The Rich Roll Podcast - Training Versus Exercise: Chris Hauth On The Athlete Mindset

Episode Date: July 5, 2018

Today I am once again joined by 2-time Olympian Chris Hauth for another edition of Coach’s Corner – a spin on my typical podcast format where I go deep and get granular on the physical, mental and emotional aspects of high performance for both sport and life. A sub-9 hour Ironman, Chris (@AIMPCoach) is an Age Group Ironman World Champion, a former 2-time Olympic Swimmer, and one of the world’s most respected endurance coaches. In 2006, Chris won the Ironman Coeur D’Alene and went on to be the first American amateur & 4th overall American at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. When he’s not training and racing, Chris 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. This is a conversation and audience Q&A that explores what it means to adopt the athlete mindset. It's about the differences between intentional training versus simply exercising. And it's about the key practices that — when performed consistently — most influence success in both sport and life. But most of all, this is a discourse about why anyone can be an athlete — a state of mind and action that has nothing to with elite status or genetic gifts and everything to do with your relationship with yourself and how you navigate the world at large. I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange. For the visually inclined, you can watch our entire conversation on YouTube here: bit.ly/coachscorner377 Peace + Plants, Rich

Anybody can be an athlete. An athlete to me is a mindset. It's how I'm going to prepare for the workout. It's how I'm going to execute the workout. How I'm going to recover from a workout. That could be for your first 5k or that could be for the Olympics. What makes you an athlete is how you prepare for it and think about it and get through it. Not because you're some sort of elite status or you have a certain physical stature or something like that. Anybody can be an athlete. That's Chris Hout. And this is another edition of Coach's Corner on the Rich Roll Podcast.

The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome or welcome back to the show, the podcast, where I dive deep with the world's best and brightest across a wide spectrum of wellness-related topics and themes. Everything from mindfulness to nutrition, entrepreneurship to spirituality, and pretty much everything in between, including, in the case of today's episode, tools and insights from the world of endurance for both high performance in sport and life. My guest today, making his latest in an ongoing series of appearances on the show, is none other than two-time Olympian, former professional triathlete, Ironman champion, and age group Ironman world champion, and one of the world's most respected endurance and ultra endurance

coaches, who also happens to be my coach, Chris Health. And we've got a great show in store for you today. 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, an 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. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices.

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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 recovery.com. Okay, this episode. So, this is Chris's first appearance on the show since our Otolo Swimrun World Championship recap last year, as well as Chris's first visit to the studio. We filmed this. It's available on YouTube. And this is a discussion about many things. It's about balancing training for performance with training for life. We cover a wide variety of topics and subjects. We answer a number of listener questions. And Chris,

as always, drops a number of gems that I think you will find applicable to your experience, to your journey, whether you are a professional athlete or a cubicle warrior just looking to improve the quality of your day-to-day. And I think I'm just going to leave it at that. So, please enjoy this edition of Coach's Corner with the great Chris Howarth. Chris Howarth back in the house for another edition of Coach's Corner with the great Chris Houth. Chris Houth, back in the house for another edition of Coach's Corner. Yeah, we've gotten a lot of good feedback from it. There's a lot of demand. These episodes are super popular,

so it's good to reprise this version of the podcast, man. Good to see you, my friend. Yeah, good to see you. I'm finally up at the house. I know, all the years that we've worked together and done everything you've never, you haven't visited before. I think maybe there's probably some people that don't, that think we live in the same city, but we don't. No, no. And I'm always down in Santa Monica when I come visit because I see a few other clients as well. And so

you've always come down there. Right. So usually, I think every podcast we've done has been in a hotel room. Actually. I think that's true, right? They've all been in the Georgian. And after Otillo, we did it, yeah, in a cramped room sitting on the bed. Yeah.

So now we have this functional studio. It's a good excuse to get you up there. No, actually we did it at the house in Tahoe once. Oh, that's right. Yeah. But technically. It was kind of like a hotel though, right. No, actually we did it at the house in Tahoe once. Oh, that's right. Yeah. But technically. It was kind of like a hotel though, right? Yeah, exactly.

I forgot about that. I still got to get Caroline on the show. Yeah. She's cool. So before we launch into it, tell me how you're doing, man. What's going on? I'm doing great.

It's been a busy year. I've signed up for a variety of events and just sort of want to see what the body can do this year. So you're planning on returning to the, oh, you're doing Ironman first, right? Ironman first. So I haven't done that in a couple of years either. I did 100K run a couple of weeks ago,

sort of a 10 hour thing. How did that go? Went well. I want to be careful this year because as many ultra endurance athletes know, it's want to be careful this year because as many ultra endurance athletes know, it's going to be a long year if I get into Ultraman and that's a big if. Right. It's not that big of an if. Well, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'm holding the line on that. You'll be towing the line this year. Okay, good, good. And I'll be crewing. But that, yes, you will be. Yes.

That's November. And so if I'm too fit or doing too much now or taxing the body too much now, I'm worried and I've from past history of knowing that I can't maintain that until November. So I wanted to be real smart during that first trail race of the season and just go out there and keep steady energy for what turned out to be 11 hours, but that's fine. Right.

Then you got an Ironman coming up, so you're back on the bike. Yeah. Really in a real way for the first time in a long time. Yeah, and I lost a lot of fitness. I mean, last year I didn't do any real cycling. We got ready for Toulouse. I did a half Ironman in there, but I mean, you can sort of fake your way through two, two and a half hours of biking,

but not through five, six hours of biking. And then Otillo, you're cheating on me with a new partner this year. I checked with you. Yeah, no, it was cool. I gave you permission. Yes, you did. And this polyamorous relationship.

Exactly. And then, yeah, and then it would be going to the big island. Yeah, that's cool. Is Jonas doing Otillo again this year? That I don't know. That I did not see. But he's doing Ultraman. But he's doing Ultraman, yeah.

It's going to be interesting. It'll be fun. And you know he'll be at Otillo, even if he's not taking part. Oh, of course. There'll be some trash talking. Well, he did it this past year with his wife, right? So I'm sure, I think he's done it every year, hasn't he? I'd be surprised that he doesn't do it this year.

But remember, he did say to us last year at the dinner after, he's like, I'm done. I need a break. I was too delirious. I don't remember. I barely remember that conversation. But he'll be there and he'll wanna rub it in a little bit.

Yeah. Well, on the subject of Ultraman, and we were talking before the podcast with respect to the volcano right now, I mean, that's going down on a significant part of the day two bike course. I've ridden through that area. I know that area.

I believe lava has flowed over the red road, which is where I crashed my bike. It's the one part of the race where the crew vehicles cannot follow you because it's so pristine and they want to preserve it that way. So, you know, it's insane what's going on there this year. No indication that the eruptions

are going to stop anytime soon. And yet by all accounts, Ultraman is still planning on going forward at this point. So they're clearly going to have to reconfigure the course. Yeah. And I was saying to you before the podcast that that's sort of intriguing too, because it's going to create this new course and new dynamics and, you know, maybe different strategies at different parts of the course, parts of the three days. Yeah, without a doubt.

I mean, the course really dictates how you attack and plan. But I think they'll keep the distances exactly the same. It's easy to do that in my mind on the island to get us back to Javi on day two, despite the riding up the volcano, a different volcano on day one. Yeah, because there's only really that one main road

to go around that side of the island. So it's not like you can go around it some other way. They're gonna have to backtrack and figure out a different route that remains on the Western side of the island, I would think. But didn't they, they had to redo the course. One of the years that Gordo did it, it was a different course.

Yeah, different washed out or something like that, right? Yeah, so it's not the first time they've had to do that, but it's going to be interesting. They know what they're doing. Yeah, cool. Well, I put it out on, both of us put it out on social media the other day that we were going to get together. And what we wanted to do was answer

some listener questions. So we put it out on Twitter and Facebook. We got a ton of questions. Chris and I made some notes. And we're going to go through to the best of our ability a few of them. I mean, there were some consistent themes that kind of emerged from that. So they're going to be more kind of like topic-specific than like super specific questions. But before we do that, I thought I would do something a little bit different, which is read this post that you sent to me the other day called meaning. Can I do that? Oh yeah. I didn't, I didn't know. Well, you said it, first of all, you sent it to me in an Evernote note, but you should put this, you should publish this. Why don't you put this on your blog?

Because it's, these are thoughts that are streaming through my head lately. And I trust you in a lot of ways with regards to having perspective with all this. And sharing it with you, I thought, would give me some good feedback if it's worthwhile. So clearly. Cool. All right. Well, read it. It's kind of long, so I don't know. It'll take me five minutes to read it. But I think it's worth reading because it's super good, man.

I think this is great stuff. So it's called Meaning and it goes like this. "'I feel as though there are so many out there "'looking for meaning, not in a deeper spiritual way, "'but instead that they are missing something, "'something fulfilling, "'something that sets their wires straight. "'I think that is why ultra endurance

"'and endurance world of adventures, events and expeditions has gained so much appeal of late. I believe it satisfies these needs, this sense of purpose, sense of living to our potential, this self-realization that there is more to us than sleeping, eating and working slash career. Of course, there is time for family and in more rare cases, unfortunately,

for community and church and more. But one thing is missing in all of this, the self, the time for self, the time for self-health, the time for spending time with thoughts, reflection, elevated heart rate, muscular activity, and most importantly, fresh air, nature. Endurance events allow for this and more, a connection with nature, with the environment, with its beauty, its ability to revive us. We are hardwired for nature, to be outside, to live connected with our environment, to feel it, to play and struggle in it, to be challenged by it and therefore challenge ourselves. to be challenged by it and therefore challenge ourselves. This sense of adventure, challenge, struggle,

and realization is what pulls people to becoming endurance athletes, to discover their potential. At first, maybe not a huge step, but seeing what we are capable of and growing from there to a new potential and all the while connecting to our truest, rawest inner self, how we are hardwired as animals to nature, to the outdoors, to a sense of feeling alive in it via activity.

Everything is active around us in nature. And of course, we as humans are part of this nature, part of this growth and vibrant balance. And as the athlete continues to grow to new challenges, which then adds some fear and curiosity and uncertainty to it, which again brings us back to our true raw self, that human living with the outdoors, surviving outdoors, and feeling most alive when we are truly challenged physically and mentally via nature and our endeavors in it, nothing can replace that. and our endeavors in it. Nothing can replace that as it is our truest raw self. It's buried deep down there,

but the more athletes connect with it, the more they realize how much that dormant self was in them and they want to unlock and unleash more, it makes them better, more energetic, healthier, happier, more creative, more efficient, more connected and therefore caring. The stewardship of our environment and nature begins with loving ourself in it and feeling this connection to it.

How can one relate to the environment and its destruction if one is foreign when in it? But when we have felt how we are truly part of it, that is a deeply connected and wired part of us. We begin to unlock this hard wiring and allow it to fire more and more in order to feel alive and joyful and happy and motivated in our days.

Not only to get out and spend time in it again, but revitalized for work and family and community and more because our own tank of self-care is full and we are connected in seeing and feeling our potential, physically and emotionally. We need the fresh air for all of that to fire. As I heard the other day, in order to love others, we need to love ourselves.

We can't give more love than we are able to give ourself. So knowing that we have this emptiness and missing component in our lives makes living generously and giving very hard. We are missing something. That huge piece is our hardwired self for outdoor adventure, physical activity. And with that comes curiosity with what we could be capable of, awakening the endurance athlete within, the one that is curious if they can achieve that goal. And once seeing that, growing to a new level of appreciation

of that better, healthier, more confident, beautiful, vibrant, energetic self. That glows outward because on the inside, the fire of that missing component has been lit. The challenge is we feel this imbalance. We just can't identify what it is. We have become so disconnected with our potential that we don't know how to identify what it is. We have become so disconnected with our potential that we don't know how to explain what it is.

But most, once outside in nature, training with a healthy fear towards an event on the outer edge of their current capability, start to understand. I was reading the other day about how we no longer have these rites of passage that young men and women used to go on out in nature, surviving on our own, living in the world of our environment, off the land for days. To really feel

it, sleep in it, awaken it, live off of it, and immerse ourselves in it. We no longer have this, and it might be leaving a curious hole in our soul that is missing. Why is it we are so curious and mystified by the outdoor life, adventures, raw ability in nature, when we see those pictures or hear the stories, that it tugs at us, that it leaves us daydreaming? Because we are drawn to it, it is who we are, how we are hardwired from thousands of years of living in nature, in balance with it, surviving in it, being challenged by it, being overwhelmed by it, feeling alive on the ocean or in the woods, in the mountains or the desert, it all has its effect on

us. We all think back to the beautiful moments outdoors alive. Have we been sterilized to our fake lighting, fake transportation, fake shelters, fake space we call our property. We have ignored this fundamental part of us for too long. Where is our danger, our use of all our senses or unease, our unease? Where are we truly challenged in body, mind, and soul? Not at work, not at home, but in play, in the outdoors or anything close to it. Your senses come alive ever so gradually. All the components and cells of your body start awakening and firing because that is where we are originally from. Land, sea, air.

Coming back from this dose, it fires all our senses. No treadmill or gym can replace this. There, time passes slowly, laboriously. In nature, time passes quickly because we get lost in ourselves, in our thoughts, in mind, in spirit, in listening to our body and soul. It's all happening there. How do you think we feel after a marathon or 50K in the woods, mountains, or beautiful terrain? How do you think we feel after a day on the oceans or lake while rowing, sailing, swimming, fully powering ourselves across terrain,

mountain biking through hills and meadows across streams? Repeat any of these actions for a few days in a row and our sense of self changes. Our priorities shift. Our soul exhales and relaxes to what it knows is an integral part of it. Nature. Challenge.

Raw beauty and immersive inputs all around us. We all have an impulse to be more. An impetus. We often don't know why or where it came from, but it is there. Adversity creates morality. It shows our human side, vulnerability, and therefore, empathy. That's beautiful, man. Thank you.

Thank you. That's poetry. That's different hearing it. Yeah. Someone read it. It's very powerful. Yeah, it's great, man. That's the first time I've like read something

on the podcast and went off on a monologue, but I was moved by it. I'm touched by that. And I thought it was worth reading. So tell me more. Well, it's just, I've come across so many athletes over the last two, three years that have different adventures planned in their lives and how they communicated to me and the excitement they explain it with is less about getting a placing or a result or qualifying for something or hitting a certain time. It's more about finding out who they are, achieving a desired outcome. A lot of times I've been talking less about goals for people and more desired outcomes

because it keeps it flowing. It keeps it moving. And it shows the growth. And a lot of times the athletes that come to me, they realize they didn't know what it was that was tugging at them, but something they're more curious about. And I believe it's this piece. It's finding out our self potential, what we can be. And like, for example, the other day,

I'm listening to the podcast with you and Michael, you guys were talking about optimization and self-realization and that growth, right? And I think in many cases, people don't know what that is tugging at them yet to optimize, to grow, but there's this part that's been missing. And we're all hardwired to be outside, alive, immersed. And like I was writing, when we're out there, you notice it. When you're cycling, 20, 30, 40 minutes in, you start to notice cars around you without hearing them or seeing them. You just get, your senses are all alive. When you're in water for a while, swimming, open water, or even in a pool, things change in your body as well as your mind. We're meant to be out there doing these things. And that's what I love,

this curiosity. People are realizing, I want to find out what I'm capable of, what's out there, what's more in me, and grow that. Right. Yeah, I think you've completely nailed it. And we were also talking before the podcast about how more and more of your athletes are now embarking on adventures of their own self-styling or bizarre things that you've never coached anyone for. It used to just be a marathon, an Ironman, an Olympic triathlon or something like that. And now you're seeing much more diversity and creativity in this space. And I think it's exactly what you're talking about.

And I also think it's that yearning for more. Like that person who maybe doesn't understand self-realization or doesn't really have their finger on the pulse of what exactly is tugging them, their first impulse might be like, they have that yearning. They don't know exactly what quite what it is. So I'll sign up for a race. I'll do a 10K. Like I want to be in the top of my age group, but that's not really what it's about. It's that piece that's missing inside of them to connect with that part of who we are, who we've always been. That's the pull, right? And once you've kind of explored some of those

races and then you go, yeah, that was cool. And I did learn a lot about myself, but like, how can I get more out there? How can I get more in touch with myself? And that comes through, you know, these, these adventures that are much more about Nate. And like, that was one thing that was beautiful about Otillo. Like, yeah, it's a race, but it was about the surroundings and this incredible landscape that I never would have visited there.

So when it starts to become more about that, like your blinders come off and your kind of consciousness expands. And I think once you've had a taste of that, that's really where the allure comes from. And you think less about the results. Right. And you think more about being out there.

But this is an evolution for you as well as an athlete, as a super hardcore, you know, German raised, precision machine. Many people have said that to me. They're like, who are you? Yeah, now I have the title of this podcast, the mellowing of Chris Hout. Exactly.

Yeah, and it's been really fun to watch that change, not only in me, because I'm able to coach people differently, more in the mindset and more getting them out there and more balance, right? There's another thing. And maybe a little more empathy. Yes.

That's a new word. That's why I used it. It's the last word in this entry. And I was like, wow, wow, Chris is using the word empathy. But it has come into it a lot because as I talk more and more about balance with regards to family, with regards to career and this ultra endurance world that we're in, it's hard to be able to continue to do all three at a high level. It's just not possible. And like I keep saying, I call it the three-legged stool. And one's career, one's family, and one's our personal sports endeavors or whatever interest, hobbies, sailing, whatever. It doesn't need to be this crazy ultra endurance thing. And I don't necessarily think it always needs to be level. One leg of the stool can be shorter and the other one can be longer, but the stool is still in balance. You might have more family demands, sickness, family issues, whatever. That will require more of your time. The other two will have to back off a bit, right?

It doesn't mean the stool isn't balanced or there's a time in your life where we have time to do a lot of ultra endurance stuff, find the hours to do this stuff. And then the other leg shortens a bit, but you can't keep those things at bay for too long in perfect balance. Otherwise they will all give.

Yeah, and a perfect example of that is why I'm not racing Otillo with you this year. People are like, well, why aren't you going back? It's like, all right, well, one is I did it. So I don't have the same pull to return to that, but there's a season for everything. And this year I had other things that I wanted to focus on. And because balance is a fickle lover for

me, like once I commit and I'm all in, it sort of blinds me to other things in my life. And that's what I love about it. Like I can go all in on something and I want to see how I'm going to perform. But this year I wanted to attune that level of attention to other things in my life. And I'm traveling like crazy. It wasn't gonna be a positive outcome for me to try to do all of that this year. Next year, there's something that I wanna do and my balance equation will shift more towards that. But this year, it's just about traveling.

We just got back from Italy and I'm on the road like all the time and I've got kids that are aging up and there's other things in life that are important to attune to. And I say that as somebody who's not great at the traditional notion of what balance is. And that's something that, you know, I talked to Michael about on the last podcast. And he had a great answer, which is forget about balance, like worry about being present in whatever it is that you're doing or that you choose to do.

It's like worry about being present in whatever it is that you're doing or that you choose to do. And with this balance, because I like to call it balance, is that you don't feel guilty or overwhelmed that you're not doing all things great. There's times when other things require more of your attention, right? Like currently your work and travel and all that is requiring more of your attention. You're okay with putting the ultra and the inside down because you've been there, you know, you can turn it up again or turn it down again. It's not that foreign to you. And so it puts you more present for what you're doing now. Yes. Right. And then career might, or family might change the dynamics and you need more time there. But again, I know I can dial up career.

I know I can dial up endurance. I can dial that back. And that calmness, that ease that you have inside without that guilt of, oh my God, I'm gonna miss a workout. Because you've been there. We've all been there where it's like, I don't want anything to take away

from my hours of the week. Like it's impossible to live like that. You can't keep pulling from that well and that resource. It will drain and dry out. Yeah, I mean, you can do it for a short truncated period of time, but it also, it creates a lot of stress and anxiety depending upon how busy you are

in the other areas of your life. And you wake up a couple of years later going, where was I? I just did the same thing for the last seven years. And I'm no, that's that battle. You can't stay in the same spot. Right. So as somebody who's been, who's always been an athlete, I mean, you literally never retired. You went straight from being an Olympic swimmer into professional, being a professional triathlete, now a coach, continuing to compete, ultras. Like you literally have never, you've gone through phases of varying intensity, but it's not like you ever took a break

and stopped. So what is it that you still continue to learn about yourself and others by virtue of being immersed in this world? There's always something I'm learning. These events are also all so different that there's always something new to add to the portfolio of learning with regards to coaching as well. I mean, what we learned last year in Otillo, the whole concept of swim run and that as cross-training for a other events is, has been very valuable. Yeah. I think the biggest lesson that you learned at Otillo is like patient. It was the first time you had to do a race with somebody else and I was dragging you down and you had to learn how to like

be cool with that, which might be the most important and hardest lesson for you to learn. I was just going to say the same thing. Like that was a very meaning, like when I look back many months ago about what happened there, I learned a ton from that. If anything, I have to thank you because I learned to just let go and not just be focused on my outcome. And of course it was always our outcome together, but I identified with a result. It wasn't the lesson that I really wanted to be teaching you that day. But again, there was something we learned in that. And so back to your question with regards

to what am I still learning these days? My athletes are bringing me so many different adventures. I mean, there's not a week that doesn't go by where my athletes aren't researching what they want to do next. And they send me this bizarre race in like Mongolia. And I'm like, oh, that's sort of cool. How would we prepare for that?

And so then I start going out and doing some of the training blocks for that out of curiosity to how I'm responding to that and then to apply it to them. I mean, the part that I need in my coaching is having gone through it because it really allows me to connect with what I'm thinking, what I'm observing, and then can connect with the athlete to calm them and build confidence in them that we're going to do this because I've been there, I felt it, and we'll be fine. Right. From the experience in Sweden last year, and as somebody who's going back this year, what did you take away just sort of tactically and training-wise that you're incorporating into your preparation for that race this year? Because, you know, we talked about this before, but the technical aspect of the running totally threw me for a loop. And I was like, I thought we were going to be trail running, you know, and it wasn't anything like that. And I

was like, man, I would have done a lot, you know, a bunch of different kinds of strength training stuff. Which I'm doing this year, a different type of strength training. And as well as more vertical and lateral stuff with regards to the jumping that we did, the side rocks, box jumps, moving sideways, burpees. The other day we had a swim practice where we had to get out of the pool, not just do the push up, but completely get out. And sure enough, I had everybody in my lane doing burpees because if we're going to do this, if we're going to get out, might as well do some intensity and high heart rate with it and then go back in and swim a 400 and so forth. But no, I think it's more being able to handle the impact

and stresses of that day on the lower legs, core stability, lower leg strength and so forth. Right, cool. All right, well, let's take some questions from the audience. You wanna do that? So we made some notes here. And they're more, like I said, they're more like thematic or topical, but, you know, maybe the first thing

that we can kind of talk about, and we have a whole list here. I don't know how many of these we're going to get through, but. We're not doctors. That's one thing. Yeah, no, we don't even play doctors on the internet. Yeah, there were a couple of very specific questions that required somebody with medical education to answer. And it's not our place to give advice, even if it's high-level advice on that, because when it comes to certain things, you want to have clear insights from a medical professional

with regards to heart rate. There was one question that I think was worthy of discussing because there's a lot of confusion around it, which is stretching. Should you stretch? And if you should, should you do it before you work out, after your workout? What's your thoughts on that?

There was like a conventional wisdom swimming around for a while. Like when we grew up as swimmers, it was all about stretching. And then there was a period of time where it was like, if you're a runner, you should not stretch. But I think this attention to stretching is now coming back.

Yeah, yeah. I'm definitely a believer in stretching. I don't believe in the old school stretching before you're even warm enough and going, right? If anything, the muscles have to be warmed up, loose, supple, and you're able to use the effect of a warmed-up muscle to stretch it. I personally prefer and recommend my athletes stretch after their workout in order to retune themselves with their body, see where the niggles are,

sort of get that recalibration going. Did you ever experiment or buy into that idea that stretching is bad? I did. You did? I did, I've made plenty of mistakes over the last 25 years. And the part that why I brought it up is where I've noticed stretching can cause issues

that if the muscle is not warmed up, you are doing little micro tears. Yeah, you can injure yourself. The likelihood of those micro tears in the muscle goes way up. I'm not saying you will, but it goes way up the likelihood if you're not relaxed, loosened up, warm, blood flow.

Yeah, I was somebody who's always been super flexible naturally. And that lent itself in swimming where flexibility is a big part of it. And then for a couple of years, I did that thing where I was like, okay, well, they're saying that if you're running a lot, you shouldn't stretch. And I didn't do it. And then I lost a lot of that flexibility. And I've been trying to get back to it and regain that because I think that that lack

of flexibility has led to some imbalances and some problems that I've had to work through. So I think it's super important. And when you're time crunched, it's the thing you don't want to do or you want to blow off or what have you, but I think it's super important. Yeah. And I'm a proponent of anything where you're tuning in with your body. You're taking a moment to listen to it and hear what's going on. And stretching will tell you that, where you're looser, where you're tighter, what side you can do something on, you can't do it as well on the other side. Little things like that. They're just part of that bigger picture of listening to your body, what it's expressing itself to you. Right. Recovery.

itself to you. Right. Recovery. Huge, huge fan of recovery. So for somebody who's just trying to wrap their head around, maybe they're new to the world of endurance sports, their time crunched, what is some, I mean, this is tricky to get into because it's so person specific,

like how hard are you training? How experienced are you? Like, et cetera. But if there are some general principles, guiding principles around how to recover and some techniques around recovery that you could share. Well, sleeping is by far the most important component there. What happens in your body while you're sleeping

cannot be replaced by any supplements, by any shakes, most important component there. What happens in your body while you're sleeping cannot be replaced by any supplements, by any shakes, by anything out there, right? I'm also a big proponent of recovery days. It's so hard for so many athletes to just take a day off. And the constant theme and the feedback from those days is, well, I almost feel worse on days I'm not doing anything. I like to just get a little blood flow going. And B, when I come back to training, let's say after a day or two off, I feel lethargic and slow and disconnected. Well, that just shows how far in a hole we probably

were. It's like that adage where you go on vacation and you don't set an alarm clock, and then you notice actually how much sleep you need, it's the same thing with a day off or two days off from, especially in ultra endurance training, because we get to the state of, I wouldn't call it numbness, but it's this overall fatigue that we don't realize how deeply fatigued we are until we take a few days off and get some good sleep. Yeah. And I think in this world, it attracts a lot of very driven type A personality people, and it requires a different kind of discipline to put the brakes on and slow down. And I think the extent of your recovery comes with understanding how much recovery you

need and how to do it really just comes with experience. It comes with experience. And again, back to the theme that we're probably going to have on all these questions is listening to your body. There's a lot of ways beyond your morning resting heart rate, beyond your general data that you can use to see how you're responding to the training and therefore if you need recovery. One of those being how much you're eating. Your hunger is a huge sign of how you're absorbing the training load or not. Your sleep needs and what time you're going to bed as well as how you're waking up and how lethargic you are.

Your heart rate during the training, if it's super low and suppressed and just won't respond despite doing some higher intensity efforts, those are all starting to be signs that you're on the far end of what I call overreaching. You're not overtraining, but you're getting to that edge. You're overreaching the edge. And as we know from a variety of publications out there

as currently, stress plus rest creates the performance gains, not just the stress, which is called training. Yeah. You get faster and stronger in the periods between your workouts, not during your workout. But I think one of the kind of underrated or underappreciated aspects of participating in these kinds of sports is that it really does drive you to connect with yourself in a way that most people don't. Like we're just, we're all in our heads, you know, we're in our cars, we have earbuds in, we're sitting at our desks and we're not sort of inclined to pay attention to the signals that

our body is sending us. And it's not until you sign up for a race and you start taking your preparation seriously that you become like this extra sense comes alive where you start to like pay it, like, why am I feeling this way? And, and the more you can kind of journal that and, and really listen to those signals, you know, it doesn't happen overnight, but you get to learn, you know, and over doing this for many, many years. Like I know, you know, like I know exactly when I feel a certain way, like when I need a day off. And I know it's like, I think that the hard part for a lot of people is that dividing line between I'm just lazy and I don't want to do it versus when you are overtrained. I think most people will say like, oh, I'm,

I'm overtrained when they're really just making an excuse for themselves. But then there really is, you know, overtraining is real and you can run yourself into a rut and get sick and injured and all that kind of stuff. So understanding which is which really just comes with time and, you know, years of listening to yourself. Yeah. Listening takes practice, whether it's in training and sports or your partner or however it listening takes practice and being able to hear your body signals takes practice that's why most people freak out in a taper because the volume comes back ever so gently gradually and they expect because the volume came back they should suddenly feel better right well i've had three lighter days. Why am I not getting faster yet? Well,

you're so far removed from your fresh self. It's going to feel awful for the next few days. And your body's going to be sending you all kinds of mixed signals. It doesn't know, are we going back up in volume here after these three days off? Like we have been, or are we going all the way down or just you're just completely confused. And usually a good taper, I would say 72 to 48 hours out, you start feeling good. Not before that. And many think, oh, I had three lighter days or two recovery days. I should be flying today. You start panicking. Exactly.

Yeah. And I think, you know, look, sleep and nutrition are the most important things, as unsexy as they are. We want to talk about Normatec boots and whatever crazy new technology is happening, or ancient technology, cupping and acupuncture. And all of those things are great, and they have their place, and they're beneficial. But ultimately, if all you can do is ensure that you're getting eight hours of sleep and you're eating real food, then you've got it, you're 90 to 95% there. Yeah, I was just gonna say, that's more than the 80-20 rule. If you're doing sleep and nutrition

to the best of your ability, you're 90% there. And the remaining 10%, yes, that's when you're really looking to dial it in and add that last component. But again, if we're looking to complete an ultra endurance adventure, do the 90%. Don't worry about that last 10%. Yeah, especially if you're on a budget

or you're time crunched, all that kind of stuff. But on the subject of technology, like a big kind of recurring question thread was all about the gear, right? do i need a heart rate monitor what kind should i get do you know every time i post on instagram like a picture of my watch from a workout it's like 30 questions which what watch is that what watch is that what would yeah and there's a lot of focus on the gear um power meters uh and then the data what what can we learn from the data heart rate variability and all that kind of stuff and we learn from the data, heart rate variability, and all that kind

of stuff. And we've explored this at length in the past, but I think it's worth kind of refreshing some perspective on this. These are tools and they have their place in the toolkit. But once we become dependent on them or we become focused on them or we feel like we have to have them in order to train, I think you've kind of lost the plot. And, you know, I'll turn it over to you by just saying this. Like when we were growing up as swimmers, you know, you become – we were talking about that like mind-body, you know, connection that you get. mind, body, you know, connection that you get. I know, and you know, that after many, many years of swimming back and forth in a pool, that if somebody said, okay, you know, do this 100 in a minute or do it in 55 or do it in 110, that you could hit it within a second. And you would also know exactly what your heart rate is without any devices, because you're just, that connection is

so strong. And I think these tools can help you forge that connection. But if you're using them and you're so reliant on them that you're not connecting with yourself in that way, I think you're missing the point. Yeah, they're tools. They shouldn't dictate the workout. They should help you do the workout better, right? And so if you wanna be in a zone,

whether that's zone two, zone three, zone four, they will help calibrate your sensations with what's actually happening. And the two calibrate itself. You don't need one to dictate the workout just because it says zone three or zone four, but you're getting sick. You're getting injured. You're completely fatigued. You didn't get a lot of sleep last night. You have young kids and got no sleep, whatever. There could be a zillion reasons where you say, you know what?

This might not be the best choice right now in how I'm doing this workout. I'm going to listen to my body. And when it comes back in tune and the heart rate monitor and so forth, it works well. Right. Just a quick question, by the way, with regards to swimming. I was thinking today, because I just swam, do you swim with your eyes open or closed? Eyes open. Okay, I swim my eyes closed.

Do you? Yeah, because when you were just saying, we know exactly with a minute or 58, I was thinking today, I'm swimming with my eyes closed in a completely random pool, right? Pali High in this case. And I just know when to open my eyes for the turn just because I'm so used to how many, the timing of I'm getting close to the other end and I open my eyes back up. I don't- Really? Have you always done that?

I pretty much remember exactly how in 50 meter pools, I always loved it because I can close my eyes longer. Right. That's amazing. I didn't know. I mean, I'll peek a little bit to make sure I'm on the black line with, or not on the black line.

Yeah, you have to have your own lane. You know, like you can't be doing that when you're in a crowded lane. But even there. Really? Yeah. Wow, that's crazy, man. That's why I was just thinking about that

when you said that. Closed eyes swimming. Yeah. So do you still train with power and heart rate and all that kind of stuff or less and less? Yeah, I just tested a few weeks ago to get my power zones. And that's mainly, again, just to see where I'm at. A lot of my athletes ask me,

well, what does your test mean or what does my test mean? It's just a snapshot of who I currently am and where I need to train. And in order to maximize the limited time that we all have, test me, it's just a snapshot of who I currently am and where I need to train. And in order to maximize the limited time that we all have, it's great to have some inputs to quantify and dig deeper into this will have the most effect in the limited hours of training we have.

Right, well, on the subject of training zones, maybe we could talk a little bit about zone two. Everyone wants to talk about zone two. It is the constant theme. Yeah, and because I wrote about it in my book, maybe I didn't explain it as in-depth as you would have. I feel like there's a lot of confusion out there. And some of the questions were about,

do I train in zone two if I'm training for a 10K or a half marathon? Should I be, this idea of like slowing down to go fast to create efficiency and aerobic capacity? What's your perspective maybe in a kind of just a general sense, and then we can drill down on some more specific aspects of it. Well, the important thing with regards to zone two is as you're getting fitter, you're getting stronger. And in that heart rate zone, you're going to get faster. Now, it might not be the numbers and speed that you want to see for your half marathon or, you know,

shorter events and so forth, but you're building a platform to then be better at the zone three, a tempo pace running your ligaments, your cartilage, your blood flow, your capillaries, all that is going to work better because you created a better foundation at zone two. I think there's also confusion about how to figure out what your zone two is. And because I said in my book that mine was like, I kept my heart rate at 140, that's my zone two, or at least it was a while ago.

Yeah, I don't think it's there. Yeah, I'm formally tested in a while. For somebody who's listening, your zone two could be completely different. Absolutely. The top end of your zone two might be 170 beats per minute. It might be 120.

And really the only way to determine that is to be properly tested. The ideal way to do that is to get a formal proper lactate test that you can do in a lab. Most big cities or university towns, there is the capability to do that. But if somebody's listening and they want to do their DIY version of that, what's the best way?

Because people ask me that all the time. I've found that doing five one-mile repeats for the Europeans, I would even do two kilometers, but you can keep it to 1600 meters at a track with one minute rest at 90 to 95% effort. So about 10K effort, not 10K pace because you don't want to start these five, one mile repeats at a pace because then you're monitoring,

you're controlling the output. It should be pretty hard. And the average of that pace and the averages of that heart rate gets us pretty close to what's called threshold heart rate, zone four in this case. And around there- That's your anaerobic threshold. Anaerobic threshold. Others know it as lactate threshold. And from there, we deduce back to zone two. And over the years, I've gotten to a point where it's not only quite close

because I've done literally thousands of these, that after a while, the athlete actually says, do I really need to pay $200 for a test? But also, I also separate the zones by five to seven beats so that people don't get into the gray area between zones. So when you do that, you get your zone four, then you can dial it back to see where zone three is and zone two is.

And it works quite well. It's usually a good 30, 40, 35 beats below your lactate threshold zone for anaerobic threshold. All right, so you're doing these mile or two kilometer repeats. So where, and you're wearing a heart rate monitor. At almost best effort. Right, and so.

And you're recording your heart rate after each and your pace after each. And we don't necessarily use the pace to determine the zones, or we don't. But when you do the test again on your own in six to eight weeks, you wanna see the pace have improved either at the same heart rate zones or same pace, but the heart rate zones are lower.

Usually, very rarely do we see the heart rate zones go lower at the same pace because you're still going at almost best effort. So the heart rate is still going gonna kick really high. And so the pace goes down. And it's always startling because the athlete will say, that's strange because I did zero speed work, yet I'm getting faster at these high efforts by just doing zone two work. And that answers that half marathon question too.

You are teaching yourself to become so aerobically economical that going faster will become more efficient as well. Right. That's the thing that people have a hard time believing, especially when they begin this journey and they realize like to remain in their zone two, they're literally crawling. Yeah. And most people don't have the discipline to stick it out. Like they abandon it before the miracle. I describe the zones when they, when we often do that track test

before I put them into a lab, right? Because it might be a little bit overwhelming for somebody who's brand new to this, to ask them for blood draw on a lactate. Like, slow down, man, I just want to do a 10K. You're freaking me out. Exactly. Empathy, Chris.

See, look, look, I'm growing. But I'll describe zone two as, so I'll say zone two, the heart rate zone, and I say the description is, you should be frustrated on how slow this is. It should feel like a waste of a workout. Then you did zone two perfectly. Right, right.

And as you become more and more adept at it over as somebody who's been doing this for years and years and years, what is amazing is that, yeah, you start out like, oh, I can't, you know, if I go faster than a 10 minute mile, my heart rate's too high. This is ridiculous. You know, six months later, you're running nine minutes.

You know, a year and a half later, you're running eight minutes and then you're a half later, you're running eight minutes, and then you're down to seven-minute pace. And it doesn't feel as easy as that 10 minutes. It feels hard, or not super hard, but your heart rate is still in zone two. And you're like, how is that possible? When I didn't do any track work, when I wasn't like busting 400 meter repeats or anything like that. So you truly do get faster. It's a long game though. Like you're playing the long game here.

You're playing the long game, but the results are also long because the work that you're doing inside your body, the oxygen uptake, the blood flow and so forth. The mitochondrial density. That's very long lasting, yeah. Now, if you stop doing everything, it'll go away in a couple of weeks.

But the platform that you're building allows you to take on so many other stresses from a physical standpoint, from training, that it is really long lasting with regards to what you're capable of. I have athletes who say, I haven't done any type of mountain climbing in years, but then they'll do something crazy up in the mountains all off a zone two training.

Right. Yeah. And everything that I was able to accomplish was by sticking to that plan. At some point when you reach a certain level of acuity though, then you can build in the speed work as well. For sure. For sure. So it's not just only that for whatever you're training for. Of course not. Absolutely not. No, you want leg turnover. You want higher intensity stuff. You want things that really stress the system. It's just a question of how much time you're doing that. You know, 80% of the time zone two, 20% of the time zone four or above, or 90-10, or 60-40. And then that's where it goes into what kind of race you're doing, right?

If you're doing an Olympic distance triathlon, or if you're doing a marathon run, or if you're doing a 3K open water swim, well, then it's probably more like 60-40, 50-50, zone two time, and then intensity time. But if you're doing something super long, you're going to increase that zone two aerobic activity, but you still want leg turnover. You still want that VO2 effort so that your oxygen uptake also gets the other side of the spectrum. It's just so taxing on the system that you have to be very careful on how long they are, how much recovery you're getting,

and how frequently you're doing them. Right, and I think another kind of benefit of the zone two training is it prepares your joints and your ligaments over time to manage a greater load as you begin to escalate, right? Rather than just going out and hammering it. That, it provides better consistency because you stay healthier

and you can come back the next day and repeat the workout day after day after day, build layer upon layer upon layer. And the other discipline it builds is your mind. If you can show the resilience early on to stick to your zones, your ability to stick to your pacing for an eight, nine, 10, 15hour event will be a lot better, right?

Because you're going to be able to start slow and finish fast. Yeah, everybody thinks discipline is being super hardcore. But it's really just control. It's how you modulate all of this. And being able to sit the ego down and do what is on the piece of paper for you to do, even if you think like, oh, I want to go harder or I want to go slower. Well, and in the endurance races that are out there, whether running, swimming, biking, triathlon, whatever it is, finishing fast feels way better than getting past and slowing down. And your ability to not slow down, as we've said before,

that you can work through that in your mind, but also motivationally getting past continuously and beat up. And I want you to last in this sport. I want you to sign up for the next event because you felt good and energetic and enjoyed it. And you were passing people that was the last few miles. That's going to keep you in this sport, keep you healthy, keep you growing your endurance, keep you motivated.

Not walking and, you know, nothing worse than the cheers of, you can do it, you're looking great and doing it. And you know you could technically run, but you just paced it wrong. And those cheers aren't for you to finish. Those cheers, you're feeling awful. Your head is down and you're miserable. Yeah. We don't want that.

So just to put the nail in the coffin on this subject, and for people that are perhaps brand new to this podcast or to Chris and I, the thing is that most amateur sort of armchair newbie triathletes, marathon runners, runners, make the mistake of spending 90 to 100% of their training time in what is affectionately called the gray zone. It's that level of effort that leaves you feeling good. If you go out and run for a half an hour, 45 minutes or an hour, it's a good strong pace. And when you finish, you feel like you accomplished something, but in truth, you're really undercutting your optimal,

sort of accessing your optimal potential because you're going too fast to truly develop that aerobic engine. You're above Z2, but you're not going hard or fast enough to truly develop the anaerobic engine. So you're kind of in the middle, you're getting a little bit of benefit from both, but ultimately if you persist in just doing that all of the time, you will quickly plateau and you will never actualize your potential as an athlete. I think that's the number one mistake that most of the kind of new people to the sport make. Yeah, the classic too easy on hard days, too hard on easy days. So you're stuck in that gray zone. There was just another article out there that I sent out to all my athletes addressing exactly this. I mean, it's constantly

being reminded of us that if you're going to train like an athlete, that means that you're going to train smart and deliberately, then you need to go hard enough on hard days. And therefore you'll be begging for the easy days, but you can't go too easy on hard days. And therefore you'll be begging for the easy days, but you can't go too easy on hard days and too hard on easy days. Yeah, I think people, even when they understand that, they still go too hard on the easy days. And then when you show up for that hard day,

you're not sharp enough to really push it as hard as you could otherwise. And you're unmotivated. Once again, the motivation wanes when you don't see the progress that you want to see, or your others are beating you, are going faster than you. And you're like, what am I doing wrong? Right? I call it exercises, exercising versus training. People who have no deliberate outcome with regards to their workout, with regards to their training, with regards to their zones and just go do, they're exercising.

But training has a prescription. Training has a desired outcome. Training is a puzzle piece that fits into the bigger picture. And if you're going too hard on easy days and too easy on hard days, you're exercising. Yeah, it's really an exercise as well as in checking your ego,

especially in the era of Strava. Everybody wants to post the epic workout. And if you're on a program and it's an easy day, like you can't go for that KOM or whatever, and you can't be thinking about like what your friends are gonna think, and you gotta let that other person pass you. And again, it goes back to having that kind of discipline and intentionality.

What is the purpose of that workout and are you meeting that? And how does that fit into the week? Because on Thursday or on Friday, you might have a really important workout that you've been eyeing and your coach has been eyeing and you're excited to do. But if the lead up isn't done right,

next thing you know, that's not being absorbed properly and it has downstream effects, right? And again, that's not being absorbed properly. And it has downstream effects, right? And again, then you're not training, then you're just going through the motions. And a lot of times athletes, they struggle with confidence already because they're new to this whole ultra endurance world, as well as just being athletes at this stage in life. And so confidence is an important part. When we do the simulations, I want them coming out of that, having learned something, gained confidence and excited for the next phase of training.

If that's not happening because they're going too hard, well, we're just treading water because they're not getting more confident. They're not having the adaptations we're looking for. And then I'm looking at the training plan going, what am I missing here? What did I do wrong? I start asking, did you eat?

What's your nutrition like? Are you sleeping? Yes, check, check, check. And then I start seeing the Strava files. Yeah, there you go. All right, here's a question from Paris Lyles. What are the top five most important things you should be doing if you are new to endurance sports?

Five. Five. Can you come up with five? Well, number one is consistency, right? You want to be able to find the ability to do it back to back to back, to layer upon layer. And it doesn't need to be a lot of hours. I mean, we have people that think they need to train 15 to 20 plus hours in order to do that. But 30 minutes a day, 20 minutes a day is plenty good. But if you can come back the next day and do something aerobic again, and remember aerobic doesn't mean

you're only cycling or running or swimming. Your heart doesn't know which activity you're doing. As long as you're in that zone, right? You can be doing jumping jacks. If your heart rate's up in that zone, it's just pumping, it's doing its work, but it could be doing jumping jacks. If your heart rate's up in that zone, it's just pumping, it's doing its work, but it could be any of many sports. So consistency is important. The recovery and the sleep I think is very important. I think nutrition, more and more

people are realizing how vital that is to any type of performance that we're asking from this amazing tool called our body, right? You've got to fuel it effectively. And a lot of people seem to think as younger people, like I can throw anything in there. I'm training tons of hours and it doesn't really matter. Well, you wouldn't put crap in your car, right? Or, and ask it to do well at the track. in your car, right? Right. Or, and ask it to do well at the track. Same thing with fueling your body and taking care of this precious thing

because in 20 years from now, it's going to wonder what you did to it. So now we're at three. Do you have anything to add for four and five while I'm thinking about it? I think a big one is not getting caught up in the gear. I have two. That's the first one.

Because that acts as a barrier or an excuse for a lot of people. Like, well, you know, I can't get into it yet because I can't afford this or I can't afford that or what's the best running shoe. And those become impediments to just getting out and beginning. So don't worry about the gear. Work with whatever you have. That stuff comes later. If you get more enthusiastic and more kind of invested, then you can have that conversation and explore that. But just begin, I think, is a big thing. And that kind of dovetails into the

second point that I was going to make, which is you don't need all of your questions answered before beginning either, especially when you're new. You want to know exactly where you're heading, what it's going to look like. Every question that you have, and you're going to have a million questions and that's normal, will be answered as well over time. And so again, don't use that as a barrier to just signing up for a race and getting started. Yeah. And beating yourself up about the workouts too much is a big issue. And it's sort of what you were just saying, getting started is the key, but then life will get in the way and you will miss a workout. And therefore you didn't get all the layers going as you want. That doesn't mean you can't restart

or get three days in a row or get four days in a row or go back to two days in a row. It's all making a difference, right? Yeah, being flexible and malleable. Exactly. Well, whether that comes with balance as well as what I always like to say is progress, not perfection.

Be a little bit better today than you were yesterday. And that 20 minute jog makes you better than yesterday because it accumulated on where you were yesterday. And progress, not just perfection. It starts this snowball to an avalanche of getting fit. What about people that can't afford to hire someone like yourself? They want to run a marathon. They want to do an Ironman, whatever it is that they want to do.

There's so many training programs online. I mean, I haven't really, because I have you, I don't go and look at all that kind of stuff. I know there's tons out there and I'm sure some of them are good and some of them aren't so good. So if somebody's trying to figure that out for themselves, what is your advice? Well, there's two things. One is back to that progress, not perfection. A lot of the training plans that are out there, just because you're not hitting every single last detail doesn't mean you're not getting a benefit. Use it as a guide and do the best you can. It will help you just to get out there and do it consistently. And then, you know, if you're looking at a training plan to do a sub three hour marathon on your first marathon, that might not be the right thing.

So, you know, horses for courses, find your proper book or find the proper online program that sort of is more conservative. If you train too slow, it won't hurt you. If you train too hard, it will likely hurt you. You'll get injured, you'll get demotivated, or you won't have the progress that you're looking for. Are there any training programs that you're aware of, like specific ones that you think are good that you can recommend or no? It's hard for me because I never ever look at those things myself. I mean, I purposely, and you,

we've talked about this before, and I've talked to a lot of other coaches about this before, whether it's at conferences and so on. I look at nothing. I look at nothing because I like to keep it really creative and individual to me. And the more I know what others are doing or how they're doing it, it makes me lose sort of how I'm trying to apply it off the things I'm experimenting and learning from. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I've learned through you is it's a dynamic, you know, it's a partnership and it's dynamic and it's evolving and it's responsive to where the athlete is. So it's not like, oh, Rich, you're doing Ultraman. Well, here's your plan

all the way to the end. It's like, you kind of plan it out seven or 10 days ahead. And then you're like, well, let's look at where youraman. Well, here's your plan all the way to the end. It's like you kind of plan it out seven or 10 days ahead. And then you're like, well, let's look at where you're at. And then I can decide what you're gonna be doing for the next. I mean, there is a meta, like I know where we're trying to get. And I have an idea of these training blocks that I wanna put in,

but it's not like you've scripted the whole program all the way to the end. It doesn't work that way. Oh no, everybody's so individual and has so many different needs and things that get in the way. And many of my athletes know the wording of wedge week that I call it.

We get sick, a project at work, something of our children. I call it a wedge week. Those weeks we're gonna fall off in volume. That's fine. Take a wedge week and relax about it. Don't get overwhelmed and frustrated and stressed about it. And now I can't do the event. It's just a week.

We'll get you fit again. That's not the issue. And the other thing that you were saying before, which I wanted to get back to with regards to the nature aspect, not all of us have access to nature the way we do with regards to getting out and running and cycling in open roads. But if you can get it every now and then, every two or three weeks, if you're living in Manhattan, getting north out into upstate New York or getting out over to New Jersey, getting some fresh air and getting out there, it makes a difference. Not just the treadmill, not just the indoor cycling classes, and not just an indoor pool. So with regards to means and not having the availability, whether financially or just location-wise, still try to get that invigorating,

immersive experience occasionally, because that will help you deal with being back in your basement on the trainer or on the treadmill. Injury, let's talk about that for a little bit. Kind of came up a second ago. There were a bunch of questions about persistent injuries. Somebody was like, my calf keeps getting injured

or coming back from injury. So first of all, let's take that first piece, like people who are consistently, persistently getting injured in the same way time and time again. Yeah, I would look at your training, your habits on how you're training. I would definitely look at nutrition. And I would also look at some other imbalances in the body

on why this keeps coming up. Oftentimes, just because you have a calf injury doesn't mean it's in the calf. Absolutely. And so once you sort of, again, start listening to your body and sort of ruling out certain things and being

smart about recovery and resting when niggles come up. Because in ultra endurance training, and we were talking about this earlier, in ultra endurance training, the volume that you're doing eventually, even if you're just starting out, it's new to you. So it is volume for you. starting out, it's new to you, so it is volume for you. The body, the volume will find the injury. It will find the weak spot. And if you have a hip injury, or if you have a knee thing, or if you have a shin splint, or if you have a potential for a stress fracture.

It's coming out. It's coming, because the volume will find it. The pounding on the body will find it. So when you listen to your body and you hear it coming, you've got to take action, right? And not just Dr. Google, but rest, right? Not right away think the sky is falling, rest and see how your body responds to that rest and allow it to come back. And with regards to coming back from injury, again, patience and discipline and allowing everything to come back in a more holistic way with other imbalances being worked out and core instability. I have an athlete currently,

she has a stress fracture in her femur and she was very upset. It's like her season is definitely limited now, right? But instead we had a conversation of, listen, I'll get you fit again. This is not a question of getting you fit. Let's use this time for opportunity, catch up with your family, catch up on other things. Shame on you. I know. And how dare I say that? You know, spend some time volunteering, doing different things, work on your swimming, take some, you know, knitting lessons, whatever it is, but just use the time to sort of say, you know what? I'm going to turn this injury into something positive.

And coming back, you have to be really smart. Like not just pound right back in, but really have a deliberate plan over six, eight, 12 weeks, at which point I want to be back to par fitness, what I call it. And depending on the injury and your body and what you know of your history, that might be 12 weeks away. So now how am I structuring the next 12 weeks so that I gradually build up, come back down again, gradually build up more, come back down again, all the while listening to how my body's responding. Yeah. Burkle is a great example of that because she's been in that freaking boot for like a year

and she's a racehorse, you know? So to tell a girl like that, Olympic athlete, like you just, you can't do all this stuff that you're used to doing all day long every day. It was a, I think it was a really huge emotional challenge for her. And she chose to kind of share it openly on social media, which I thought was really cool, like how difficult it was for her, but also to treat it as a growth opportunity, to grow in other areas, which is really cool.

And it's like, look, if you're in the game for any extended period of time, stuff like this happens. Yeah, and out of fairness to her is that she's also been wired all her life that a people have taken care of her injuries because she's in the sort of the Olympic system and there's people with eyes on it and paying attention and monitoring and blood tests and you know, so forth. But also that her wiring has always been, okay, I recovered. Now I train again. Right. And in our sport of swimming, it's pretty hard that when there's no pounding on the body to really not gradually just jump right back in. And so with

something like running and where our full body weight is back involved, things are dramatically different. Yeah. On the subject of the persistent injury, you know, in terms of coming back, I think that, you know, obviously, you know, taking enough time to rest is important, but on that subject of like imbalances, you know, when you said like, well, if it's the calf, it's not necessarily the calf, it's an imbalance. Like if your spine is out of alignment, if you have one hip where your muscles are too tight, it's creating this weird asymmetry in your body. And that might be fine if all you're doing is walking around and living your life.

But when you're doing the pounding and all of that, over time, that's gonna manifest in that injury. And you can rest and let it heal, but it's gonna happen again. The volume will find it. If you don't address that and really figure that out. And that goes to the stretching and the functional strength work

to make sure your core is strong and whether it's going to a Cairo and looking at your spine and seeing if you have a curvature there, like they can really evaluate if you're a little bit off. And even if your hips are tilted a centimeter and you're trying to train for an ultra, like you're gonna little bit off and even if your hips are tilted, you know, a centimeter and you're trying to train for an ultra, like you're gonna have a problem. Thousands and thousands of strides, absolutely.

And you know, good sports medicine, physical therapists, they can quickly test a lot of strength components on your body, how your hip flexors are firing, how your hamstrings are firing, how your calves are supporting, how your plantar is supporting. They, within 45 minutes minutes can give you a protocol that basically shows you, these are your imbalances. These are the things you need to work on in order to create a more balanced body.

Right. So even if you don't have that, you know, you have a curved spine or you're, if you did an x-ray, it looks like everything's in check. If you're weak in your core or in your functional strength, when you go out and train and you start to fatigue, your technique denigrates, right? You start to like hunch over or whatever. And you use the big muscles. Right, and then that's gonna lead to a problem where that weaker muscle is gonna contribute to an injury.

Yeah, it'll find it, it'll find it. It's just because of the hours and the time out there, the body will find the injury when you're doing that much pounding. 40 times your body weight is what running is on the ankles, on the knees and so forth. So that's a lot of weight to consider that your poor joints have to carry that

and how that sort of shoots through the rest of your body, whether it's hip, whether it's hip, whether it's knee, whether it's lower back, right? And if there's an imbalance, it'll find it. Right. All right. We got time for a couple more here. One, I think that would be good is how to maintain your enthusiasm, stay engaged with the sport after you've just completed a race or perhaps when your motivation is waning. Yeah. Well, I mean, for me, I've just completed a race or perhaps when your motivation is waning? Yeah. Well, I mean, for me, I've, and a lot of my athletes know this, I'm just such a big believer in the journey and what we're doing and why we're doing it. If we're looking for just

that specific outcome and we don't know that life goes beyond on after that certain day, it's going to be really tough when that day comes and passes and you feel no different. Sure, you're proud of your accomplishment. And don't get me wrong, I believe in being proud of the work you've done and putting meaning behind it and purpose and belief behind it. Because if it's important to you, that's good enough, right? But as we're training through these ultra endurance events, what I was writing about is it's important to you, that's good enough, right? But as we're training through these ultra endurance events, what I was writing about is it's that beauty, it's feeling that alive and invigorated.

And if you're missing that, you're not listening to your body. You're not being present like we talked about with how lucky you are to be doing this training outside in nature, immersing yourself in it and feeling that dopamine release that will want you coming back if you're just doing it in the gym in a box somewhere you don't get that same release you don't get that same stimulus and you don't feel that vibrancy

that is in you that you get from finishing a long workout. You might be tired, but you still feel awesome. Yeah. I also think that it's important to really inventory the extent to which you're kind of growing as a person by virtue of doing this. Like, are you becoming a better person? Is it enriching your life? Because I think there's an epidemic in endurance sports of people using it almost like a drug

to run away from other aspects of their life, whether they're in an unhappy relationship or they hate their job, or they have just some, you know, trauma in their life that they can't gather the strength to confront. So you can use this sport as a distraction from your life. And I see that a lot. And I think it probably doesn't get discussed enough. So it really is important for you to be honest with yourself. Like, are you using it?

Are you participating in it in a healthy way? Motivation, Will Wayne, it's just the nature of motivation. It's a short-term thing. But how you are in the sport, why you're in the sport, I ask all my athletes the meaning of why they're doing this. What's their meaning behind it? Not their goals, but what connects them to it? Why did they choose this? Why that event? What's the meaning behind it?

And many don't have that answer, but when they go through the exercise of understanding, yeah, why am I doing this? I think they grow as athletes, like you were saying, and then they have a whole different appreciation for it because guess what? That Kona slot, once you have it, life goes on on the other side.

Yeah, it's not like, I mean, you know, yeah, you still are going back to your life after that, right? So what does your life look like, you know? All right, last question. Do you sleep in a tent? No, I don't. You don't, Chris does not. Although Chris probably spends more time out camping in a nature than I do.

I can assure you that. I definitely like it outside, yeah. I was thinking about, remember, I was talking to you about running the John Muir Trail this year. Yeah, I know. So that hasn't come up. It's still something I want to do. And no, not for some sort of, you know, fastest known time or to put some sort of record out there. But again, just to be out there and not that I'm, again, like what you were just saying, getting lost from anything or hiding from anything, but more because I love being out there and experiencing it and feeling it

and having an opportunity to come back then and share that with others and inspire them through my energy to get out there as well. Cool. Awesome, man. So I think I wanna close this down by sharing a few thoughts on a blog post

that I came across that was written by Jason Koop, who we're both friends with. Jason's an amazing ultra runner, as well as endurance coach at Carmichael Systems. I got to know him when we were pacing Dean Karnazes at Badwater. So I spent a couple of days with him, super cool guy, incredible athlete.

And he wrote this post that I'll link up in the show notes called best advice, eight coaches give their single best tips and he basically just conducted a recent ultra running camp and he asked all of his sort of fellow coaches that were hosting this camp, like what is their best single piece of advice? And there were some really cool nuggets in here. The first one was don't count yourself out, right?

So what do you think about that? Well, just be confident in yourself. And the other aspect, what he's probably talking about there is it's a long event. And just because you go through one Valley, there's plenty of peaks ahead and you can have a slow first half and still win a race. You know, that's the beauty of ultra endurance.

Nothing is over until way, way, way further down the line. Yeah, I just had Des Linden in here two days ago. So we were talking about that very thing. Like, you know, she was like, this race is not happening for me. And she starts sacrificing herself for everybody else except herself, only to find herself within striking range at mile 22 and takes the lead. What an amazing event.

I know, it was incredible, right? So yeah, the peaks and the valleys, just because you feel lousy, it's a long day. It doesn't mean that it will change and you could come back to life. You hear it all the time. And the fitter you are, the more time that you have spent in Z2,

the more likely you are to be able to resuscitate yourself and come back, I think. So not judging yourself and like ganging up on yourself emotionally and mentally when that happens. It's an emotional day in general. So of course there's gonna be peaks and valleys. It's so immersive and there's so much going on

and you sacrifice so much to get ready for this. You should be emotional. But allow yourself the full event. Embrace what is difficult and uncomfortable, says Darcy Murphy. I love that. It just makes you stronger, right? Your ability to deal with adversity, right?

And like I was writing earlier, your ability to deal with adversity and be vulnerable just makes you a better person on the other side. Learning how to swim for the first time, doing your first ultra, feeling foolish doing something on a bike, not knowing how to clip in your pedals, all those things, feeling vulnerable just makes you realize, oh man, maybe I should be more empathetic to people. This great epiphany that you have. It's crazy.

It's amazing. I mean, that was a big theme of my recent conversation with Jesse Itzler, who I know you know as well. You know, his constant, you know, sort of push to put himself in uncomfortable situations. And when you do that, time slows down. Like, because you're, and you come alive in a way that you just don't when you're stuck in your routine.

And what I said earlier, what do we have these days that really create fear and challenge in us? A work project doesn't create fear and challenge. Our family and life and community life doesn't really create fear and challenge. But we as human beings, as animals, are wired to deal with fear and challenge. And that just makes us more alive

and connect with parts of us that we didn't even realize we had because we'd overcome adversity and embrace those challenges. But it contradicts every message that we're exposed to every single day that pushes us towards luxury and comfort and ease. So it's counterintuitive.

It's part of it. Yeah, it's part of it. It's part of it, yeah. This one I love, for every one minute you spend training your body, spend two minutes training your mind. Yeah, that's, I mean, it's a great way to say it, but I also think you get the benefits of one-to-one.

Like you don't literally have to set the clock, but you're training your mind at the same time all the time. And understanding and listening again to your mind is a very hard thing to do. And that's why the longer you go into ultra endurance, the more you have that opportunity to spend some time inside your head. When you're running through the night

or you're out in a trail for hours upon hours, whether you're hiking, running, however, or cycling in the middle of nowhere, your brain starts working inwards and starts just listening to what the thoughts are and clearing things out. It's a very meditative process, but it's also very important for us.

And every time you confront and overcome some kind of mental barrier or you accomplish something that you didn't think that you could, that's like pushups for the soul, right? You've then had that experience and your perception of your capabilities and what is normal shifts. Yeah. The new normal, the new floor, right? What used to be far a 10K, now you're running marathons. You think 10K, I can do a 10K. And it continues to grow like that. Brain is the same way. The Iron Cowboy, James Lawrence was in town the other day giving a talk. So I went to introduce him, just kind of provide a little introduction to him and host a little Q&A after his talk. And I'd never watched him do, he does

like a full keynote presentation. And I watched him deliver, it was quite something. He really figured out how to tell this story about doing 50 Ironmans in 50 days in 50 states, you know, very well. But the predominant kind of overarching theme of the whole thing boils down to, you know, really the mental game it as being this impossible physical challenge, but it was his mind that really allowed him to carry it. And understanding how to develop that level of like mental resilience is the differentiator between people like him or David Goggins or these other people that do all these amazing things and everybody else. Yeah. all these amazing things and everybody else. Yeah, I mean, your ability to come back and deal with the pain and deal with the adversity and deal with the fatigue

and also deal with the uncertainty, that builds incredible strength, incredible strength that you can apply everywhere. Yeah, the next one on this list is cultivate grit, which is kind of similar to what we just talked about. Yeah, yeah. Being vigilant though is a big part of grit and that is not allowing the internal narrative to talk you out of anything.

Surround yourself with good people. Good coaching. Not to be, yeah, good coaching. That's certainly one person that you need. But you also don't wanna be around people that pull your dreams and desired outcomes away from you. Energy sucking versus energy giving. And that believe in you and grow your confidence.

Because again, if it's meaningful to you, that's enough. Be proud of that. Accomplish that goal and be proud that you stuck yourself out there in order to accomplish the goal and did it. It's a great thing. There's the adage that you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with,

which I think speaks to that. But beyond that, I think also it's worth stating that whatever challenge you're facing, endurance challenge, ultra endurance challenge, that it is you and it is an individual sport, and yet it's not. It is a team sport. Whether you need formal crew or you don't, it doesn't matter. surrounded yourself with, that you're spending the most time with, whether they are directly or indirectly involved in the pursuit of that goal, the quality and caliber of those relationships are integral and often determinative in terms of whether you're going to achieve that goal or not. And it's part of that balance. If you're out of balance there and you take too much energy from your support around you, your family, your work,

you're not gonna be able to sustain it. Yeah. The next one is kind of obvious. Be really, really physically prepared. Well, yeah. I mean, it's sort of what we said last year for Attila, right? I mean, I'd rather be over-prepared

and deal with the things that I can't control on race day versus be under-prepared and sort of flailing. Right. Yeah. There's the idea of lining, you know, towing the line at the start line, knowing that you're not physically prepared. And many people have the ability to do that,

to figure it out, but their desired outcome is usually not being met. The next one is from Jason, adapt. Yeah. There's many things in ultra endurance events is usually not being met. The next one is from Jason, adapt. Yeah, there's many things in ultra endurance events and especially ultra running, which is what he's talking about, that you cannot control on race day,

on event day, I call it. I don't like to call it race day, on event day, because weather and terrain and competitors and your stomach and niggles, all those things can come up, right? And we've trained so much for this one day, for this event day. And you have to be ready to adapt

to all the things that will go wrong. Things will go wrong. It's too much distance. It's too much terrain. It's in the middle of nowhere. Usually you're not doing a 50 miler on a track in downtown San Diego. So be ready for that. but that's where the fitness

ties in if you have the fitness and a really strong platform to go from you will be able to think better and adapt to make better decisions when those things go wrong right that's what why i believe so much in the this huge level of fitness because your thinking ability becomes, stays really strong when things start going wrong. Right, and part and parcel of the mental preparation for such an event requires kind of mindfully developing your emotional agility so that you're not, even if you are thinking clearly,

you could still be an emotional wreck and get thrown off your game. So the more you can kind of train yourself to roll with whatever gets thrown in your direction, the better off you're going to be able to quickly adapt. I mean, sometimes you can kind of physically adapt, but if you're so like sort of distraught over what you just had to do to get back on track, that's going to take its toll. So the more you can just be like a river, you know, and flow with whatever comes in your direction. Every day is an opportunity to improve, to be better than you were yesterday. And it might not just be in training. It's the things

that you're talking about, being mentally more prepared for adversity today than I was yesterday, because I went out there in the rain, or I dealt with that blister while I was running today, or that flat tire happened, I fixed it and I kept riding, although usually I would call for a ride to get home. There's a zillion ways we can spin these stories, but there's always a nugget in there that makes us stronger, makes us better prepared for the event, or just in general makes us a better prepared person. Right, rather than getting pissed when that happens in training, go, oh, here's my opportunity to learn

how to deal with this stuff better, right? The next one is learn to love the process. And I think that's great because it speaks to the why that we talked about. And I think it's important if you wanna stay in the game and have any kind of like longevity. But I think it's important if you wanna stay in the game and have any kind of like longevity. But I think where it gets interesting is where you bifurcate loving the process

with being attached to an outcome. Because on some level, if you set a goal, like that can be a very important driving force. Like I wanna have this happen and that's what gets me out of bed in the morning. Balancing that against being sort of detached from that outcome because that's not really the real reason that you're in it.

Yeah, I mean, but also what you just said is actually interesting. I want this to happen. That's not saying I want to get second place, first place this time because placing, you don't control other people who will be there, right? A time, you don't control the weather or the conditions that day, or, you know, a lot of the things that are part of that. Wanting something to happen is still sort of a desired

outcome. There's ways to shift that. And I'm not saying to take your goals and sort of make them less meaningful. But if you don't love the process, the training is going to be very difficult in the ultra endurance world. Because the one thing that I would have probably added to that list that coaches have all learned is what your traits are in the rest of your life, is what your traits are in the rest of your life at work or with family, they rise to the top in ultra endurance training. You can't hide from that. And so if you don't believe in the process

and trust the process and embrace the journey, you're gonna keep talking yourself out of things and you're gonna stumble on the same things you stumble on in communication or at work or with your family or it just, all our traits come to the top. Right. And that's why endurance sports, ultra endurance,

I mean, they're really a metaphor for life. And all of these tips are equally applicable to, if you're not an athlete and you're listening to this, like this is good advice for whatever it is that you're dealing with or whatever it is you're trying to accomplish in your life. And let's, before we say something that we lose a couple of listeners,

anybody can be an athlete. An athlete to me is a mindset. It's how I'm gonna prepare for the workout. It's how I'm gonna execute the workout, how I'm gonna recover from a mindset. It's how I'm going to prepare for the workout. It's how I'm going to execute the workout, how I'm going to recover from a workout. That could be for your first 5K, or that could be for the Olympics. What makes you an athlete is how you prepare for it and think about it and get through it. Not because you're some sort of elite status or you have a certain physical stature or something like that. Anybody can be an athlete.

That's beautiful, man. I'm glad that you pointed that out. And I think it's a good place to end it with one caveat, which is that there is one more piece of advice on this list. And what's so poetically beautiful about it is that the last piece of advice is practice self-empathy. So you ended your post with the word empathy and this list of eight pieces of advice from Jason ends with the

word empathy. It's all coming together. Yes. It's all coming together. So yes, practice self-empathy, empathy for others, but empathy for self too as well. Yeah, forgive yourself. Forgive yourself. You can't do this if you're looking to be too perfect. You're gonna make a lot of mistakes. I've made so many mistakes in 25 years of doing this and I continue to make them every day. Awesome, man. Great to talk to you. Any parting words you wanna leave before we shut this down?

I'm just still blown away by hearing you read my words. That was pretty, I've never had anybody do that. Now you have to publish it so I can link it up in the show notes so everybody can read it. Yeah, well, you'll have to teach me how to do that. All right, well, we'll talk about it offline. Awesome, man. Thank you so much. Of course.

Super helpful, inspirational, and always great to see you, my friend. Yeah. Cool. So if you want to connect with Chris, the best way to do that is AIMPcoaching.com or at AIMPcoach on Twitter. Weekly Word Podcast. That's right, Weekly Word.

How is your podcast adventure going? It's going good. It's actually going great. I answer all these questions. You do, okay. Every single time. It's all about just right to it. And we should point out that in going through all the questions,

Chris had said, oh, well, I just answered that in my podcast. So there was a bunch that we skipped over. So if you feel like your question was not answered, what Chris does on his podcast is really dive deep and get into the weeds on all of this kind of stuff that you guys out there who want to geek out on endurance sports would love. So the weekly word podcast, you can get it on iTunes, wherever you listen to podcasts. Cool. All right, man. Until next time. Peace. All right, we did it. Hope you guys enjoyed that. I love that guy. To learn more about Chris, check out the show notes on the episode page

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