficiently enough so that you are moving forward in the water with some degree of you know aptitude and efficiency but that you're getting out excited about the next stage yeah you're not going to be in the front pack you know forget about all of that kind of stuff which i feel most most don't have that expectation but they do have an expectation that it would go

better or come up there's a different strategy but you would have the amount of time you would have to put into it doesn't make sense and ultimately it doesn't matter because the swim the way triathlon works with the exception of ultra man the swim is almost irrelevant yeah it's a means to an end i call swimming the first part of a triathlon it's a longer warm-up it's a means to an end it's designed to get you from the starting gun to t1 and nothing else right and so if you can get through the swim efficiently using the least amount of energy but still in the time that you wanted to in order to then have a more significant bike and run that's the goal right and a lot of swim coaches and this is my biggest issue i don't have a lot of swim coaches, and this is my biggest issue. I don't have a lot of issues with swim coaches,

but my biggest issue with swim coaches is that they teach triathletes how to be swimmers versus triathlon swimmers or open water swimmers. And there are clear differences between the two, right? One is more shorter bursts in speed for hundreds and 200s and 400 meters, let's say. That's a total of six minutes, maybe. Whereas if you're getting ready for 30, 40, 50, an hour and a half worth of swimming, it's a different workout, right? I don't need you to perfect your butterfly backstroke and brushstroke.

I don't need you to have good streamline off the wall and two dolphin kicks off the wall. I don't need your flip turns to be great if you're going to do open water swimming. I need you to be able to get through that efficiently, like you said, in order to have an effective bike and run. And to be able to maintain your equanimity and your composure in a stressful situation where there's people kicking you in the head and there's a lot of chaos to be calm and relaxed. Yep. And to understand to sight you know you have to be able to raise your head and like see where you're going see where you're going you're often dragged along by a lot of other swimmers um when you're in the middle of the pack so you sort of know that part okay

um you just sort of follow all the minnows but uh the the part of being comfortable when you when you swim is also important because wetsuits can feel incredibly restricting and a lot of athletes get a great athletes get panic attacks anxiety um and almost have to stop the swim because they have shortness of breath and the whole thing and what i always say there understanding the dynamics of a wetsuit is very very important because a dry wetsuit the liner hasn't gotten wet yet to absorb the moisture so that it properly stretches and sticks to your skin and can become a second skin when's dry, it's just a tight plastic suit constricting your breathing around your neck

and everywhere on your body, and it's pressure on your body. And we have a response to that, same as when we hit the water, everything seizes in general. It's a response of our way back of our great ancestors that can make the swim in the beginning very very panicky i still am not used to wetsuits that cover the shoulder like unless it's freezing

and we're in sweden like i would rather have a sleeveless like that restriction around the shoulders like i just cannot acclimate to that you know i've i've i've never swum without them because i love that extra buoyancy on my arms yeah um what do you think is the future of of iron man you know when you look at these races there's so many of them now they sell out a year ahead of time thousands and thousands of people and and you see these clips on the internet, or if you track this stuff, where they're just massive packs of people. It looks like a giant drafting peloton. I mean, what is going on? The sport has definitely changed, and it's become an everyman sport. The uniqueness of an Ironman and a 70.3 has definitely shifted. It's still quite unique, but I think Ironman in general knows the customers it's getting, a certain type of person.

And when I say the customer, I'm talking repeat customers, ones that do it for many years. And I think Ironman and their parent company is completely happy and fine with that. They're not willing to spend the dollars or investments in order to grow that. They have a very religious following in that space. And everybody else is sort of on the periphery. They do it once or twice, and then they either go on to other adventures or they move on to something else, right? And so the future, I think, is those people who are already in it and love it and are religious about it,

they're gonna continue to accept those price increases and that drafting type of racing because that is what it is. It's their sport. But I think that is now going to be challenged with future generations of young athletes who now have a lot of options absolutely in terms of what they want to specialize in and what they want to explore and experience whereas the people that are kind of from our age bracket and above it was iron iron, iron man was it. That was the ultra endurance.

There was a cultish sort of allegiance to this and, and, you know, a fervor around these races that created a lifestyle for a lot of people, which isn't great, you know, amazing thing. But I, you know, if you're a 24 year old aspiring endurance athlete or, you know, a young, even younger, now you look you can canvas this landscape and there's so many options so what is that adventure how does that bode for iron man 20 years from now in my personal opinion i don't think it bodes well because again there's so many other adventures out there and choices as well as being associated in a certain group in that way is also what the younger generation doesn't like.

They'd rather be associated with a variety of endeavors and the versatility of doing other endurance events. Right. So like being an Ironman athlete is kind of like having a job in the madman era and and now the freelance economy gig economy young people they're they're going to be doing all different kinds of things exactly they'll be able to do an ironman and an ultra run and an adventure race and you know it's like why would we put a full year of training into something that we already know the outcome to? Right? That's the hardest part for a lot of endurance athletes, I can already close my eyes and see myself crossing that finish line of an Ironman. I've

done it before. And they're all the same. Right? So therefore, I would rather apply my time, So therefore, I would rather apply my time, my dollars, and all those weekends to something that is unfamiliar to me, to that is more creative or more scary or more dangerous or more Instagram worthy. Or again, like we just got to be real. I mean, we're going to do a lot of these adventures for the coolness factor. And that coolness factor, in my opinion, will run out with an Ironman after a while. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see. Yeah. I think, well, I've already seen the numbers be quite flat in their growth. Actually, not negative, really, but sort of flat.

But, you know, they came, the 70.3 series is what really grew them so quickly because it became way more approachable less training hours so in your experience of competing at a very high level over many decades and your experience working with so many athletes over the years what can you distill from all of that in terms of the mindset principles or the habits or practices that you've employed and that the successful athletes that you've worked with have employed to great benefit like are there can you can you canonize like the things that you've worked with have employed to great benefit? Like, are there, can you, can you canonize like the things that you've seen work for yourself and the athletes that you work with that seem to come up time and time again? I would say the longevity aspect of it is what

works best over time for the athletes and of course, longevity and over time but what i mean by that is that the athletes that have the most success and can last the longest in the sport because a lot of this is outlasting too is the ones that truly enjoy the training the journey the self-exploration nature outdoors daily self-care and so forth those that are just focused on an outcome on a placing on a time they do not last long in the ultra endurance world right and i've noticed it for myself but a lot of the athletes that i coach if they have certain numbers or times in mind for their whether it's an iron man or other events that are measured and they don't achieve it that frustration just grows and those that love the activity the fitness

the health benefits the joy of doing it the outdoors all the adventure with it those seem to progress naturally and they're, they're not outcome driven, they're process driven. And, you know, we hear that in all kinds of facets of life, not being outcome driven, being more process driven. And it works really, really well in ultra endurance athletics, because, again, there's too much that can happen on that day. And in that event, whether it's many days or one day that will affect your outcome but if you already enjoyed the process the journey so call it um then you're already ahead of the game and you're winning so what do you do if you're working with an athlete who's very outcome

driven to try to nudge them or cajole them into being more process driven? Well, the important piece there is to understand that they choose to do this every day, right? This back off a little bit and realize and look at yourself and realize this is your choice every day. Now, I understand if your choice is to be outcome driven, but you can only do your best, is to be outcome driven but you can only do your best right if you compare constantly to others you're stuck in this quagmire of constantly having to do better and better and better and you will out that will out put that will push out the joy and your best because you will never achieve that right and so the more I can work with them realizing that family and career and this whole

choice of doing this it's their hobby not their career it's not their identity that then i can gradually move them into more enjoying the process and quite honestly i've lost a lot of clients because of this over the years right because they we don't see eye to eye on this and not every workout is going to fit perfectly in line to the outcome in four months from now. Like you're gonna have bad workouts, you're gonna have bad weeks, you might even have a bad month or two,

but we're doing the work and we feel good about it and we're enjoying it. And this is what I would be doing today anyway. So accept that. And you're always learning as well, right? If you're in the process, you're learning about your nutrition, you're learning about your mindset, you're growing, you're, you're already a better person than you were yesterday, right? What was that? Um,

that quote, you know, you never step in the same river twice, because the rivers changed, and you've changed, right? It's always a different river. And so that's what training in the process is, you are never going to be the same person as you were yesterday, because there's something you learned in that workout about yourself, about your fitness, about your mind, about your nutrition, I can spin that into 20 different angles of why you're a better version. And so what do you think is, is the hardest lesson that you've had to learn in this evolution from, you know, super elite, Olympic, German, precision-driven, you know, fitness machine into, you know, master's athlete and coach? Like, what was the hardest piece of advice that you had to digest for yourself? That the path isn't linear right for me and you know from a swimming background everything seemed to fit orderly into a linear progression if i do this work these yards this

training sure not every single lap but over the weeks and months the outcome will come no matter what well it's such a controlled environment. I mean, the world of ultras, ultra running versus swimming is, you know, yeah, I guess they're both, you know, individual sports that have some level of endurance, but a pool is, the pool is always the same. Same length. Yeah.

No wind. The time standards. It's like you couldn't control an environment more you know completely than that sport and so yeah it must tap into that precision mindset of like i do these things this is the time i need to do yeah and i used to coach like that with regards to saying if you put in the work the results will come i guarantee it and i had to accept that that doesn't always work. We're all human beings and life gets in the way. But if you, it depends on your time window though, right? Your time window, sure. I mean, we could, we could always play that super long window,

but I also want athletes to understand that, you know, because it doesn't line up like that, you might be, you might have different goals in 18 months from now and different interests and different priorities. And so hopefully you're enjoying the training and healthy lifestyle versus just must complete race in X amount of time. Otherwise, I'm not good. Of course, you're good. You have four kids. You work 60 hours a week and then you're fitting in this training. That's amazing.

There's not a lot of people that are doing that. But you're comparing yourself to the guy who's a lifeguard and has no kids and works out all day. Right? And so we're stuck in this world of constantly comparing. Well, these guys do half iron man in under five hours if i don't do it in under five hours i'm not really good well sure if you look at it black and white on paper like that yeah but they don't work like you do or have family commitments like you do or you know volunteer at the church like you do or you know it's a zillion things you can pick at and so was there a specific

moment in your uh athletic career where you had to meet your maker with that well i mean i saw it with uh ironman triathlon quite honestly i mean i didn't win my age group in hawaii for many years despite knowing that i should be able to, but there's too many factors that come into play and too many outcomes that I'm not in control of, or that little difference was the difference between second, third and fourth and fifth and sixth. I had every place in the time over 10 years, I hit them all. But yeah, it wasn't that easy to just say, I've put in the work i've seen the numbers i know i can hold this wattage i know i can run this pace it's not going to give me that

result right actually i had to let go and just sort of train truly for the fun of it and the joy of it in order to win my age group in hawaii right that's the lesson right when you finally were compelled to let go is when you had the success that had eluded you and i relied on others i mean i had friends who said no this year we're going to train differently let's go do adventures let's go do cool rides and cool different places and create this training that was completely different that when all the years of structure in may i must be doing this and then therefore in august i'll feel like this and then therefore in hawaii no we did it completely differently and we trained differently and that was what i needed right how many uh athletes from

your generation of professional triathlon iron man are still getting after it. Not a lot. Yeah. Not a lot. There's still, I mean, there's still some, you know, the Ken Gloss of the world still doing Hawaii. But, yeah, there's, I mean, again, I'm not sure what other adventures they've stepped into, but many of them are still active in some way.

Yeah, but not racing or looking for the next adventure the way I am. Right. All right, we got to wrap this up, but let's leave all the athletes and aspiring athletes that are listening and watching with a couple takeaways to fuel the spring months to come. Yeah, well, I mean, we came out of the winter

with some strength work and hopefully we're on a stronger platform. But because of those hours and those reduced hours over the winter, hopefully we're healthy and fresh and ready to go. But one thing I would tie in is set up these training adventures that I just talked about.

Look at your calendar and see maybe a Memorial Day weekend or July 4th weekend and create something exciting or a mini event that you yourself or your friends or your family and you do to create a training weekend. Enjoy the fitness that you've built and been consistent about over the last months, weeks, whatever it is, and enjoy it with your community, right? That's something I try to tell my athletes all the time, create your own adventure, even if you're on a path to something that you've already signed up for. That was a really cool weekend, or I took a trail that I

never take, and I ran down it for an extra hour and a half, and I saw corners of my park that i never see right or run to a location last year i was getting ready for uh to low and other events and i ran 40 miles in one direction to a town that i usually cycle through stayed there overnight great restaurants cool little places and then ran back the next day i mean i know that's a little extreme yeah but what i'm saying back to back 40 yeah so create the adventure right like run 10k or bike somewhere or you know bike somewhere swim the next day bike the third day back or you know so that's what i i don't like to have too many structured aspects to my training i I like to create mini adventures all the time. And I think if more people did that and their community and understanding their immediate

environment better, they'll enjoy the training in a completely different process again. Yeah. That was one of the things that you encouraged me to do when I was training for Ultraman is to, you know, when, when that long bike or that long run, you know, a distance that I'd never done before came up, like to make it, like create a route that would be exciting and interesting, that would be a point to point. So, A, you know, I can't bag out, but also to make it like an adventure in and of itself. And I remember, I mean, it was transformative. to make it like an adventure in and of itself.

And I remember, I mean, it was transformative. I'd never run such a great distance, and I had that 40-mile, I think it was a 40-mile run that you put on the schedule. And so I decided to run from Venice to Point Dume and back, like a long PCH, which is like not the best advice in terms of like a road to run on. But it made it like super epic to like run along the beach. Like, cause you,

I could wrap my, cause you can see point to, you know, it was like, and I, that, that was like, that changed my life,

you know, to think like, wow, I never would have thought I've been able to do that rather than running in circles or, you know, something like that. I tell a lot of athletes on long bike rides to ride to a lunch spot, stop there for literally

an hour, learn what that feels like, and then ride home. Like four hours one way, sit, hydrate, fuel, enjoy yourself, get lethargic, and then re-engage to ride home. And it's an adventure. You know, pick a point on a map and explore. You create, the coolest part about endurance athletics is that you create fitness that you can apply on any type of adventure.

You're with your kids camping, cool. Do something around that, right? Where you hike in or you carry an extra load or you're off getting stuff or you run to the store to get them a milkshake or something, right? And they're the, whoa, you did what? Or that you're with friends at a high school reunion and they want to do something cool and you have the fitness to actually just jump in, right? That's what I talk

about endurance fitness, that you have the ability to take on adventures that come up and just go do it. That's all around fitness. and that's truly taking it to not just structured events but like cool tidbits yeah that is process not outcome exactly it is the journey not the destination right it is it is and i know it's cliche these days but for understanding that for athletic outcomes is quite important because you will have a liberating sort of freeing experience with it cool all right my friend as always great to talk to you awesome thanks for dropping the wisdom oh yeah all the athletes out there come back and talk to me anytime yeah let's do more live events. Let's do more stuff, man.

I love talking about this. And as all my athletes and listeners know, it's just I sit there on my own podcast and talk for an hour and a half and I have to stop myself. I know. Continue. Like I said last time,

I don't know how you do that, man. The weekly word, everybody check it out. If you want to go super down the rabbit hole and get really granular on these concepts that that chris knows so well specific to endurance multi-sport training fitness lifestyle all of that check it out uh at aimp coach on twitter aimpcoaching.com. Sign up for his newsletter. He will send you every month. Tasty tidbits.

December 1, January 1. I don't know if I'll make January 1. That's a tough one. And good luck at Alaska, man. Thank you. We'll get you out there. We'll get you out there. We're going to figure something out.

All right? Cool, man. All right, peace. Good stuff, right? Hope you guys enjoyed that. We're going to figure something out. Yes. All right? Cool, man. All right. Peace. Good stuff, right? Hope you guys enjoyed that. I really do love that guy. I honestly would not be here without his guidance and friendship and really appreciate him sharing his message with you guys today. To learn more about Chris, check out the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com.

Share your thoughts about this conversation with Chris directly at AIMPcoach on Twitter. And you can also visit his website at AIMPcoaching.com. Sign up for his newsletter. And don't forget, he's got a podcast too, The Weekly Word. You can also find me on that show in his recent 100th episode. If you are struggling with your diet, DK, I'm looking at you. If you are truly, honestly, and finally desiring of mastering your plate once and for all, but feel like, hey, I don't have that much skill in the kitchen. I'm not a chef.

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